mysqldump: Couldn't execute 'show create table `general_log`': SHOW command denied to user 'user'@'localhost' for table 'general_log' (1142)

One of my clients almost found out the hard way, here is an unlikely situation that happened.

1.) Years ago the client had another VPS to which they backed up a BLOG nightly to an .sql file, what they forgot is that the file also contained all databases (they used the --all-databases option but forgot). So imagine the surprise when they ran this .sql file on a production server, thinking they're just importing their old BLOG. In fact the "mysql" table was part of that backup since it was --all-databases, and it flushed the mysql table with entries from their old VPS. As you can imagine this would effect every database driven application including websites and even email etc...

2.) They were lucky because I was able to see what had happened and they haven't run "flush privileges" so the original mysql database was in memory. I thought I would just restore backups they had taken so no problem right ? Their dumps weren't working right but fortunately I was able to take a raw /var/lib/mysql backup from their filesystem and get up on another VPS and dump the original mysql db from there and restore it.

3.) No, every database except "mysql' was backed up successfully, the user they had to dump all the databases needed one specific privilege to be able to dump mysql.

The solution for the above error:

ADD the privileges "Show_db" to the user and then it will work.

Tags:

mysqldump, couldn, execute, general_log, user, localhost, solutionmysqldump, unlikely, vps, blog, nightly, sql, contained, databases, server, importing, quot, mysql, flushed, entries, database, websites, email, etc, haven, flush, privileges, restore, backups, dumps, weren, fortunately, var, lib, filesystem, db, successfully, show_db,