PG_DUMPALL(1) PostgreSQL 9.3.2 Documentation PG_DUMPALL(1)NAMEpg_dumpall - extract a PostgreSQL database cluster into a script file
SYNOPSISpg_dumpall [connection-option...] [option...]
DESCRIPTIONpg_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(1) to restore the
databases. It does this by calling pg_dump(1) 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, tablespaces, and
properties such as 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. 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 31.15, “The Password File”, in the documentation 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.
-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.
-i, --ignore-version
A deprecated option that is now ignored.
-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.
-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 table (column, ...) VALUES ...). This will make restoration
very slow; it is mainly useful for making dumps that can be loaded
into non-PostgreSQL databases.
--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.
--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
might fail altogether if you have rearranged column order. The
--column-inserts option is safer, though even slower.
--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 by SET 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-security-labels
Do not dump security labels.
--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.
--quote-all-identifiers
Force quoting of all identifiers. This may be useful when dumping a
database for migration to a future version that may have introduced
additional keywords.
--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, 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 31.1.1, “Connection Strings”, in the
documentation for more information.
The option is called --dbname for consistency with other client
applications, but because pg_dumpall needs to connect to many
databases, database name in the connection string will be ignored.
Use -l option to specify the name of the database used to dump
global objects and to 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 to dump global
objects and discover 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 ROLErolename 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
This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the
environment variables supported by libpq (see Section 31.14,
“Environment Variables”, in the documentation).
NOTES
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; 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.)
SEE ALSO
Check pg_dump(1) for details on possible error conditions.
PostgreSQL 9.3.2 2013 PG_DUMPALL(1)