[Mediawiki-l] problems with recovery (Debian)

[rex]

> Basically, here is my story - was running a remotely-hosted Debian  
> (Etch) dedicated server with latest PHP5/Apache2/MySQL5 installation,  
> as well as MediaWiki 1.11.0 (i'm 99% sure this was the on the server,  
> but it could have been 1.10.x).  The wiki page uses the SQL database  
> named "wikidb".  Daily, at 4am, we've had a cron job that took all the  
> files in an SQL folder (for example, /var/lib/mysql/wikidb ), which  
> were .MYI, .MYD, and .frm files of the various tables and bzipped  
> them, and my computer at home connected every morning at 5am via FTP  
> to download them.  I've kept a week's worth in constant rotation for  
> over a year.  So, I figured if we ever had a bad crash, we'd be  
> covered.  Not the .SQL files that would have been nicer to have, but  
> at least something.

MYISAM or InnoDB? Unfortunately, copying the .MYI, etc, files will
not work with InnoDB tables:

http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/backup.html

"You can also create a binary backup simply by copying all table
files (*.frm, *.MYD, and *.MYI  files), as long as the server
isn't updating anything. The mysqlhotcopy script uses this
method. (But note that these methods do not work if your database
contains InnoDB tables. InnoDB does not store table contents in
database directories, and mysqlhotcopy  works only for MyISAM
tables.)"

Here's a thread where someone learned this the hard way:

http://www.nabble.com/MYISAM-or-InnoDB-best-for-Mediawiki--to9950685.html

> 	Is it possible to recover a database in this method?
> 	Even if I recover, do I actually have data in there?  The file sizes  
> and table structure seem to indicate that my data is bunk, but maybe  
> since it's all text, itmakes sense that it's so small.

I was unable to do so after backing up an InnoDB by copying the
files (as you did) instead of using mysqldump. Now, I use mysqldump.

>	How could I ensure that I am better backed-up in the future?  Are  
>there ways I can improve what is backed up, and methods to recover it?

http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Manual:Backing_up_a_wiki

Good luck. Perhaps someone who knows more can help you recover.

-rex
-- 
Thesaurus: ancient reptile with an excellent vocabulary.