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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-20T10:51:38+00:00

I would like to run a cron job to backup some mysql databases by

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I would like to run a cron job to backup some mysql databases by piping the output to a file and then emailing it.

Will the following work?

15 2 * * * root mysqldump -u root -pPASSWORD --all-databases | \
    gzip > /database_`data'+%m-%d-%Y'`.sql.gz | \
    mail -s "Report 05/06/07" user@example.com < /database_`data'+%m-%d-%Y'`.sql.gz
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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    There are a couple of problems with your script, I have altered it below, note carefully the change of spaces, spelling of date and replacement of | for ;.

    The most interesting problem however is that mail unfortunately can’t send attachments. You could use uuencode to embed the file in the mail using:

    15 2 * * * root mysqldump -uroot -pPASSWORD --all-databases | gzip > /database_`date +'%m-%d-%Y'`.sql.gz ; uuencode /database_`date +'%m-%d-%Y'`.sql.gz /dev/stdout | mail -s "Report 05/06/07" user@domain.com

    Or if you want to have a proper MIME attachment use (You will need MetaMail installed):

    15 2 * * * root mysqldump -uroot -pPASSWORD --all-databases | gzip > /database_`date +'%m-%d-%Y'`.sql.gz ; metasend -b -t user@domain.com -s "Report 05/06/07" -m application/gzip -f /database_`date +'%m-%d-%Y'`.sql.gz

    Or as above with mpack installed, instead of MetaMail:

    15 2 * * * root mysqldump -uroot -pPASSWORD --all-databases | gzip > /database_`date +'%m-%d-%Y'`.sql.gz ; mpack -s "Report 05/06/07" -c application/gzip /database_`date +'%m-%d-%Y'`.sql.gz user@domain.com
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