pg_dumpall — extract a PostgreSQL database cluster into a script file
pg_dumpall
[option
...]
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 a cluster. pg_dumpall also dumps global objects that are common to all databases. (pg_dump does not save these objects.) This currently includes information about database users and groups, and access permissions that apply to databases as a whole.
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 users and groups, and to create databases.
The SQL script will be written to the standard output. Shell operators should be used 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 is likely to ask for
a password each time. It is convenient to have a
~/.pgpass
file in such cases. See Section 29.13, “The Password File” for more information.
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.
-d
--inserts
Dump data as INSERT
commands (rather
than COPY
). 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 may fail altogether if you have rearranged column order.
The -D
option is safer, though even slower.
-D
--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
...
-g
--globals-only
Dump only global objects (roles and tablespaces), no databases.
-i
--ignore-version
Ignore version mismatch between pg_dumpall and the database server.
pg_dumpall can handle databases from previous releases of PostgreSQL, but very old versions are not supported anymore (currently prior to 7.0). Use this option if you need to override the version check (and if pg_dumpall then fails, don't say you weren't warned).
-o
--oids
Dump object identifiers (OIDs) as part of the data for every table. Use this option if your application references the OID columns in some way (e.g., in a foreign key constraint). Otherwise, this option should not be used.
-O
--no-owner
Do not output commands to set
ownership of objects to match the original database.
By default, pg_dumpall issues
ALTER OWNER
or
SET 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
.
-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 only relevant if --disable-triggers
is used.
(Usually, it's better to leave this out, and instead start the
resulting script as superuser.)
-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.
-x
--no-privileges
--no-acl
Prevent dumping of access privileges (grant/revoke commands).
--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 only relevant 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.
--use-set-session-authorization
Output SQL-standard SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION
commands
instead of ALTER OWNER
commands to determine object
ownership. This makes the dump more standards compatible, but
depending on the history of the objects in the dump, may not restore
properly.
The following command-line options control the database connection parameters.
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.
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.
username
Connect as the given user.
Force a password prompt. This should happen automatically if the server requires password authentication.
Since pg_dumpall calls pg_dump internally, some diagnostic messages will refer to pg_dump.
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.
pg_dumpall requires all needed tablespace directories to exist before the restore or database creation will fail for databases in non-default locations.
To dump all databases:
$
pg_dumpall > db.out
To reload this database use, for example:
$
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.)
pg_dump. Check there for details on possible error conditions. Also see supported environment variables (Section 29.12, “Environment Variables”).