I've read some fairly recent posts about doing backups from our Linodes using rsync et al to S3 etc.

However from what I've read, this isn't suitable for MySQL databases using InnoDB tables as MySQL will cache stuff in RAM and therefore won't write the data via rsync.

My question is how are other Linode users who use InnoDB getting around this issue?

This isn't a complaint but will Linode offer backups in the same vein as their competitors? I've moved here from Slicehost since they erased the firewalls on 3 of my 4 slices due to their error, but the one thing that really made them stand-out is their backup feature.

Backups are coming. We're actively working on this. Stay tuned!

-Chris

Not a perfect solution, but http://sourceforge.net/projects/automysqlbackup/ works nicely for me.

The most trivial thing to do is simply mysqldump the databases somewhere on disk and include that output in your tar/rsync backup job of the filesystem.

That's definitely the simplest, and if you can't stand the downtime, you can replicate to a remote machine over SSH (or even a second instance on the same machine) and then mysqldump off of that for your snapshot.

Thanks all for the help, I'll try the two options suggested and see how I get on with the InnoDB tables.

Caker - you've made me a very happy bunny

Cheers

Any news on backups Chris?

You don't always need replication in order to avoid downtime. If you have InnoDB tables, "mysqldump --single-transaction" will give you a perfectly consistent snapshot of your live DB, without hanging inserts or updates in the meantime. But only if your tables are InnoDB.

I asked today in a ticket, and the prompt reply was just that it's an active project and fanfare would accompany its release. I can understand why there aren't specifics or an ETA, it only makes nagging like ours worse I'm sure it will be up to the excellent Linode standards.

Whatcha got in the works? Any estimated time table?

Linode will have a good plan. And if that doesn't work there's always the backup plan.

...anyway, this is definitely exciting.

I just searched the forums for backups and got this. Just wanted to say I just switched from Slicehost and am also missing the convenient backup feature so queue me in!

If it's coming soon enough I'm thinking of not going through the whole Amazon S3 thing (or whatever I'd end up doing) and instead just make manual backups of most important directories myself and send them to my localhost until the Linode backups feature hits.

Oh and btw, Linode was awsome for me so far! Thanks!