1PG_DUMPALL(1) PostgreSQL 12.6 Documentation PG_DUMPALL(1)
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6 pg_dumpall - extract a PostgreSQL database cluster into a script file
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9 pg_dumpall [connection-option...] [option...]
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12 pg_dumpall is a utility for writing out (“dumping”) all PostgreSQL
13 databases of a cluster into one script file. The script file contains
14 SQL commands that can be used as input to psql(1) to restore the
15 databases. It does this by calling pg_dump(1) for each database in the
16 cluster. pg_dumpall also dumps global objects that are common to all
17 databases, that is, database roles and tablespaces. (pg_dump does not
18 save these objects.)
19 Since pg_dumpall reads tables from all databases you will most likely
21 have to connect as a database superuser in order to produce a complete
22 dump. Also you will need superuser privileges to execute the saved
23 script in order to be allowed to add roles and create databases.
24 The SQL script will be written to the standard output. Use the
26 -f/--file option or shell operators to redirect it into a file.
27 pg_dumpall needs to connect several times to the PostgreSQL server
29 (once per database). If you use password authentication it will ask for
30 a password each time. It is convenient to have a ~/.pgpass file in such
31 cases. See Section 33.15 for more information.
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34 The following command-line options control the content and format of
35 the output.
36 -a
38 --data-only
39 Dump only the data, not the schema (data definitions).
40 -c
42 --clean
43 Include SQL commands to clean (drop) databases before recreating
44 them. DROP commands for roles and tablespaces are added as well.
45 -E encoding
47 --encoding=encoding
48 Create the dump in the specified character set encoding. By
49 default, the dump is created in the database encoding. (Another way
50 to get the same result is to set the PGCLIENTENCODING environment
51 variable to the desired dump encoding.)
52 -f filename
54 --file=filename
55 Send output to the specified file. If this is omitted, the standard
56 output is used.
57 -g
59 --globals-only
60 Dump only global objects (roles and tablespaces), no databases.
61 -O
63 --no-owner
64 Do not output commands to set ownership of objects to match the
65 original database. By default, pg_dumpall issues ALTER OWNER or SET
66 SESSION AUTHORIZATION statements to set ownership of created schema
67 elements. These statements will fail when the script is run unless
68 it is started by a superuser (or the same user that owns all of the
69 objects in the script). To make a script that can be restored by
70 any user, but will give that user ownership of all the objects,
71 specify -O.
72 -r
74 --roles-only
75 Dump only roles, no databases or tablespaces.
76 -s
78 --schema-only
79 Dump only the object definitions (schema), not data.
80 -S username
82 --superuser=username
83 Specify the superuser user name to use when disabling triggers.
84 This is relevant only if --disable-triggers is used. (Usually, it's
85 better to leave this out, and instead start the resulting script as
86 superuser.)
87 -t
89 --tablespaces-only
90 Dump only tablespaces, no databases or roles.
91 -v
93 --verbose
94 Specifies verbose mode. This will cause pg_dumpall to output
95 start/stop times to the dump file, and progress messages to
96 standard error. It will also enable verbose output in pg_dump.
97 -V
99 --version
100 Print the pg_dumpall version and exit.
101 -x
103 --no-privileges
104 --no-acl
105 Prevent dumping of access privileges (grant/revoke commands).
106 --binary-upgrade
108 This option is for use by in-place upgrade utilities. Its use for
109 other purposes is not recommended or supported. The behavior of the
110 option may change in future releases without notice.
111 --column-inserts
113 --attribute-inserts
114 Dump data as INSERT commands with explicit column names (INSERT
115 INTO table (column, ...) VALUES ...). This will make restoration
116 very slow; it is mainly useful for making dumps that can be loaded
117 into non-PostgreSQL databases.
118 --disable-dollar-quoting
120 This option disables the use of dollar quoting for function bodies,
121 and forces them to be quoted using SQL standard string syntax.
122 --disable-triggers
124 This option is relevant only when creating a data-only dump. It
125 instructs pg_dumpall to include commands to temporarily disable
126 triggers on the target tables while the data is reloaded. Use this
127 if you have referential integrity checks or other triggers on the
128 tables that you do not want to invoke during data reload.
129 Presently, the commands emitted for --disable-triggers must be done
131 as superuser. So, you should also specify a superuser name with -S,
132 or preferably be careful to start the resulting script as a
133 superuser.
134 --extra-float-digits=ndigits
136 Use the specified value of extra_float_digits when dumping
137 floating-point data, instead of the maximum available precision.
138 Routine dumps made for backup purposes should not use this option.
139 --exclude-database=pattern
141 Do not dump databases whose name matches pattern. Multiple patterns
142 can be excluded by writing multiple --exclude-database switches.
143 The pattern parameter is interpreted as a pattern according to the
144 same rules used by psql's \d commands (see Patterns), so multiple
145 databases can also be excluded by writing wildcard characters in
146 the pattern. When using wildcards, be careful to quote the pattern
147 if needed to prevent shell wildcard expansion.
148 --if-exists
150 Use conditional commands (i.e., add an IF EXISTS clause) to drop
151 databases and other objects. This option is not valid unless
152 --clean is also specified.
153 --inserts
155 Dump data as INSERT commands (rather than COPY). This will make
156 restoration very slow; it is mainly useful for making dumps that
157 can be loaded into non-PostgreSQL databases. Note that the restore
158 might fail altogether if you have rearranged column order. The
159 --column-inserts option is safer, though even slower.
