pg_dumpall
pg_dumpall
pg_dumpall - extract a PostgreSQL database cluster into a script file
Synopsis
pg_dumpall
[
connection-option
...] [
option
...]
Description
pg_dumpall is a utility for writing out ( " dumping " ) all PostgreSQL databases of a cluster into one script file. The script file contains SQL commands that can be used as input to psql to restore the databases. It does this by calling pg_dump for each database in the cluster. pg_dumpall also dumps global objects that are common to all databases, that is, database roles and tablespaces. ( pg_dump does not save these objects.)
Since pg_dumpall reads tables from all databases you will most likely have to connect as a database superuser in order to produce a complete dump. Also you will need superuser privileges to execute the saved script in order to be allowed to add roles and create databases.
The SQL script will be written to the standard output. Use the
-f
/
--file
option or shell operators to
redirect it into a file.
pg_dumpall
needs to connect several
times to the
PostgreSQL
server (once per
database). If you use password authentication it will ask for
a password each time. It is convenient to have a
~/.pgpass
file in such cases. See
Section 33.15
for more information.
Options
The following command-line options control the content and format of the output.
-
-a
--data-only
-
Dump only the data, not the schema (data definitions).
-
-c
--clean
-
Include SQL commands to clean (drop) databases before recreating them.
DROP
commands for roles and tablespaces are added as well. -
-E
encoding
--encoding=
encoding
-
Create the dump in the specified character set encoding. By default, the dump is created in the database encoding. (Another way to get the same result is to set the
PGCLIENTENCODING
environment variable to the desired dump encoding.) -
-f
filename
--file=
filename
-
Send output to the specified file. If this is omitted, the standard output is used.
-
-g
--globals-only
-
Dump only global objects (roles and tablespaces), no databases.
-
-O
--no-owner
-
Do not output commands to set ownership of objects to match the original database. By default, pg_dumpall issues
ALTER OWNER
orSET SESSION AUTHORIZATION
statements to set ownership of created schema elements. These statements will fail when the script is run unless it is started by a superuser (or the same user that owns all of the objects in the script). To make a script that can be restored by any user, but will give that user ownership of all the objects, specify-O
. -
-r
--roles-only
-
Dump only roles, no databases or tablespaces.
-
-s
--schema-only
-
Dump only the object definitions (schema), not data.
-
-S
username
--superuser=
username
-
Specify the superuser user name to use when disabling triggers. This is relevant only if
--disable-triggers
is used. (Usually, it's better to leave this out, and instead start the resulting script as superuser.) -
-t
--tablespaces-only
-
Dump only tablespaces, no databases or roles.
-
-v
--verbose
-
Specifies verbose mode. This will cause pg_dumpall to output start/stop times to the dump file, and progress messages to standard error. It will also enable verbose output in pg_dump .
-
-V
--version
-
Print the pg_dumpall version and exit.
-
-x
--no-privileges
--no-acl
-
Prevent dumping of access privileges (grant/revoke commands).
-
--binary-upgrade
-
This option is for use by in-place upgrade utilities. Its use for other purposes is not recommended or supported. The behavior of the option may change in future releases without notice.
-
--column-inserts
--attribute-inserts
-
Dump data as
INSERT
commands with explicit column names (INSERT INTO
). This will make restoration very slow; it is mainly useful for making dumps that can be loaded into non- PostgreSQL databases.table
(column
, ...) VALUES ... -
--disable-dollar-quoting
-
This option disables the use of dollar quoting for function bodies, and forces them to be quoted using SQL standard string syntax.
-
--disable-triggers
-
This option is relevant only when creating a data-only dump. It instructs pg_dumpall to include commands to temporarily disable triggers on the target tables while the data is reloaded. Use this if you have referential integrity checks or other triggers on the tables that you do not want to invoke during data reload.
Presently, the commands emitted for
--disable-triggers
must be done as superuser. So, you should also specify a superuser name with-S
, or preferably be careful to start the resulting script as a superuser. -
--extra-float-digits=
ndigits
-
Use the specified value of extra_float_digits when dumping floating-point data, instead of the maximum available precision. Routine dumps made for backup purposes should not use this option.
