I've set up a cron job to schedule a daily backup (using backup_mysql.php?action=backupnow) and it's working but the backup is made in an uncompressed file format.

Does anybody know what parameter should be included in the cron job to invoke gzip compression (backup_mysql.php?action=backupnow 'parameter')?

I would like to have the backups gzipped for the obvious reason of reducing size. Strange thing is that a manual backup using the admin interface does produce a gzip file. Even stranger because at initially I only had the option 'No Compression (Pure SQL)' and still it produced a gzip file.

Looking for a parameter to invoke gzip compression using the cron job I ran across this post by Woodyman.

Quote Originally Posted by Woodymon View Post
The "No Compression (Pure SQL)" radio button in the BU mod dialog is defectively sticky, after the first time I selected I have never been able to unselect.
This seemed to be the same issue I was having and made me realize something was missing in my setup.

Found out that within admin/includes/init_includes/init_gzip.php there are four paths defined for gzip and zip configs. Within backup_mysql.php these paths are checked and, once found correct, options 'Use GZIP' and 'Use ZIP' are added to the admin interface.

In my case changing the paths to:

/bin/gzip
/bin/gunzip
/usr/bin/zip
/usr/bin/unzip

made the options appear. Check with your hosting provider if these settings don't work for you. Hope this helps.