How to export database from Amazon RDS MySQL instance to local instance?
AWS documentation has this page that talks about importing and exporting data from MySQL server, but it's mostly about import. The only thing I see in their documentation is a way to export 5.6 data using replication, which is documented here. I was wondering if there is a simpler way to export data using mysqldump and load in local database. The database that I want to export is not huge, may be 1GB, so size is not a issue.
Answer
Sure.
Take the dump from the remote RDS Server:
mysqldump -h rds.host.name -u remote_user_name -p remote_db > dump.sql
When prompted for password, provide the password for user=remote_user_name (remote server)
Upload it to your local mySql instance:
mysql -u local_user_name -p local_db < dump.sql
Also, if you own an ec2 server in the same region, I'd suggest take a dump there. zip the file and then scp it to your local machine. Typically, the compressed version of the file would be much smaller and you'd be able to transfer it quicker.