mysqldump is an effective tool to backup MySQL database. It creates a *.sql file with DROP table, CREATE table and INSERT into sql-statements of the source database. To restore the database, execute the *.sql file on destination database.
1: backup: # mysqldump -u root -p[root_password] [database_name] > dumpfilename.sql
2: restore:# mysql -u root -p[root_password] [database_name] < dumpfilename.sql
