| PostgreSQL 9.1.24 Documentation | ||||
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The idea behind this dump method is to generate a text file with SQL commands that, when fed back to the server, will recreate the database in the same state as it was at the time of the dump. PostgreSQL provides the utility program pg_dump for this purpose. The basic usage of this command is:
pg_dump dbname > outfile
As you see, pg_dump writes its result to the standard output. We will see below how this can be useful.
pg_dump is a regular PostgreSQL client application (albeit a particularly clever one). This means that you can perform this backup procedure from any remote host that has access to the database. But remember that pg_dump does not operate with special permissions. In particular, it must have read access to all tables that you want to back up, so in practice you almost always have to run it as a database superuser.
To specify which database server pg_dump should contact, use the command line options -h host and -p port. The default host is the local host or whatever your PGHOST environment variable specifies. Similarly, the default port is indicated by the PGPORT environment variable or, failing that, by the compiled-in default. (Conveniently, the server will normally have the same compiled-in default.)
Like any other PostgreSQL client application, pg_dump will by default connect with the database user name that is equal to the current operating system user name. To override this, either specify the -U option or set the environment variable PGUSER. Remember that pg_dump connections are subject to the normal client authentication mechanisms (which are described in Chapter 19).
An important advantage of pg_dump over the other backup methods described later is that pg_dump's output can generally be re-loaded into newer versions of PostgreSQL, whereas file-level backups and continuous archiving are both extremely server-version-specific. pg_dump is also the only method that will work when transferring a database to a different machine architecture, such as going from a 32-bit to a 64-bit server.
Dumps created by pg_dump are internally consistent, meaning, the dump represents a snapshot of the database at the time pg_dump began running. pg_dump does not block other operations on the database while it is working. (Exceptions are those operations that need to operate with an exclusive lock, such as most forms of ALTER TABLE.)
Important: If your database schema relies on OIDs (for instance, as foreign keys) you must instruct pg_dump to dump the OIDs as well. To do this, use the -o command-line option.
The text files created by pg_dump are intended to be read in by the psql program. The general command form to restore a dump is
psql dbname < infile
where infile is the file output by the pg_dump command. The database dbname will not be created by this command, so you must create it yourself from template0 before executing psql (e.g., with createdb -T template0 dbname). psql supports options similar to pg_dump for specifying the database server to connect to and the user name to use. See the psql reference page for more information.
Before restoring an SQL dump, all the users who own objects or were granted permissions on objects in the dumped database must already exist. If they do not, the restore will fail to recreate the objects with the original ownership and/or permissions. (Sometimes this is what you want, but usually it is not.)
By default, the psql script will continue to execute after an SQL error is encountered. You might wish to run psql with the ON_ERROR_STOP variable set to alter that behavior and have psql exit with an exit status of 3 if an SQL error occurs:
psql --set ON_ERROR_STOP=on dbname < infile
Either way, you will only have a partially restored database. Alternatively, you can specify that the whole dump should be restored as a single transaction, so the restore is either fully completed or fully rolled back. This mode can be specified by passing the -1 or --single-transaction command-line options to psql. When using this mode, be aware that even a minor error can rollback a restore that has already run for many hours. However, that might still be preferable to manually cleaning up a complex database after a partially restored dump.
The ability of pg_dump and psql to write to or read from pipes makes it possible to dump a database directly from one server to another, for example:
pg_dump -h host1 dbname | psql -h host2 dbname
Important: The dumps produced by pg_dump are relative to template0. This means that any languages, procedures, etc. added via template1 will also be dumped by pg_dump. As a result, when restoring, if you are using a customized template1, you must create the empty database from template0, as in the example above.
After restoring a backup, it is wise to run