automating backup in a replicate envrionment

[Chris McClenaghan]

I have a simple replication scheme setup to replicate a simple database. There are only two servers in the scheme. However, at any point in time, one or the other of the servers can be the master and the other the slave by executing the appropriate commands to each server (stop slave, reset master, change master, etc). This is all working quite well. I need to provide a shell script to backup both servers, but the script must recognize which server is the master and which is the slave at the time the script runs from crontab.

I haven't found any command that directly answers the question and trying to use show processlist, show master status or show slave status doesn't seem to give a clear answer once both servers have played both roles.

Thoughts, ideas?

Thanks!