Databases

Backup Manager backs up your databases by running each engine's own dump tool (such as mysqldump) for you — there's no SQL to write. MySQL, MariaDB, PostgreSQL and SQLite work out of the box, and you can teach it new engines (see Extending).

Supported drivers#

The driver is taken directly from your Laravel connection config, so no extra mapping is needed.

MariaDB 11 renamed its command line clients — mysqldump became mariadb-dump, mysql became mariadb — and the old names now survive only as deprecated symlinks that some distributions and container images no longer ship. Both spellings are tried, preferring the one that matches the server being backed up, so a MariaDB host works whichever clients it has. Where both are installed the matching client wins, because MySQL's mysqldump can emit SQL a MariaDB server will not read back.

Choosing connections#

'databases' => [
    'connections' => ['mysql', 'reporting'],  // [] = the default connection
],

An empty array backs up config('database.default').

Excluding tables#

'databases' => [
    'exclude_tables' => ['telescope_entries', 'failed_jobs'],
    'schema_only_tables' => ['sessions', 'cache'],
],

• exclude_tables — omitted entirely (no structure, no data).
• schema_only_tables — structure is dumped, rows are not. Ideal for large, regenerable tables (sessions, cache, telescope). The structure is still dumped with DROP TABLE IF EXISTS so restores remain idempotent.

Security of credentials#

Passwords are never placed on the command line (where they would be visible in the host's process list). They are passed through the environment:

• MySQL/MariaDB → MYSQL_PWD
• PostgreSQL → PGPASSWORD

PostgreSQL client version#

Use a pg_dump / psql whose version is less than or equal to the server version. A newer client emits configuration settings (e.g. transaction_timeout, added in PostgreSQL 17) that an older server rejects when the dump is restored. When in doubt, point the binaries at a version-matched client:

'binaries' => [
    'pg_dump' => '/usr/lib/postgresql/16/bin/pg_dump',
    'psql' => '/usr/lib/postgresql/16/bin/psql',
],

How SQLite is handled#

SQLite databases are snapshotted with a byte-for-byte file copy, which preserves the schema, data and pragmas exactly. In-memory databases cannot be backed up.

Binaries#

If mysqldump / pg_dump are not on the PATH, configure absolute paths:

'binaries' => [
    'mysqldump' => '/usr/local/opt/mysql-client/bin/mysqldump',
    'pg_dump' => '/usr/local/opt/postgresql@16/bin/pg_dump',
],

Database-only backups#

Set the profile type to database to skip files entirely:

'profiles' => [
    'db-hourly' => ['type' => 'database', 'destinations' => ['s3']],
],