Skip tables in MySQL backup

mysqldump -u testuser -p testdb --ignore-table testdb.table1 --ignore-table testdb.table2 > /tmp/backup_ignored.sql

You can ignore one or more tables during MySQL backup with the--ignore-table option.

The option forces mysqldump to do not dump the given table, which must be specified using both the database and table names. To ignore multiple tables, use this option multiple times. This option also can be used to ignore views.

For each table, you want to ignore, you need to prefix the table with the database name!