Database backup size changing

[ejmerkel]

I normally perform the WHMCS built in database backup daily as well as running a separate mysqldump script from cron to dump the WHMCS database every day.

 

I noticed today that the backup is much smaller than the previous days both WHMCS built-in and mysqldump which stores to separate locations.

 

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 150M Jan 8 04:18 hgportal_whmcs_20160108.sql

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 40M Jan 9 09:56 hgportal_whmcs_20160109.sql

 

My question is, is this normal? I re-ran the mysqldump and it again it came in around 40M instead of 150M. I saw no error messages when I ran the mysqldump command and it gave me the "Dump completed" as the last line.

 

Here is the backup command I run.

 

/usr/bin/mysqldump --opt --quote-names $DB > "$DIR/$FILE"

 

Does WHMCS purge anything or does the database occasionally re-optimized itself that might account for this change in size?

 

I just want to make sure I am getting good backups. Any ideas would be appreciated!

 

Best regards,

Eric

[zomex]

Hello Eric,

 

Did you recently use any of the tools under WHMCS > utilites? For example clearing the logs or optimizing the database can reduce it's size greatly.

 

Also this can happen if modules are de-activated as it's good practise for modules to remove all tables from the database when de-activated.

 

If the answer is no to above it could be that the backup failed or glitched during the download. It's best to compare it with your next backup.

[ejmerkel]

Hello Eric,

 

Did you recently use any of the tools under WHMCS > utilites? For example clearing the logs or optimizing the database can reduce it's size greatly.

 

Also this can happen if modules are de-activated as it's good practise for modules to remove all tables from the database when de-activated.

 

If the answer is no to above it could be that the backup failed or glitched during the download. It's best to compare it with your next backup.

 

Actually, now that you mention it, I realized I had left module debugging turned on for a few months and cleared the log and shut it off. I bet that is what it was. Thanks for jogging my memory!!!!

 

Best regards,

Eric