innobackupex vs xtrabackup

[monty solomon]

The documentation for xtrabackup version 2.3 states that innobackupex is deprecated

https://www.percona.com/doc/percona-xtrabackup/2.3/manual.html
innobackupex is the symlink for xtrabackup. innobackupex still supports all features and syntax as 2.2 version did, but is now deprecated and will be removed in next major release.

but then suggests using innobackupex for the prepare

https://www.percona.com/doc/percona-xtrabackup/2.3/xtrabackup_bin/preparing_the_backup.html
For prepare innobackupex --apply-log should be used

and later explains how innobackupex can perform functions that xtrabackup can't

https://www.percona.com/doc/percona-xtrabackup/2.3/xtrabackup_bin/restoring_a_backup.html
Note that xtrabackup backs up only the InnoDB data. You must separately restore the MySQL system database, MyISAM data, table definition files (.frm files), and everything else necessary to make your database functional – or innobackupex can do it for you.

https://www.percona.com/doc/percona-xtrabackup/2.3/xtrabackup_bin/incremental_backups.html
If you want a usable full backup, use innobackupex since xtrabackup itself won’t copy table definitions, triggers, or anything else that’s not .ibd.

https://www.percona.com/doc/percona-xtrabackup/2.3/xtrabackup_bin/incremental_backups_with_ps_56.html
If you want a usable full backup, use innobackupex since xtrabackup itself won’t copy table definitions, triggers, or anything else that’s not .ibd.

[monty solomon (monty+launchpad)]

And the documentation states

https://www.percona.com/doc/percona-xtrabackup/2.3/xtrabackup_bin/limitation.html
xtrabackup copies only the InnoDB data and logs. It does not copy table definition files (.frm files), MyISAM data, users, privileges, or any other portions of the overall database that lie outside of the InnoDB data. To back up this data, you need a wrapper script such as innobackupex.

When I look at the backup created by running xtrabackup I see non-InnoDB data including the table definition files and the MyISAM data from the mysql database. Here is an excerpt from the log file when running xtrabackup 2.3.3:

160224 06:42:09 Starting to backup non-InnoDB tables and files
160224 06:42:09 [01] Streaming ./mysql/func.MYD to <STDOUT>
160224 06:42:09 [01] ...done
160224 06:42:09 [01] Streaming ./mysql/tables_priv.MYD to <STDOUT>
160224 06:42:09 [01] ...done
160224 06:42:09 [01] Streaming ./mysql/event.MYD to <STDOUT>
160224 06:42:09 [01] ...done
160224 06:42:09 [01] Streaming ./mysql/general_log.CSV to <STDOUT>
160224 06:42:09 [01] ...done
160224 06:42:09 [01] Streaming ./mysql/servers.frm to <STDOUT>
160224 06:42:09 [01] ...done

[Hrvoje Matijakovic (hrvojem)]

https://github.com/percona/percona-xtrabackup/pull/253

[Shahriyar Rzayev (rzayev-sehriyar)]

Percona now uses JIRA for bug reports so this bug report is migrated to: https://jira.percona.com/browse/PXB-461