Question

Possible Duplicate:
Run MySQLDump without Locking Tables

My website uses a mysql 5 database with a MyISAM engine.

I would like to use mysqldump to back up the database or create copies of it, but whenever I use it, it locks the database, thus crashing my website..

Any ideas on how to back up my database without causing downtime?

Answer 1

If your database relies on any kind of referential integrity, it’ll be essential to lock at least parts of it whilst performing a dump. (Otherwise, you’ll get snapshots of the various tables at different times, which is likely to cause issues.)

That said, unless you have a very, very large database this shouldn’t be a significant issue. (i.e.: It really shouldn’t take that long.) How much data is in the database?

Update:

You can use the --lock-tables=false mysqldump option, but you need to be aware of the consequences of this as outlined above.