25.1. Overview of Administrative Clients

This section provides an overview of MySQL client programs that are of special interest to database administrators (DBAs). Each program enables you to perform important administrative tasks:

• MySQL Administrator is a graphical client for managing the server.

• mysql is a general-purpose command-line client for sending SQL statements to the server, including those of an administrative nature.

• mysqladmin is an administrative command-line client that helps you manage the server.

• mysqlimport provides a command-line interface to the LOAD DATA INFILE statement. It is used to load data files into tables without having to issue LOAD DATA INFILE statements yourself.

• mysqldump is a command-line client for dumping the contents of databases and tables. It's useful for making backups or for copying databases to other machines.

This chapter contains only general summaries of program features and capabilities. The sections that follow include cross-references to other study guide chapters in which you can find additional detail about each program. You can also invoke most of these programs with the --help option to obtain a help message that shows the command syntax and the other options that the program supports.