diff --git a/src/docs/user/configuration/configuring_backups.diviner b/src/docs/user/configuration/configuring_backups.diviner
--- a/src/docs/user/configuration/configuring_backups.diviner
+++ b/src/docs/user/configuration/configuring_backups.diviner
@@ -50,11 +50,54 @@
 Restore: MySQL
 ==============
 
-To restore a MySQL dump, just pipe it to `mysql` on a clean host. (You may need
-to uncompress it first, if you compressed it prior to storage.)
+To restore a MySQL dump, just pipe it to `mysql` on a clean host.
 
   $ gunzip -c backup.sql.gz | mysql
 
+If you have a large amount of data, you may need to adjust the configuration
+of your MySQL server in order for this process to work. Some of the most common
+issues you may need to identify and resolve are:
+
+**Max Allowed Packet**: The MySQL configuration option `max_allowed_packet` may
+limit the maximum size of statements which can be executed.
+
+If the import fails because of a packet limit issue, the failure may take the
+form of an error message like one of these in the client:
+
+```
+ERROR 2020 (HY000) at line X: Got packet bigger than 'max_allowed_packet' bytes
+ERROR 2006 (HY000) at line X: MySQL server has gone away
+```
+
+To resolve this, increase this limit temporarily by passing
+`--max-allowed-packet 1GB` to `mysql`.
+
+**InnoDB Log File Size**: Large import statements may fail if the data size
+is large relative to the combined InnoDB log file size, governed primarily
+by `innodb_log_file_size`.
+
+If the import fails because of a log size issue, the failure may take the form
+of an error message like this in the client:
+
+```
+ERROR 2006 (HY000) at line X: MySQL server has gone away
+```
+
+The server log may have an error message which is more illuminating, like this
+one:
+
+```
+XXXXXX XX:XX:XX  InnoDB: ERROR: the age of the last checkpoint is X,
+InnoDB: which exceeds the log group capacity X.
+InnoDB: If you are using big BLOB or TEXT rows, you must set the
+InnoDB: combined size of log files at least 10 times bigger than the
+InnoDB: largest such row.
+```
+
+To resolve this, increase the size of `innodb_log_file_size` in your MySQL
+configuration. A setting of `8GB` should allow you to import any dump, although
+this is a relatively high value and may not be ideal for production workloads.
+
 
 Backup: Hosted Repositories
 ===========================