16.1 Standard Options

The standard options are options of a general nature, or options that are not classified under any other specific option group:

• The following standard options also exist for the mysql command. Full descriptions for these options can be found in the MySQL reference manual, accessible through, e.g., Server Option, System Variable, and Status Variable Reference. These options must be specified ahead of any other mysqlbackup options, including the rest of the standard options:

  --print-defaults             Print the program argument list and exit.
  --no-defaults                Don't read default options from any option file.
  --defaults-file=PATH         Only read default options from the given file. It has to be the first option to be specified, if used. 
  --defaults-extra-file=PATH   Read this file after the global files are read.
  --defaults-group-suffix=str  Also read option groups with the usual names and a suffix of str.

• The following options are also common between mysqlbackup and mysql, and full descriptions for them can be found in the MySQL reference manual, accessible through, e.g., Server Option, System Variable, and Status Variable Reference. However, mysqlbackup does not accept any short forms for these options as mysql does (for example, you must use --help instead of -h for mysqlbackup):

  --help      Display help. 
  --version   Display version information.

• More standard options are available for mysqlbackup:

  --verbose: Print more verbose information.

  --debug=STRING: Print additional debug information. The option accepts the following arguments:

  • all: Print additional debug information for all operations

  • sbt: Print additional debug information for operations using the System Backup to Tape (SBT) interface

  • null: When a null string or no argument at all is specified for the option, mysqlbackup behaves as if the --verbose option is used.

  --force: By default, some of the operations halt rather than overwrite any user data or log files when told to write to existing files. --force allows the following:

  Warning

  For any restore operations, do NOT attempt to restore data to a non-empty data directory using the --force option; doing so may cause data corruption and other unexpected behaviors. Do not use the --force option with a copy-back or a copy-back-and-apply-log operation, except for the special cases described below.

  • Overwriting of InnoDB data and log files during the apply-log and apply-incremental-backup operations.

  • When restoring a TTS backup, changing temporarily the value of innodb_file_format on the server, in order to allow restores of per-table InnoDB data files regardless of their format.

  • Replacing of an image file during an backup-to-image or backup-dir-to-image operation.

  • Restoring a partial image backup created with MySQL Enterprise Backup 3.11 or earlier; the --force option is required, due to a known issue (Bug# 20485910).

  • Restoring a backup onto a server where the directory pointed to by the .bl file in the backup (a copy of the .isl file from the backed-up server) already contains .ibd data files.

  --trace=level

  Command-Line Format	--trace=LEVEL
  Type	Enumeration
  Default Value	0
  Valid Values	0 1 2 3

  Trace level of mysqlbackup messages. The permissible levels, in the order of increasing fineness, are:

  • 0 - INFO (information, warnings, errors)

  • 1 - FINE (more information given than at trace level 0)

  • 2 - FINER (finer level of information given than at trace level 1)

  • 3 - FINEST (finest level of information that can be given)