If you do any sort of web development, it is more than likely that CPANEL and phpMyAdmin are good friends of yours...and you depend on them. Even though those are extremely handy to create/modify databases and create backups, it is extremely helpful to know how to do the same thing by using only SSH and command line utilities.
To backup (export) a database using the command line interface (CLI):
You will then need to provide your database password and the exported data will go into a file called "backup.sql" which is located in the directory that you are currently in. (more mysqldump documentation
To backup your files:
The command will create an archive of all your files so you can easily move or store one file (the archive). More tar documentation.
