MySQL Dump to tar.gz from remote without shell access

Question

I'm trying to get a dump from MySQL to my local client. This is what I currently have:

mysqldump -u $MyUSER -h $MyHOST -p$MyPASS $db | gunzip -9 > $FILE

What I want though is .tar.gz instead of a gunzip archive. I have shell access on local client but not on the server. So, I can't do a remote tar and copy it here. So, is there a way of piping the gzip to a tar.gz. (Currently, the .gz does not get recognized as a tar archive.)

Thanks.

Answer 1

If you are issuing the above command in client side, your compression is done in client side. mysqldump connects the remote server and downloads the data without any compression.

mysqldump -u $MyUSER -h $MyHOST -p$MyPASS $db > filename
tar cfz filename.tar.gz filename
rm filename

Probably some unix gurus will have a one liner to do it.

Answer 2

No. The files (yes, plural, since tar is usually used for more than one file) are first placed in a tar archive, and then that is compressed. If you are trying to use the tar command line tool then you will need to save the result in a temporary file and then tar that.

Personally though, I'd rather hit the other side with a cluebat.