Backing up a MediaWiki

There are several techniques for doing this.

Using phpmyadmin (by Aero)

Make sure you've got PHPMyAdmin running and that's all happy. I won't cover this part here as it varies with your set up.
Login and choose Export from the main page
Leave most of the default options. Specifically,
- Format: SQL
- Select the database(s) you want in the listbox
- etc.
Checkmark 'Add DROP TABLE'. This will make sure that when you restore from a backup, it will delete existing tables before restoring from the backed up ones.
Checkmark 'Save to file' at the bottom, or it will just dump it to your browser window, and that's no fun.
- You probably also want to use compression. These won't be huge files, but a 1.5mb database compresses to about 150kb. So, y'know, whatever. Wiggy recommends BZIP.
Click Go.

I'm writing this from memory, so I might be wrong, but I think it's right.

Click Databases from the PHPMyAdmin main page
Click the name of your databse (it should already exist; have you [re]installed MediaWiki yet? Do that first.)
Click the SQL tab
Where it says Location of textfile:, browse to your latest backup, then click Go.

Choose a place on your hard drive for storing the file; create any folders needed.
Run mysql-admin (this can be done from the command line)
Connect to mysql. You'll need the server address, a username with read permissions, and the password for that user.
- Note: mysql-admin seems to have trouble actually using passwords you've stored, so you may have to type in the password each time. Hopefully they will fix this soon.
- Another note: the current version of mysql-admin doesn't like connecting to mysql versions prior to 4.0, but it did connect and backup my v3.23. It appears prone to sudden crashing on certain operations, so avoid poking around in the menu while backing up or restoring.
Press the "backup" icon/button on the left.
Check the 'Add DROP TABLE' box on the "Output File Options" box on the "Advanced Options" tab, as with the phpmyadmin backup.
Steps from that point on are pretty intuitive, except for the scheduler (which still has me confused). Apparently mysql-admin can set itself up to do backups automatically, using the cron scheduler, but I don't yet know if this works or if I did it right.
The first time through, you will probably want to save the backup configuration to a Backup Project, for quick reuse later. I had trouble once, however, with the "Backup Now" button greying out after doing this; I'm not sure what caused it.

I haven't tried this yet, but there's a "restore backup" button right under the "backup" button, and I presume the process is also fairly intuitive.