PHP System Command to have PHP execute mysqldump
 

I have been using my server based CRON tab to backup my databases but I had a corrupted database the other day and I think the problem was because of too much activity on the server during the backup.

I tried using the hacks:

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...atabase+backup

and

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthrea...atabase+backup

But those hacks are way too slow for my taste (They took about 30-minutes to do the backup where the CRON backups form the server take about 5-minutes.

So, in my searches I found the following page:

http://www.php-mysql-tutorial.com/pe...backup-php.php

That page uses a PHP Function system() to initiate a mysql dump.

I tried getting this to work on my site and the script executes but I was not able to locate any backup file :confused: I am still not sure if the backup is there or not as my server has way too many folders and files but I don't think it saved....

I don't want to repost the code here for obvious copyright concerns so the page linked above plus the following should be all that is needed...

http://www.php-mysql-tutorial.com/co...-using-php.php

I would love to build a cron that simply does the following...

1. Turn off the Forums
2. Execute the server based Backup
3. Turn the forums back on

Now, I realize that the script above simply pings the server to initiate the backup so I may need a second cron to turn the forums back on...

Are there any master coders that can help figure this out?

Nobody has an idea of how this might be done?

if you need a system outside of vBulletin to turn your forums back on, then add the query to a real cron job instead of a vBulletin cron job. simply add a query to the end of backup script to flag the cron job to turn the forums back on.

i.e.
Cron runs backup -> backup turns forums off first -> backup back's forums up -> backup updates a db table to notify cron job it's finished -> cron job runs every 15 minutes to see if it should turn forums on -> cron job see's flag and turns forums back on.