-
--exclude-database=
pattern
-
Do not dump databases whose name matches
pattern
. Multiple patterns can be excluded by writing multiple--exclude-database
switches. Thepattern
parameter is interpreted as a pattern according to the same rules used by psql 's\d
commands (see Patterns ), so multiple databases can also be excluded by writing wildcard characters in the pattern. When using wildcards, be careful to quote the pattern if needed to prevent shell wildcard expansion. -
--if-exists
-
Use conditional commands (i.e. add an
IF EXISTS
clause) to drop databases and other objects. This option is not valid unless--clean
is also specified. -
--inserts
-
Dump data as
INSERT
commands (rather thanCOPY
). This will make restoration very slow; it is mainly useful for making dumps that can be loaded into non- PostgreSQL databases. Note that the restore might fail altogether if you have rearranged column order. The--column-inserts
option is safer, though even slower. -
--load-via-partition-root
-
When dumping data for a table partition, make the
COPY
orINSERT
statements target the root of the partitioning hierarchy that contains it, rather than the partition itself. This causes the appropriate partition to be re-determined for each row when the data is loaded. This may be useful when reloading data on a server where rows do not always fall into the same partitions as they did on the original server. That could happen, for example, if the partitioning column is of type text and the two systems have different definitions of the collation used to sort the partitioning column. -
--lock-wait-timeout=
timeout
-
Do not wait forever to acquire shared table locks at the beginning of the dump. Instead, fail if unable to lock a table within the specified
timeout
. The timeout may be specified in any of the formats accepted bySET statement_timeout
. Allowed values vary depending on the server version you are dumping from, but an integer number of milliseconds is accepted by all versions since 7.3. This option is ignored when dumping from a pre-7.3 server. -
--no-comments
-
Do not dump comments.
-
--no-publications
-
Do not dump publications.
-
--no-role-passwords
-
Do not dump passwords for roles. When restored, roles will have a null password, and password authentication will always fail until the password is set. Since password values aren't needed when this option is specified, the role information is read from the catalog view
pg_roles
instead ofpg_authid
. Therefore, this option also helps if access topg_authid
is restricted by some security policy. -
--no-security-labels
-
Do not dump security labels.
-
--no-subscriptions
-
Do not dump subscriptions.
-
--no-sync
-
By default,
pg_dumpall
will wait for all files to be written safely to disk. This option causespg_dumpall
to return without waiting, which is faster, but means that a subsequent operating system crash can leave the dump corrupt. Generally, this option is useful for testing but should not be used when dumping data from production installation. -
--no-tablespaces
-
Do not output commands to create tablespaces nor select tablespaces for objects. With this option, all objects will be created in whichever tablespace is the default during restore.
-
--no-unlogged-table-data
-
Do not dump the contents of unlogged tables. This option has no effect on whether or not the table definitions (schema) are dumped; it only suppresses dumping the table data.
-
--on-conflict-do-nothing
-
Add
ON CONFLICT DO NOTHING
toINSERT
commands. This option is not valid unless--inserts
or--column-inserts
is also specified. -
--quote-all-identifiers
-
Force quoting of all identifiers. This option is recommended when dumping a database from a server whose PostgreSQL major version is different from pg_dumpall 's, or when the output is intended to be loaded into a server of a different major version. By default, pg_dumpall quotes only identifiers that are reserved words in its own major version. This sometimes results in compatibility issues when dealing with servers of other versions that may have slightly different sets of reserved words. Using
--quote-all-identifiers
prevents such issues, at the price of a harder-to-read dump script. -
--rows-per-insert=
nrows
-
Dump data as
INSERT
commands (rather thanCOPY
). Controls the maximum number of rows perINSERT
command. The value specified must be a number greater than zero. Any error during reloading will cause only rows that are part of the problematicINSERT
to be lost, rather than the entire table contents. -
--use-set-session-authorization
-
Output SQL-standard
SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION
commands instead ofALTER OWNER
commands to determine object ownership. This makes the dump more standards compatible, but depending on the history of the objects in the dump, might not restore properly. -
-?
--help
-
Show help about pg_dumpall command line arguments, and exit.
