php 67 lines · 8 steps

How a database backup command works in Laravel

An Artisan command dumps the database to compressed storage, prunes old copies, and emails admins when it fails.

Explained by highlit

Laravel Intermediate artisan-command shell-process error-handling file-storage scheduling

1<?php
2 
3namespace App\Console\Commands;
4 
5use Illuminate\Console\Command;
6use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Mail;
7use Illuminate\Support\Facades\Storage;
8use App\Mail\BackupFailed;
9use Symfony\Component\Process\Process;
10use Symfony\Component\Process\Exception\ProcessFailedException;
11use Throwable;
12 
13class BackupDatabase extends Command
14{
15    protected $signature = 'db:backup {--keep=7 : Number of nightly backups to retain}';
16 
17    protected $description = 'Dump the database to storage and notify admins on failure';
18 
19    public function handle(): int
20    {
21        $connection = config('database.default');
22        $db = config("database.connections.{$connection}");
23 
24        $filename = sprintf('backups/%s-%s.sql.gz', $db['database'], now()->format('Y-m-d_His'));
25        $target = Storage::disk('local')->path($filename);
26 
27        Storage::disk('local')->makeDirectory('backups');
28 
29        $command = sprintf(
30            'mysqldump --host=%s --port=%s --user=%s --password=%s --single-transaction %s | gzip > %s',
31            escapeshellarg($db['host']),
32            escapeshellarg((string) $db['port']),
33            escapeshellarg($db['username']),
34            escapeshellarg($db['password']),
35            escapeshellarg($db['database']),
36            escapeshellarg($target)
37        );
38 
39        try {
40            $process = Process::fromShellCommandline($command)->setTimeout(600);
41            $process->mustRun();
42 
43            $this->pruneOldBackups((int) $this->option('keep'));
44            $this->info("Backup written to {$filename}");
45 
46            return self::SUCCESS;
47        } catch (ProcessFailedException|Throwable $e) {
48            report($e);
49 
50            Mail::to(config('backup.notify_email'))
51                ->send(new BackupFailed($e->getMessage()));
52 
53            $this->error('Database backup failed: ' . $e->getMessage());
54 
55            return self::FAILURE;
56        }
57    }
58 
59    protected function pruneOldBackups(int $keep): void
60    {
61        $files = collect(Storage::disk('local')->files('backups'))
62            ->sortDesc()
63            ->slice($keep);
64 
65        Storage::disk('local')->delete($files->all());
66    }
67}

01 / 01

STEP 01

Walkthrough

Space play ←→ step click any line

Three takeaways

1Wrapping external shell processes in try/catch lets you turn failures into reports and notifications instead of silent crashes.
2Escaping every shell argument prevents injection when interpolating config values into a command string.
3Retention is a separate concern: sort backups and slice off everything beyond the keep count to prune.

Related explainers

php

<?php
 
namespace App\Http\Middleware;

Idempotency keys in Laravel middleware

idempotency middleware caching

Advanced 8 steps

package batch
 
import "fmt"

Splitting a slice into batches in Go

generics slices error-handling

Intermediate 6 steps

ruby

class WelcomeSequenceOrchestrator
  STEPS = [
    { mailer: :welcome_email,      delay: 0.hours },
    { mailer: :getting_started,    delay: 1.day },

Scheduling a drip email sequence in Rails

mailers background jobs scheduling

Intermediate 6 steps

typescript

import { Controller } from '@nestjs/common';
import {
  MessagePattern,
  Payload,

Manual RabbitMQ acks in a NestJS controller

microservices message-queue acknowledgement

Intermediate 8 steps

rust

use std::convert::TryFrom;
 
#[derive(Debug, Clone, Copy, PartialEq, Eq)]
pub enum HttpStatus {

Converting HTTP codes with TryFrom in Rust

enums error-handling trait-implementation

Intermediate 8 steps

php

function fuzzySearch(string $query, array $items, int $limit = 10): array
{
    $query = mb_strtolower(trim($query));

Building a ranked fuzzy search in PHP

fuzzy-search string-matching ranking

Intermediate 7 steps

Share this explainer

Here's the card — post it anywhere.

How a database backup command works in Laravel — share card

Made with highlit — turn any snippet into a walkthrough like this in about a minute.

Explain your code