The ibbackup of MySQL Enterprise Backup backs up InnoDB tables from a running MySQL database without disturbing normal database processing. You get a consistent copy of your database, as if the copy were taken at a precise point in time, even though the backup job could take minutes or hours. MySQL Enterprise Backup is also the ideal method of setting up new slaves if you use MySQL replication on InnoDB tables.

The basic command to take a backup is ibbackup my.cnf my2.cnf. This command reads from the my.cnf file the information where the ibdata and ib_logfiles are, and makes a backup of them to the locations specified in my2.cnf file.