Today I had to import a very large SQL dump file (6 Gb) to a MySQL database using windows command line. If you are using linux it is the same. The process is the following:

1. Open a command prompt (or shell in Linux) with administrative privilleges
2. If you are in Windows set character set to unicode. Linux is using UTF-8 by default.

   1	chcp 65001

3. Connect to a mysql instance using command line

   1	$PATH_TO_MYSQL\mysql.exe -h 192.168.1.1 --port=3306 -u root -p

   if you are in localhost you do not need host and port

   1	$PATH_TO_MYSQL\mysql.exe -u root -p

4. You are now in mysql shell. Set network buffer length to a large byte number. The default value may throw errors for such large data files

   1	set global net_buffer_length=1000000;

5. Set maximum allowed packet size to a large byte number.The default value may throw errors for such large data files.

   1	set global max_allowed_packet=1000000000;

6. Disable foreign key checking to avoid delays,errors and unwanted behaviour

   1 2 3

   SET foreign_key_checks = 0; SET UNIQUE_CHECKS = 0; SET AUTOCOMMIT = 0;

7. Import your sql dump file

   1	source C:\bob_db\dbdump150113.sql

   You are done! Remember to enable foreign key checks when procedure is complete!

   1 2 3

   SET foreign_key_checks = 1; SET UNIQUE_CHECKS = 1; SET AUTOCOMMIT = 1;

If you are in Linux you can create a Bash script which will do the dirty job and write to stdout start and end time of import:

 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31

#!/bin/sh 

# store start date to a variable
imeron=`date`

echo "Import started: OK"
dumpfile="/home/bob/bobiras.sql"

ddl="set names utf8; "
ddl="$ddl set global net_buffer_length=1000000;"
ddl="$ddl set global max_allowed_packet=1000000000; "
ddl="$ddl SET foreign_key_checks = 0; "
ddl="$ddl SET UNIQUE_CHECKS = 0; "
ddl="$ddl SET AUTOCOMMIT = 0; "
# if your dump file does not create a database, select one
ddl="$ddl USE jetdb; "
ddl="$ddl source $dumpfile; "
ddl="$ddl SET foreign_key_checks = 1; "
ddl="$ddl SET UNIQUE_CHECKS = 1; "
ddl="$ddl SET AUTOCOMMIT = 1; "
ddl="$ddl COMMIT ; "

echo "Import started: OK"

time mysql -h 127.0.0.1 -u root -proot -e "$ddl"

# store end date to a variable
imeron2=`date`

echo "Start import:$imeron"
echo "End import:$imeron2"