Database connections using xtrabackup

Hi,

According to the following link ( http://www.percona.com/doc/percona-xtrabackup/innobackupex/p rivileges.html),
the xtrabackup tool “needs to be able to connect to the database server and perform operations on the server and
the datadir when creating a backup, when preparing in some scenarios and when restoring it.
In order to do so, there are privileges and permission requirements on its execution that must be fulfilled”

Is this true? I have been running the xtrabackup tool and no database connections occur at all.
I’ve checked this by running the ‘show processlist’ command while the backup is running and I don’t see any at all.
Is this documentation wrong? I understand the tool needs file permissions at the OS level but it doesn’t need to connect to the database, does it?

I’m using xtrabackup directly (not innobackupex) on MySQL version 5.0.83 on Solaris 10 Sun Sparc 64 bit.

Thanks.

That page describes innobackupex, not xtrabackup. As you have noticed, xtrabackup itself doesn’t connect to the server.