20.1 General Options

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

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

  • --verbose: Print more verbose information.

    --verbose is synonymous with --trace=1.

  • --debug=STRING: Print additional debug information.

    The option accepts one or more of the following arguments (multiple values should be separated by semicolons (;)) :

    • all: Print additional debug information for all operations

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

    • page_validation: Print debug information for validation operations.

    • hole_punch: Print debug information for transparent page compression for backups.

    • tablespace_flags: Print flags read from tablespaces.

    • io_file: Print debug information for reading and writing files.

    • keyring_migration_tool: Print debug information on keyring migration operations.

  • --force: (Deprecated and ignored ): 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.

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

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

  • --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)

  • --error-code=CODE

    Command-Line Format	--error-code
    Type	Numeric
    Minimum Value	0
    Maximum Value	19

    Specifies the exit code for which the print-message command prints the corresponding exit message. See Section 17.1, “Exit codes of MySQL Enterprise Backup” for details.

  • --enable-cleartext-plugin

    Enables the Client-Side Cleartext Pluggable Authentication. Required when using simple LDAP authentication. See Chapter 16, Using LDAP for Server Authentication.

  • --plugin-dir =plugin-dir

    Specifies the directory for the client-side plugins. Required when using SASL-based LDAP authentication AND the client-side plugin is not in the server's plugin directory. See Chapter 16, Using LDAP for Server Authentication for details.