To backup mysql databases the easy way is to do a dump of the databases. Create a localuser eg. locbackup with permisson to dump the databases.

The shell command is

$ mysqldump -u john -pXXXX mydatabase > /tmp/mydb.sql

The following is a script I use to dump several databases at a time into flat files which is eventually backed up by amanda backup. Call the script from your crontab and you're done.

backmysql.sh

#!/bin/sh
USER=locbackup
PASS=xxxxxx
DEST=/var/backups/mysqldump
 
 
mysqldump -u $USER -p$PASS salgszonen > $DEST/salgszonen.sql
mysqldump -u $USER -p$PASS pagepic > $DEST/pagepic.sql
mysqldump -u $USER -p$PASS organicweb > $DEST/organicweb.sql
mysqldump -u $USER -p$PASS  yepz > $DEST/yepz.sql