Creating a MySQL Data Snapshot Using Raw Data Files

To get the most consistent results with a raw data snapshot you should shut down the server during the process, as below:

1. Acquire a read lock and get the master's status.

2. In a separate session, shut down the MySQL server:

   shell> mysqladmin shutdown
   

3. Make a copy of the MySQL data files. Examples are shown below for common ways to do this - you need to choose only one of them:

   shell> tar cf /tmp/db.tar ./data
   shell> zip -r /tmp/db.zip ./data
   shell> rsync --recursive ./data /tmp/dbdata
   

4. Start up the MySQL instance on the master.

If you are not using InnoDB tables, you can get a snapshot of the system from a master without shutting down the server as described in the following steps:

1. Acquire a read lock and get the master's status.

2. Take a copy of the MySQL data files. Examples are shown below for common solutions - you need to choose only one of these solutions:

   shell> tar cf /tmp/db.tar ./data
   shell> zip -r /tmp/db.zip ./data
   shell> rsync --recursive ./data /tmp/dbdata
   

3. In the client where you acquired the read lock, free the lock:

   mysql> UNLOCK TABLES;
   

Once you have created the archive or copy of the database, you will need to copy the files to each slave before starting the slave replication process.