How do I backup MySQL databases in Ubuntu?

By Wayan in MySQL 0 Comment

What is MySQL

MySQL is an open-source RDBMS (Relational Database Management System). As the name implied it uses SQL (Structured Query Language) to access and manipulate data. MySQL has been widely used to store and manage data ranging from a simple web application to an enterprise class application.

The importance of data in every application require us to regularly back up the data to prevent data loss, for example caused by hardware crashes. In this post I will show you how to back up the database manually and using a script combined with a cron job to run the process automatically.

Using mysqldump

To create a database backup in MySQL we can use the mysqldump command. The example syntax of using this command is:

mysqldump -u username -p database_to_backup > backup_file_name.sql

If you need to restore the database you can use the following command:

mysql -u username -p database_to_restore < backup_file_name.sql

Before you can execute the command you might need to create the database if you don’t already have it.

saturn@ubuntu:~$ mysql -u root -p

CREATE DATABASE database_to_restore;

Creating Backup Script

To start let’s create MySQL user account that we are going to use to do the backup process. Login to MySQL using mysql -u root -p command. Type and execute the following command to create backupuser.

grant lock tables, select, show view on kodejava.* to 'backupuser'@'localhost' identified by 'backuppasswd';
flush privileges;

Exit from the MySQL using the exit command and create the following backup script called backup.sh using your favorite editor. For example, you can use nano or vim to create the file.

#!/bin/sh
BACKUP_HOME="/home/saturn/backup"

cd $BACKUP_HOME
directory="$(date +%Y%m%d)"

if [ ! -d "$directory" ]; then
    mkdir $directory
fi

backupdir="$BACKUP_HOME/$directory"
backup="kodejava-$(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S)"

mysqldump -ubackupuser -pbackuppasswd --opt kodejava > $backupdir/$backup.sql

cd $directory
tar -czf $backup.tar.gz $backup.sql
rm $backup.sql

To make the backup.sh file executable you need to run the chmod +x backup.sh command.

Creating Scheduler Using Crontab

The crontab command is used to schedule commands to be executed periodically at a predetermined time. It will run as a background process without needing user intervention. These kinds of jobs are generally referred to as cron jobs and the jobs will run as the user who creates the cron jobs.

In the example below we register a cron job to execute the script at 12:00AM every day. To edit the cron jobs type crontab -e, this will open the crontab file.

saturn@ubuntu:~$ crontab -e
no crontab for saturn - using an empty one

Select an editor.  To change later, run 'select-editor'.
  1. /bin/ed
  2. /bin/nano        <---- easiest
  3. /usr/bin/vim.basic
  4. /usr/bin/vim.tiny

Choose 1-4 [2]:

Select an editor to edit the crontab, choose by entering the number of the editor. The easiest one is nano but you can also use vim if you comfortable with it.

And you will see an empty crontab file will the following commented messages:

# Edit this file to introduce tasks to be run by cron.
#
# Each task to run has to be defined through a single line
# indicating with different fields when the task will be run
# and what command to run for the task
#
# To define the time you can provide concrete values for
# minute (m), hour (h), day of month (dom), month (mon),
# and day of week (dow) or use '*' in these fields (for 'any').#
# Notice that tasks will be started based on the cron's system
# daemon's notion of time and timezones.
#
# Output of the crontab jobs (including errors) is sent through
# email to the user the crontab file belongs to (unless redirected).
#
# For example, you can run a backup of all your user accounts
# at 5 a.m every week with:
# 0 5 * * 1 tar -zcf /var/backups/home.tgz /home/
#
# For more information see the manual pages of crontab(5) and cron(8)
#
# m h  dom mon dow   command

Go to the end of the file and write the following entry to register a cron job. In the example below we register a cron job to execute the backup.sh script at 12:00M every day.

# m h  dom mon dow   command
  0 0   *   *   *    /home/saturn/backup.sh

After you save the file you can use the crontab -l command to list the registered cron job. If you want to know more about crontab you can visit crontab guru website.

How do I set the time of java.util.Date instance to 00:00:00?

