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Take a streaming backup

Percona XtraBackup supports streaming mode. Streaming mode sends a backup to STDOUT in the xbstream format instead of copying the files to the backup directory.

This method allows you to use other programs to filter the output of the backup, providing greater flexibility for storage of the backup. For example, compression is achieved by piping the output to a compression utility. One of the benefits of streaming backups and using Unix pipes is that the backups can be automatically encrypted.

To use the streaming feature, you must use the --stream, providing the format of the stream (xbstream ) and where to store the temporary files:

$ xtrabackup --stream=xbstream --target-dir=/tmp

xtrabackup uses xbstream to stream all of the data files to STDOUT, in a special xbstream format. After it finishes streaming all of the data files to STDOUT, it stops xtrabackup and streams the saved log file too.

When compression is enabled, xtrabackup compresses the output data, except for the metadata, using the specified compression algorithm. Read about the supported compression algorithms in the Create a compressed backup document.

Using xbstream as a stream option, backups can be copied and compressed in parallel. This option can significantly improve the speed of the backup process. In case backups were both compressed and encrypted, they must be decrypted before they are uncompressed.

Task Command
Stream the backup into an archived named backup.xbstream $ xtrabackup --backup --stream=xbstream --target-dir=./ > backup.xbstream
Stream the backup into a compressed archive named backup.xbstream $ xtrabackup --backup --stream=xbstream --compress --target-dir=./ > backup.xbstream
Encrypt the backup $ xtrabackup --backup --stream=xbstream ./ > backup.xbstream gzip -`` | openssl des3 -salt -k “password” backup.xbstream.gz.des3
Unpack the backup to the current directory $ xbstream -x < backup.xbstream
Send the backup compressed directly to another host and unpack it $ xtrabackup --backup --compress --stream=xbstream --target-dir=./ | ssh user@otherhost "xbstream -x"
Send the backup to another server using netcat On the destination host:
$ nc -l 9999 | cat - > /data/backups/backup.xbstream

On the source host:
$ xtrabackup --backup --stream=xbstream ./ | nc desthost 9999
Send the backup to another server using a one-liner $ ssh user@desthost “( nc -l 9999 > /data/backups/backup.xbstream & )” && xtrabackup --backup --stream=xbstream ./ | nc desthost 9999
Throttle the throughput to 10MB/sec using the pipe viewer tool $ xtrabackup --backup --stream=xbstream ./ | pv -q -L10m ssh user@desthost “cat - > /data/backups/backup.xbstream”
Checksum the backup during the streaming On the destination host:
$ nc -l 9999 | tee >(sha1sum > destination_checksum) > /data/backups/backup.xbstream

On the source host:
$ xtrabackup --backup --stream=xbstream ./ | tee >(sha1sum > source_checksum) | nc desthost 9999

Compare the checksums on the source host:
$ cat source_checksum 65e4f916a49c1f216e0887ce54cf59bf3934dbad

Compare the checksums on the destination host:
$ cat destination_checksum 65e4f916a49c1f216e0887ce54cf59bf3934dbad
Parallel compression with parallel copying backup $ xtrabackup --backup --compress --compress-threads=8 --stream=xbstream --parallel=4 --target-dir=./ > backup.xbstream

Important

The streamed backup must be prepared before restoration. Streaming mode does not prepare the backup.

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Last update: 2023-08-21