Ubuntu Manpage: pg_dumpall - extract a PostgreSQL database cluster into a script file

Provided by: postgresql-client-10_10.23-0ubuntu0.18.04.2_amd64

NAME

       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(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 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.

-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
--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.

--if-exists
Use conditional commands (i.e., add an IF EXISTS clause) to clean databases and other objects. This
option is not valid unless --clean is also specified.

--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-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 of
pg_authid. Therefore, this option also helps if access to pg_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 causes
pg_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.

--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.

--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; these will override any
conflicting command line options.

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 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

       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.

       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.)