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Required tools

Capsule uses mysqldump to create backups and mysql to restore them.
For MariaDB:
Verify:

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Connection details

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Authentication

How Capsule passes your password to mysqldump depends on whether the connection is Docker-based or native:
  • Native (MySQL running directly on the server): Capsule writes a temporary MySQL options file (mode 0600, readable only by the process that created it) containing your password, passes it to mysqldump via --defaults-file, and deletes it immediately after the backup completes. This mirrors how Capsule handles PostgreSQL passwords via a temporary .pgpass file.
  • Docker: docker exec can’t read a config file sitting on the host filesystem, so Capsule instead injects the password as the MYSQL_PWD environment variable directly into the container process.
Either way, the password never ends up in the process list (ps aux) and is not left on disk after the backup finishes.

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Dump flags

Capsule runs mysqldump with no extra consistency flags, which means it takes table locks while dumping — on a busy production database, this can briefly block writes during the backup window. If your tables are InnoDB and you need a lock-free, consistent snapshot, run backups during a low-traffic window until this is configurable.

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Docker

If MySQL runs in a Docker container, enter the container name in the Docker field when adding the connection. Capsule will exec into the container to run mysqldump, so no host-side MySQL tools are needed. See Docker containers for details.

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Troubleshooting

Access denied for user
  • Confirm the username and password are correct
  • Make sure the user has SELECT, LOCK TABLES, SHOW VIEW, EVENT, and TRIGGER privileges on the target database
mysqldump: command not found Install MySQL client tools and run capsule doctor to confirm. MariaDB MariaDB is fully supported. The mysqldump binary shipped with MariaDB works identically for Capsule’s purposes.