# Backup MediaWiki

## Database dump

For downloadable dumps of Wikipedia's article database, see [Wikipedia:Database download](w:Wikipedia:Database_download "wikilink"). For a description of the database format and fields, see [database layout](mw:Manual:Database_layout "wikilink").

To create your own dump of a local MediaWiki site, you can use the *dumpBackup.php* script found in the maintenance directory of your MediaWiki installation tree. Make sure that AdminSettings.php has been configured. By default, MediaWiki ships with an AdminSettings.sample file that needs to be edited to suit your configuration and renamed to AdminSettings.php

An example invocation to a full backup might look like:

` php maintenance/dumpBackup.php --full > full.xml`

Command line options for dumpBackup.php are explained by running it with no parameters, i.e.

` php maintenance/dumpBackup.php`

However, there are some extra undocumented options in its source code.