Backups and migrations

MySQL 8.4 LTS and 9.x: what WordPress developers need to know MySQL changed its release model: since 2023 there are Long-Term Support releases (8.4, released in April 2024) for production, and Innovation releases (9.0, 9.1 and so on, roughly every quarter) with new features, each supported only until the next one. At the same time…

MySQL Clone Plugin: provision a staging database from production The MySQL Clone Plugin (MySQL 8.0.17+) copies a running MySQL instance at the physical level: the InnoDB data files are streamed to another server while the source keeps working. For a database of tens of gigabytes this is much faster than mysqldump and a restore, which…

MySQL replication with GTID for WordPress: set up, monitor, fail over A replica of the WordPress database gives a second copy that is seconds behind, a place to run heavy reports and backups without touching the primary, and a server to switch to when the primary fails. GTID-based replication (global transaction identifiers) makes the last…

Point-in-time recovery for WordPress with the MySQL binary log A nightly backup protects against losing everything, but not against losing a day. When a faulty plugin update or a wrong DELETE destroys data at 15:42, restoring last night’s dump also throws away every order and comment since midnight. MySQL’s binary log records every change; with…

systemd timers instead of crontab for WordPress maintenance Cron runs a command at a time and forgets about it: the output goes to a mail nobody reads, a failure goes unnoticed, and a job that runs longer than its interval starts a second time. A systemd timer starts a service unit instead, so each run…

Back up and restore a WordPress MySQL database with mysqldump and cron A backup is only as good as the restore. This article is about the database part: a daily compressed dump with a retention policy, a copy outside the server, a dedicated backup user, and the restore procedure, tested before it is needed. For…

Create MySQL stored procedures for batch WordPress database operations like orphan cleanup and category stats, and call them from wpdb.

Write a cron-scheduled bash script that backs up your WordPress files and database automatically every night.

mysqldump error: Access denied, you need the PROCESS privilege We have already looked at export and import of large SQL files in MySQL. Sometimes these operations are done on the client’s server, where your database user has limited rights, and mysqldump stops with an error: mysqldump: Error: ‘Access denied; you need (at least one of)…