By Wayan in Core API, Util Package 1 Comment

The following code snippet shows you how to remove time information from the java.util.Date object. The static method removeTime() in the code snippet below will take a Date object as parameter and will return a new Date object where the hour, minute, second and millisecond information hasbeen reset to zero. To do this, we use the java.util.Calendar. To remove time information, we set the calendar fields of Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, Calendar.MINUTE, Calendar.SECOND and Calendar.MILLISECOND to zero.

package org.kodejava.util;

import java.util.Calendar;
import java.util.Date;

public class DateRemoveTime {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        System.out.println("Now = " + removeTime(new Date()));
    }

    private static Date removeTime(Date date) {
        Calendar calendar = Calendar.getInstance();
        calendar.setTime(date);
        calendar.set(Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY, 0);
        calendar.set(Calendar.MINUTE, 0);
        calendar.set(Calendar.SECOND, 0);
        calendar.set(Calendar.MILLISECOND, 0);
        return calendar.getTime();
    }
}

The result of the code snippet above is:

Now = Sat Nov 20 00:00:00 CST 2021

In the above code:

  1. An instance of Calendar is created using Calendar.getInstance().
  2. We set the Calendar time using setTime() method and pass the date object.
  3. The time fields (HOUR_OF_DAY, MINUTE, SECOND, MILLISECOND) are set to zero. Calendar.HOUR_OF_DAY is used for 24-hour clock.
  4. The resulting Calendar instances time value is printed which should now represent the start of the day.

How to Install Consolas Font in Mac OS X?

By Wayan in OS X 0 Comment

Here are the instructions to install Microsoft Consolas Font on Mac OS X.

  • You need to install brew first.
  • Type-in the following commands.
brew install cabextract
cd ~/Downloads
mkdir Consolas
cd Consolas
curl -LO https://sourceforge.net/projects/mscorefonts2/files/cabs/PowerPointViewer.exe
cabextract PowerPointViewer.exe
cabextract ppviewer.cab
open CONSOLA*.TTF
  • Press Install Font button to install the fonts.

How do I clear the current command line in terminal?

By Wayan in Tools, Ubuntu 0 Comment
Terminal

You have typed a long line of command in terminal. But now you want to clear or delete the entire line. Deleting each character in the command will take sometime and bored you. So are there any keyboard shortcuts that allow you to do this? Yes there are some hotkeys to the rescue.

Hotkeys Description
CTRL + u Delete the current command.
The deleted command will be stored into a buffer.
CTRL + w Delete a word.
CTRL + c Abort what you are typing.
CTRL + d Delete current character.

Other hotkeys that might help you work faster in the terminal.

Hotkeys Description
CTRL + e Move to the end of line.
CTRL + a Move to the start of line.
CTRL + k Cut text from the cursor to the end of line.
CTRL + y Paste the last cut text or buffer.
CTRL + - Undo.
CTRL + b Backward one character.
CTRL + f Forward one character.
ALT + ← Backward one word.
ALT + → Forward one word.

How do I generate random alphanumeric strings?

By Wayan in Apache Commons, Commons Text 0 Comment

The following code snippet demonstrates how to use RandomStringGenerator class from the Apache Commons Text library to generate random strings. To create an instance of the generator we can use the RandomStringGenerator.Builder() class build() method. The builder class also helps us to configure the properties of the generator. Before calling the build() method we can set the properties of the builder using the following methods:

  • withinRange() to specifies the minimum and maximum code points allowed in the generated string.
  • filteredBy() to limits the characters in the generated string to those that match at least one of the predicates supplied. Some enum for the predicates: CharacterPredicates.DIGITS, CharacterPredicates.LETTERS.
  • selectFrom() to limits the characters in the generated string to those who match at supplied list of Character.
  • usingRandom() to overrides the default source of randomness.

After configuring and building the generator based the properties defined, we can generate the random strings using the generate() methods of the RandomStringGenerator. There are two methods available:

  • generate(int length) generates a random string, containing the specified number of code points.
  • generate(int minLengthInclusive, int maxLengthInclusive) generates a random string, containing between the minimum (inclusive) and the maximum (inclusive) number of code points.

And here is your code snippet:

package org.kodejava.commons.text;

import org.apache.commons.text.CharacterPredicates;
import org.apache.commons.text.RandomStringGenerator;

public class RandomStringDemo {
    public static void main(String[] args) {
        RandomStringGenerator generator = new RandomStringGenerator.Builder()
                .withinRange('0', 'z')
                .filteredBy(CharacterPredicates.DIGITS, CharacterPredicates.LETTERS)
                .build();

        for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++) {
            System.out.println(generator.generate(10, 20));
        }
    }
}

Below are examples of generated random alphanumeric strings:

weJDtVARLIFS96WXje
FYrNzTR3Q3dUrLT3Xsc
4F1fu8nSsA
nIQi3a4Oyv9
l6QcsP9bejdbaLd2jd
Cc9YgTfgwo
2B8un8YCcxn9m2
RAN2dZAWalUIWeZeoS
jPQspicyaKfAzS14twH
GTurc0lWkSid03rG0JZ

Apache Logo

Maven Dependencies

<dependency>
    <groupId>org.apache.commons</groupId>
    <artifactId>commons-text</artifactId>
    <version>1.12.0</version>
</dependency>

Maven Central