I have used here a MySQL stored routine to achive this:

DELIMITER $$
DROP FUNCTION IF EXISTS `my_database`.`getage` $$
CREATE DEFINER=`root`@`localhost` FUNCTION `getage`(pdate DATE) RETURNS char(30) DETERMINISTIC
BEGIN
DECLARE years INT;
DECLARE months INT;
DECLARE days INT;
 
DECLARE current_year INT;
DECLARE current_month INT;
DECLARE current_day INT;
 
DECLARE year_diff INT;
DECLARE month_diff INT;
DECLARE day_diff INT;
 
DECLARE yearstring CHAR(6);
DECLARE monthstring CHAR(7);
 
SELECT YEAR(pdate) INTO years;
SELECT MONTH(pdate) INTO months;
SELECT DAY(pdate) INTO days;
 
SELECT YEAR(CURRENT_DATE()) INTO current_year;
SELECT MONTH(CURRENT_DATE()) INTO current_month;
SELECT DAY(CURRENT_DATE()) INTO current_day;
 
SELECT (current_year - years) INTO year_diff;
SELECT (current_month - months) INTO month_diff;
SELECT (current_day - days) INTO day_diff;
 
if (current_month < months) THEN
	SET month_diff = (((months - 12) * -1) + current_month);
	SET year_diff = (year_diff - 1);
END IF;
 
if ( month_diff = 1 ) THEN
	SET monthstring = "month";
ELSE
	SET monthstring = "months";
END IF;
 
if ( year_diff = 1 ) THEN
	SET yearstring = "year";
ELSE
	SET yearstring = "years";
END IF;
 
if ( year_diff = 0 ) THEN
	RETURN CONCAT_WS(' ', month_diff, monthstring);
ELSE
	if (month_diff > 0) THEN
		RETURN CONCAT_WS(' ',year_diff, yearstring, month_diff, monthstring);
	ELSE
		RETURN CONCAT_WS(' ',year_diff, yearstring);
	END IF;
END IF;
 
END $$
 
DELIMITER ;

You can then make use of the stored routine to convert Dates into ages by doing so:

SELECT getage(BirthDate) as UserAge FROM my_database.users

• http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/routine-restrictions.html
• http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/5.0/en/stored-procedures.html

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The script has the ability to dump your database tables and upload them to an ftp server or email the compressed sql file to your email address. I haven’t written this entirely on my own but with help from various people on discussion forums. Post back your comments and improvements if any.

#!/bin/sh

# Get the Day of the Week (Sun-Mon-Tue-Wed-Thu-Fri-Sat)
# This allows to save one backup for each day of the week
DOW=`date +%a`

# List all of the MySQL databases that you want to backup in here,
# each seperated by a space
databases="mphpugt_mambo mphpugt_phpcollab"

# Directory where you want the backup files to be placed
backupDir=/home/mphpugt/databaseBackup

# MySQL dump command, use the full path name here
mysqlDumpCMD=/usr/bin/mysqldump

# MySQL Username and password
userPassword=" --user=[replace with database username] --password=[replace with password]"

# MySQL dump options
dumpOptions=" --opt"

# Unix Commands
gzip=/bin/gzip
uuencode=/usr/bin/uuencode
mail=/bin/mail

# Send Backup?  Would you like the backup emailed to you?
# Set to "y" if you do
emailBackup="y"
subject="Database Backup"
maitTo="admin@techsatcomputers.com"

# Site-specific variables for FTP
ftpBackup="y"
ftpServer=techsatcomputers.com
ftpUser=backup@techsatcomputers.com
ftpPassword=[replace with password]
ftpDir=/

####################### End of Configuration #############################

# Create our backup directory if not already there
mkdir -p ${backupDir}
if [ ! -d ${backupDir} ]
then
   echo "Not a directory: ${backupDir}"
   exit 1
fi

# Dump all of our databases
echo "Dumping MySQL Databases"
for db in $databases
do
  $mysqlDumpCMD $userPassword $dumpOptions $db > ${backupDir}/${DOW}_${db}.sql
done

