mysqldump — A Database Backup Program • --password[= password ] ,  -p[ password ] • --pipe ,  -W • --plugin-dir= dir_name • --port= port_num ,  -P  port_num • --protocol={TCP|SOCKET|PIPE|MEMORY} • --server-public-key-path= file_name • --socket= path ,  -S  path 483 For connections to  localhost , the Unix socket file to use, or, on Windows, the name of the named pipe to use. For information about the  sha256_password  and  caching_sha2_password  plugins, see Section 6.4.1.3, “SHA-256 Pluggable Authentication” , and Section 6.4.1.2, “Caching SHA-2 Pluggable Authentication” . For  sha256_password , this option applies only if MySQL was built using OpenSSL. If  --server-public-key-path= file_name  is given and specifies a valid public key file, it takes precedence over  --get-server-public-key . The path name to a file in PEM format containing a client-side copy of the public key required by the server for RSA key pair-based password exchange. This option applies to clients that authenticate with the  sha256_password  or  caching_sha2_password  authentication plugin. This option is ignored for accounts that do not authenticate with one of those plugins. It is also ignored if RSA-based password exchange is not used, as is the case when the client connects to the server using a secure connection. The transport protocol to use for connecting to the server. It is useful when the other connection parameters normally result in use of a protocol other than the one you want. For details on the permissible values, see Section 4.2.7, “Connection Transport Protocols” . For TCP/IP connections, the port number to use. The directory in which to look for plugins. Specify this option if the  --default-auth  option is used to specify an authentication plugin but  mysqldump  does not find it. See Section 6.2.17, “Pluggable Authentication” . On Windows, connect to the server using a named pipe. This option applies only if the server was started with the  named_pipe  system variable enabled to support named-pipe connections. In addition, the user making the connection must be a member of the Windows group specified by the named_pipe_full_access_group  system variable. To explicitly specify that there is no password and that  mysqldump  should not prompt for one, use the --skip-password  option. Specifying a password on the command line should be considered insecure. To avoid giving the password on the command line, use an option file. See Section 6.1.2.1, “End-User Guidelines for Password Security” . The password of the MySQL account used for connecting to the server. The password value is optional. If not given,  mysqldump  prompts for one. If given, there must be  no space  between  --password=  or  - p  and the password following it. If no password option is specified, the default is to send no password.