If it s a file path error, and you re using chef solo, try using the path specified within solo.rb, like:

/tmp/chef-solo/site-cookbooks/path_to_file.sql

As a general note, consider using the database cookbook for mysql user and database management tasks. Once you setup the necessary cookbook dependencies, you can put code like this into your main recipe s default.rb:

# externalize conection info in a ruby hash
mysql_connection_info = {
  :host => "localhost",
  :username =>  root ,
  :password => node[ mysql ][ server_root_password ]
}

# drop if exists, then create a mysql database named DB_NAME
mysql_database  DB_NAME  do
  connection mysql_connection_info
  action [:drop, :create]
end

# query a database from a sql script on disk
mysql_database "DB_NAME" do
  connection mysql_connection_info
  sql { ::File.open("/tmp/chef-solo/site-cookbooks/main/path/to/sql_script.sql").read }
  action :query
end

#or import from a dump file
mysql_database "DB_NAME" do
  connection mysql_connection_info
  sql "source /tmp/chef-solo/site-cookbooks/main/path/to/sql_dump.sql;"
end

Haven t tested that last one because storing a database file within the chef directory really slows things down.

See also: Import SQL file into mysql

You can create a backup from the MySQL command line client, but not from within a SQL query. You need to execute the command from the shell. I believe the execute resource might do the trick for you:

http://wiki.opscode.com/display/chef/Resources#Resources-Execute

I m not really a Ruby guy, but I managed to get Chef to import a large .sql file by leveraging the mysql command line tool. Challenges I needed to solve:

• Import a .sql file in the 100 s of MB range (YMMV if you need GBs or TBs)
• Idempotentcy — only run the import if the .sql file has changed
• Not pass credentials to MySQL as command parameters (a security concern)

First I created a .my.cnf file template to pass the credentials:

templates/default/.my.cnf.erb

[client]
host=<%= @host %>
user=<%= @user %>
password="<%= @password %>"

Then I added a resource to my recipe that would populate the template:

recipes/import-db.rb

template  /root/.my.cnf  do
  mode 0600
  variables({
    :host =>  localhost ,
    :user =>  root ,
    :password => node[:your_cookbook][:db][:root_password],
  })
end

(Where node[:your_cookbook][:db][:root_password] is an attribute that contains the MySQL root password)

Security Note: for simplicity I m doing the import as the root user. If the .sql file to be imported is not from a trusted source, you will want to run mysql as a limited user and connect to MySQL with a limited db user that only has access to the database in question.

Finally, I added another resource to the recipe that actually executes the import:

backup_sql =  /path/to/the/db-backup.sql 
db_last_modified = "/etc/db-#{node[:your_cookbook][:db][:name]}.lastmodified"

execute  restore backup  do
  command "mysql #{node[:your_cookbook][:db][:name]} < #{backup_sql}  && touch  #{db_last_modified} "
  not_if { FileUtils.uptodate?(db_last_modified, [backup_sql]) }
end

(Where node[:your_cookbook][:db][:name] is the name of the MySQL database that will be restored.)