Automatic Database Backups

[Koobazaur]

Greetings,

I would like to automate my MySQL database backups. If I understand correctly, HostMoster already backs up my databases, which I can retrieve via the "Backup" panel (how often does it do that, though?). This is nice, but I would like to be able to auotmatically backup stuff and store it on my end. I figured the easiest solution would be to email my database backup to another email specifically for that (such as yahoo or gmail). However, I am having a hard time doing this.

I already got the CRON command to create a database backup file:
/usr/bin/mysqldump -u user -p[password] database_name > /path/to/my/file.sql

However, I wanted to email the output instead of saving it to a file. Does anyone know how do I do that?

Also, is it unsafe to keep my password in my cron table? I wanted to do it via a PHP file but couldn't get the above command to work with exec().

Lastly, does anyone know what exact permissions are required for the user that does this dump?

Thanks

[sjlplat]

The PHP mail() function can do this. Since the backup has already been generated, simply use a Cron job to email the file a few minutes after it's generated.