In this article, I’m gonna show you how you can easily configure an auto backup Mysql database to a Dropbox account using Mysqldump and Cron jobs on an Ubuntu server.

Set up the Dropbox

To store the backup files in Dropbox, You’ll need, of course, a Dropbox account and an API Key associated with it.

Go to your Dropbox account and generate an API Key and save it.

Backup

Let’s make a backup with the mysqldump command:

sudo mysqldump -u root db_name > backup_name.sql

Very easy hah? 😁

Make sure that you’ve installed the zip app on your server. Here is the installation for Ubuntu:

sudo apt install zip

Then let’s zip it:

zip backup.zip backup_name.sql

Upload to Dropbox

To upload the backup file to Dropbox we need curl. Here is the installation for Ubuntu:

sudo apt install curl

Replace the parameters in the below command and execute it.

curl --location --request POST 'https://content.dropboxapi.com/2/files/upload' \
--header 'Accept: application/json' \
--header 'Dropbox-API-Arg: {"path":"{PATH-ON-DROPBOX}"}' \
--header 'Content-Type: text/plain; charset=dropbox-cors-hack' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer {YOUR-DROPBOX-API-TOKEN}' \
--data-binary '@{PATH-TO-BACKUP-FILE}'

You should receive a response like this

{
    "name": "backup.zip",
    "path_lower": "/path/to/backup.zip",
    "path_display": "/path/to/backup.zip",
    "id": "id:XXXXXXXXX",
    "client_modified": "XXXXX",
    "server_modified": "XXXXX",
    "rev": "XXXXXXX",
    "size": 111,
    "is_downloadable": true,
    "content_hash": "XXXXXXXX"
}

Automation

To automate this process we’ll use Cron jobs but first, we need to gather all steps together and create an executable file.

Create a file named autobackup.sh with the below content and don’t forget to replace the variables.

sudo mysqldump -u root db_name > backup_name.sql

zip backup.zip backup_name.sql

curl --location --request POST 'https://content.dropboxapi.com/2/files/upload' \
--header 'Accept: application/json' \
--header 'Dropbox-API-Arg: {"path":"{PATH-ON-DROPBOX}"}' \
--header 'Content-Type: text/plain; charset=dropbox-cors-hack' \
--header 'Authorization: Bearer {YOUR-DROPBOX-API-TOKEN}' \
--data-binary '@{PATH-TO-BACKUP-FILE}'

Then make the file executable:

sudo chmod +x autobackup.sh

Now let’s set up the Cron job.

Run the following command to open the crontab file (My favorite editor is nano)

EDITOR=nano crontab -e

And then append the following line to the end of it with your preferred cronjob interval

This example is making a backup hourly:

0 * * * * /path/to/autobackup.sh

That’s it! 🎉

I’ll be happy to hear your thoughts about this article.