title: Mysqldump without password in crontab
body: <p>I try to backup my database with mysqldump and cronjobs.</p>
  
  <p>Well, I added the following command to the crontab of user root:</p>
  
  <pre><code>*/30 * * * * mysqldump -u root -pVERYSECUREPASSWORD --all-databases &gt; /var/www/cloud/dump_komplett.sql &amp;&gt; /dev/null
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This works fine so far, but the problem is that the password is set in this command.</p>
  
  <p>So I want to include a .database.cnf file that look like this</p>
  
  <pre><code>[mysqldump]
  user=root
  password=VERYSECUREPASSWORD
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and changed the mysqldump command to</p>
  
  <pre><code>mysqldump --defaults-extra-file="/var/crons/mysql/.database.cnf" --all-databases -u root &gt; /var/www/cloud/dump_komplett.sql
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>to solve this problem.</p>
  
  <p>But this command fails with the error:</p>
  
  <pre><code>mysqldump: Got error: 1045: Access denied for user 'root'@'localhost' (using password: YES) when trying to connect
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I don't know what's wrong.</p>
  
  <p>Here are some commands I also tried:</p>
  
  <pre><code>mysqldump --defaults-extra-file="/var/crons/mysql/.database.cnf" --all-databases &gt; /var/www/cloud/dump_komplett.sql
  mysqldump --defaults-file="/var/crons/mysql/.database.cnf" --all-databases &gt; /var/www/cloud/dump_komplett.sql
  mysqldump --defaults-file="/var/crons/mysql/.database.cnf" --all-databases -u root &gt; /var/www/cloud/dump_komplett.sql
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>and .database.cnf contents I also tried:</p>
  
  <pre><code>[client]
  user=root
  password=VERYSECUREPASSWORD
  
  [mysqldump]
  host=localhost
  user=root
  password=VERYSECUREPASSWORD
  
  [client]
  host=localhost
  user=root
  password=VERYSECUREPASSWORD
  </code></pre>