Backup MariaDB using xtrabackup on CentOS7

Percona XtraBackup is an open-source hot backup utility for MariaDB/MySQL-based servers that doesn’t lock your database during the backup. It can back up data from InnoDB, XtraDB, and MyISAM tables on MariaDB/MySQL servers.
This guide looks into how to setup xtrabackup backup system for MariaDB on CentOS7, and how to full backup an MariaDB, and then restore the DB.

First thing, ensure the minimum setup for database config file:

[root@centos7 ~]# vi /etc/my.cnf

#
# This group is read both both by the client and the server
# use it for options that affect everything
#
[client-server]

#
# This group is read by the server
#
[mysqld]
# Disabling symbolic-links is recommended to prevent assorted security risks
symbolic-links=0

#
# include all files from the config directory
#
!includedir /etc/my.cnf.d

[root@centos7 ~]# vi /etc/my.cnf.d/server.cnf

[mysqld]
datadir=/var/lib/mysql
socket=/var/lib/mysql/mysql.sock
log-error=/var/log/mariadb/mariadb.log
pid-file=/var/run/mariadb/mariadb.pid

Start MariaDB/Mysql

[root@centos7 ~]# service mysql start

Install percona repository, and install xtrabackup

[root@centos7 ~]# yum install https://www.percona.com/redir/downloads/percona-release/redhat/latest/percona-release-0.1-3.noarch.rpm
[root@centos7 ~]# yum list|grep percona
[root@centos7 ~]# yum install percona-xtrabackup

We will create a backup directory

[root@centos7 ~]# mkdir /root/backup

Installation done. To proceed with Full backup,we need to issue the innobackupex, with the DB admin user and password, and also the backup directory.

[root@centos7 ~]# innobackupex --user=root --password=PASSWORD /root/backup

To get the backup information for a particular backup, we can check the xtrabackup_checkpoints file.

[root@centos7 backup]# cat /root/backup/2015-09-29_02-01-17/xtrabackup_checkpoints

We have done the Full backup. To restore a Full backup, we have to stop the MariaDB/Mysql server first.

[root@centos7 ~]# service mysql stop

Move the current mysql data directory to somewhere.

[root@centos7 ~]# rm -fr /var/lib/mysql_old
[root@centos7 ~]# mv /var/lib/mysql/ /var/lib/mysql_old

Issue the following command to restore.

[root@centos7 ~]# innobackupex --copy-back /root/backup/2015-09-29_02-01-17/

Change back the ownership of the mysql data directory.

[root@centos7 ~]# chown mysql:mysql /var/lib/mysql -R

And lastly, start the MariaDB/Mysql service.

[root@centos7 ~]# service mysql start