Here’s an easy script to use to backup your database.  Copy the contents of this script on your site as DBBackup.php and then you can create a PHP Cron Job to run it from here, once a day!

<?
// Run until complete
set_timeout_length(0);

// DB connection parameters
$host = ‘localhost’; //enter YOUR server
$username = ‘username’; //enter YOUR username
$password = ‘password’; //change to YOUR password
$database = ‘database_name’; //update with your DB
$path = ‘/home/username/backups/’; //Your backup directory (must be writable!)

$filename = $database.‘_’.date(‘Y-m-d_H:i:s’).‘.gz’;
$backup = $path.$filename;

$backup_command = “mysqldump –opt -h $host -u $username -p $password $database | gzip > $backup”;

if(exec($backup_command)==” && file_exists($backup))
{
echo “Backup successfully executed”;
}
else
{
echo “Error creating backup”;
}
?>

There are more sophisticated ways to backup your database, one table at a time such as described in this article, but they haven’t been moved to PHP5 yet so I would suggest this for advanced users only.

A great way to use your free cron jobs.