32.5. Backing Up Log and Status Files

In addition to backing up your databases, you should also back up the following files:

• Your binary log files. This is necessary because if you have to perform a recovery operation, the binary logs store updates that have been made after the backup was made.

• Option files used by the server (my.cnf and my.ini files). These files contain configuration information that must be restored after a crash.

• Replication slave servers create a master.info file that contains information needed for connecting to the master server, and a relay-log.info file that indicates the current progress in processing the relay logs.

• Replication slaves create data files for processing LOAD DATA INFILE statements. These files are located in the directory named by the slave_load_tmpdir system variable, which can be set by starting the server with the --slave-load-tmpdir option. If slave_load_tmpdir is not set, the value of the tmpdir system variable applies. The data files to back up have names beginning with SQL_LOAD-.

To back up the preceding files, you can use normal file system operation. Static files such as option files can be backed up with no special precautions. Dynamic files such as logs that the server changes as it runs are best backed up with the server stopped.