The following command-line options control the database connection parameters.
-
-d
connstr
--dbname=
connstr
-
Specifies parameters used to connect to the server, as a connection string. See Section 33.1.1 for more information.
The option is called
--dbname
for consistency with other client applications, but because pg_dumpall needs to connect to many databases, the database name in the connection string will be ignored. Use the-l
option to specify the name of the database used for the initial connection, which will dump global objects and discover what other databases should be dumped. -
-h
host
--host=
host
-
Specifies the host name of the machine on which the database server is running. If the value begins with a slash, it is used as the directory for the Unix domain socket. The default is taken from the
PGHOST
environment variable, if set, else a Unix domain socket connection is attempted. -
-l
dbname
--database=
dbname
-
Specifies the name of the database to connect to for dumping global objects and discovering what other databases should be dumped. If not specified, the
postgres
database will be used, and if that does not exist,template1
will be used. -
-p
port
--port=
port
-
Specifies the TCP port or local Unix domain socket file extension on which the server is listening for connections. Defaults to the
PGPORT
environment variable, if set, or a compiled-in default. -
-U
username
--username=
username
-
User name to connect as.
-
-w
--no-password
-
Never issue a password prompt. If the server requires password authentication and a password is not available by other means such as a
.pgpass
file, the connection attempt will fail. This option can be useful in batch jobs and scripts where no user is present to enter a password. -
-W
--password
-
Force pg_dumpall to prompt for a password before connecting to a database.
This option is never essential, since pg_dumpall will automatically prompt for a password if the server demands password authentication. However, pg_dumpall will waste a connection attempt finding out that the server wants a password. In some cases it is worth typing
-W
to avoid the extra connection attempt.Note that the password prompt will occur again for each database to be dumped. Usually, it's better to set up a
~/.pgpass
file than to rely on manual password entry. -
--role=
rolename
-
Specifies a role name to be used to create the dump. This option causes pg_dumpall to issue a
SET ROLE
rolename
command after connecting to the database. It is useful when the authenticated user (specified by-U
) lacks privileges needed by pg_dumpall , but can switch to a role with the required rights. Some installations have a policy against logging in directly as a superuser, and use of this option allows dumps to be made without violating the policy.
Environment
-
PGHOST
PGOPTIONS
PGPORT
PGUSER
-
Default connection parameters
-
PG_COLOR
-
Specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. Possible values are
always
,auto
andnever
.
This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the environment variables supported by libpq (see Section 33.14 ).
Notes
Since pg_dumpall calls pg_dump internally, some diagnostic messages will refer to pg_dump .
The
--clean
option can be useful even when your
intention is to restore the dump script into a fresh cluster. Use of
--clean
authorizes the script to drop and re-create the
built-in
postgres
and
template1
databases, ensuring that those databases will retain the same properties
(for instance, locale and encoding) that they had in the source cluster.
Without the option, those databases will retain their existing
database-level properties, as well as any pre-existing contents.
Once restored, it is wise to run
ANALYZE
on each
database so the optimizer has useful statistics. You
can also run
vacuumdb -a -z
to analyze all
databases.
The dump script should not be expected to run completely without errors.
In particular, because the script will issue
CREATE ROLE
for every role existing in the source cluster, it is certain to get a
"
role already exists
"
error for the bootstrap superuser,
unless the destination cluster was initialized with a different bootstrap
superuser name. This error is harmless and should be ignored. Use of
the
--clean
option is likely to produce additional
harmless error messages about non-existent objects, although you can
minimize those by adding
--if-exists
.
pg_dumpall requires all needed tablespace directories to exist before the restore; otherwise, database creation will fail for databases in non-default locations.
Examples
To dump all databases:
$
pg_dumpall > db.out
To reload database(s) from this file, you can use:
$
psql -f db.out postgres
It is not important to which database you connect here since the
script file created by
pg_dumpall
will
contain the appropriate commands to create and connect to the saved
databases. An exception is that if you specified
--clean
,
you must connect to the
postgres
database initially;
the script will attempt to drop other databases immediately, and that
will fail for the database you are connected to.
See Also
Check pg_dump for details on possible error conditions.