# Compress all of our backup files
echo "Compressing Dump Files"
for db in $databases
do
  rm -f ${backupDir}/${DOW}_${db}.sql.gz
  $gzip ${backupDir}/${DOW}_${db}.sql
done

# Send the backups via email
if [ $emailBackup = "y" ]
then
echo "Emailing Files to " $maitTo
   for db in $databases
   do
      $uuencode ${backupDir}/${DOW}_${db}.sql.gz ${DOW}_${db}.sql.gz > ${backupDir}/${DOW}_${db}.sql.gz.uu
      size=`wc -c < ${backupDir}/${DOW}_${db}.sql.gz`
      echo "Sending file: ${DOW}_${db}.sql.gz .....Total $size Bytes"
      $mail -s "$subject: ${DOW}_${db} (${size} Bytes)" $maitTo < ${backupDir}/${DOW}_${db}.sql.gz.uu
     rm -f ${backupDir}/${DOW}_${db}.sql.gz.uu
   done
fi

# FTP it to the off-site server
if [ $ftpBackup = "y" ]
then
echo "FTP-ing file to $ftpServer FTP server"
for db in $databases
do
echo "==> ${DOW}_${db}.sql.gz"
ftp -in <<EOF
open $ftpServer
user $ftpUser $ftpPassword
bin
hash
prompt
cd $ftpDir
lcd ${backupDir}
put ${DOW}_${db}.sql.gz
quit
EOF
done
fi

# And we're done
ls -l ${backupDir}
echo "Backup Complete!"
exit

On the other hand, If you have set a root password, but forgot what it was, you can set a new password with the following procedure:

Stop MySql Service

First we need to stop the running process of the MySql server.
/etc/init.d/mysqld stop

If the above command does not work for you, you will need to find the appropriate comand for your linux distribution. Depending on what type of MySql server you are running, other variants of the init.d script are mysqld-max and mysqld-ndb.

Start without Grant Tables

Now we need to start the MySql server without any grant tables. This means the MySql server should be running without any access restrictions.
mysqld_safe --skip-grant-tables &
Once you have got mysql running with the “–skip-grant-tables” option, we now need to login to the mysql server. Open a new shell and type in the following:
mysql -u root
It should now take you to the Mysql prompt:
 
Now lets update the Mysql root users password. In this example I an updating the password to be “FpS0Fb7W”:
UPDATE mysql.user SET Password = PASSWORD('FpS0Fb7W') WHERE User = 'root';

Query OK, 2 rows affected (0.21 sec)
Rows matched: 2  Changed: 2  Warnings: 0

Usually you will have more than one set of privileges for your root account. One for localhost access and the other for access from anywhere (%). If you have more than one root user account privilege, it will update both accounts. In order to update only the localhost priviledge, use:
UPDATE user SET Password=PASSWORD('YOUR_PASSWORD') WHERE Host='localhost' AND User='root';
Now lets reload the Mysql Databases privileges
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;

Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.00 sec)

Gotchas

If you ever happened to get an error (when starting mysql with –skip-grant-tables) similar to the one shown below:

mysql ended

Then its probabily because there are some permission problems. Shown below is what the mysql error log outputted in that instance.

060519 09:01:39  mysqld started
/usr/sbin/mysqld-max: Can't read dir of '/root/tmp/' (Errcode: 13)
/usr/sbin/mysqld-max: Can't create/write to file '/root/tmp/ibwA6mDj' (Errcode: 13)
060519  9:01:39  InnoDB: Error: unable to create temporary file; errno:13
060519  9:01:39 [ERROR] Can't init databases
060519  9:01:39 [ERROR] Aborting
060519  9:01:39 [Note] /usr/sbin/mysqld-max: Shutdown complete
060519 09:01:40  mysqld ended

This basically means that your systems $TMPDIR definition is set to the root directory. To fix, just do the following:
export TMPDIR=/tmp/
This will then set the TMPDIR to the appropriate directory and fixes the error.