160 --load-via-partition-root
162 When dumping data for a table partition, make the COPY or INSERT
163 statements target the root of the partitioning hierarchy that
164 contains it, rather than the partition itself. This causes the
165 appropriate partition to be re-determined for each row when the
166 data is loaded. This may be useful when reloading data on a server
167 where rows do not always fall into the same partitions as they did
168 on the original server. That could happen, for example, if the
169 partitioning column is of type text and the two systems have
170 different definitions of the collation used to sort the
171 partitioning column.
172 --lock-wait-timeout=timeout
174 Do not wait forever to acquire shared table locks at the beginning
175 of the dump. Instead, fail if unable to lock a table within the
176 specified timeout. The timeout may be specified in any of the
177 formats accepted by SET statement_timeout. Allowed values vary
178 depending on the server version you are dumping from, but an
179 integer number of milliseconds is accepted by all versions since
180 7.3. This option is ignored when dumping from a pre-7.3 server.
181 --no-comments
183 Do not dump comments.
184 --no-publications
186 Do not dump publications.
187 --no-role-passwords
189 Do not dump passwords for roles. When restored, roles will have a
190 null password, and password authentication will always fail until
191 the password is set. Since password values aren't needed when this
192 option is specified, the role information is read from the catalog
193 view pg_roles instead of pg_authid. Therefore, this option also
194 helps if access to pg_authid is restricted by some security policy.
195 --no-security-labels
197 Do not dump security labels.
198 --no-subscriptions
200 Do not dump subscriptions.
201 --no-sync
203 By default, pg_dumpall will wait for all files to be written safely
204 to disk. This option causes pg_dumpall to return without waiting,
205 which is faster, but means that a subsequent operating system crash
206 can leave the dump corrupt. Generally, this option is useful for
207 testing but should not be used when dumping data from production
208 installation.
209 --no-tablespaces
211 Do not output commands to create tablespaces nor select tablespaces
212 for objects. With this option, all objects will be created in
213 whichever tablespace is the default during restore.
214 --no-unlogged-table-data
216 Do not dump the contents of unlogged tables. This option has no
217 effect on whether or not the table definitions (schema) are dumped;
218 it only suppresses dumping the table data.
219 --on-conflict-do-nothing
221 Add ON CONFLICT DO NOTHING to INSERT commands. This option is not
222 valid unless --inserts or --column-inserts is also specified.
223 --quote-all-identifiers
225 Force quoting of all identifiers. This option is recommended when
226 dumping a database from a server whose PostgreSQL major version is
227 different from pg_dumpall's, or when the output is intended to be
228 loaded into a server of a different major version. By default,
229 pg_dumpall quotes only identifiers that are reserved words in its
230 own major version. This sometimes results in compatibility issues
231 when dealing with servers of other versions that may have slightly
232 different sets of reserved words. Using --quote-all-identifiers
233 prevents such issues, at the price of a harder-to-read dump script.
234 --rows-per-insert=nrows
236 Dump data as INSERT commands (rather than COPY). Controls the
237 maximum number of rows per INSERT command. The value specified must
238 be a number greater than zero. Any error during reloading will
239 cause only rows that are part of the problematic INSERT to be lost,
240 rather than the entire table contents.
241 --use-set-session-authorization
243 Output SQL-standard SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION commands instead of
244 ALTER OWNER commands to determine object ownership. This makes the
245 dump more standards compatible, but depending on the history of the
246 objects in the dump, might not restore properly.
247 -?
249 --help
250 Show help about pg_dumpall command line arguments, and exit.
251 The following command-line options control the database connection
253 parameters.
254 -d connstr
256 --dbname=connstr
257 Specifies parameters used to connect to the server, as a connection
258 string; these will override any conflicting command line options.
259 The option is called --dbname for consistency with other client
261 applications, but because pg_dumpall needs to connect to many
262 databases, the database name in the connection string will be
263 ignored. Use the -l option to specify the name of the database used
264 for the initial connection, which will dump global objects and
265 discover what other databases should be dumped.
266 -h host
268 --host=host
269 Specifies the host name of the machine on which the database server
270 is running. If the value begins with a slash, it is used as the
271 directory for the Unix domain socket. The default is taken from the
272 PGHOST environment variable, if set, else a Unix domain socket
273 connection is attempted.
274 -l dbname
276 --database=dbname
277 Specifies the name of the database to connect to for dumping global
278 objects and discovering what other databases should be dumped. If
279 not specified, the postgres database will be used, and if that does
280 not exist, template1 will be used.
281 -p port
283 --port=port
284 Specifies the TCP port or local Unix domain socket file extension
285 on which the server is listening for connections. Defaults to the
286 PGPORT environment variable, if set, or a compiled-in default.
287 -U username
289 --username=username
290 User name to connect as.
291 -w
293 --no-password
294 Never issue a password prompt. If the server requires password
295 authentication and a password is not available by other means such
296 as a .pgpass file, the connection attempt will fail. This option
297 can be useful in batch jobs and scripts where no user is present to
298 enter a password.
299 -W
301 --password
302 Force pg_dumpall to prompt for a password before connecting to a
303 database.
304 This option is never essential, since pg_dumpall will automatically
306 prompt for a password if the server demands password
307 authentication. However, pg_dumpall will waste a connection attempt
308 finding out that the server wants a password. In some cases it is
309 worth typing -W to avoid the extra connection attempt.
310 Note that the password prompt will occur again for each database to
312 be dumped. Usually, it's better to set up a ~/.pgpass file than to
313 rely on manual password entry.
314 --role=rolename
316 Specifies a role name to be used to create the dump. This option
317 causes pg_dumpall to issue a SET ROLE rolename command after
318 connecting to the database. It is useful when the authenticated
319 user (specified by -U) lacks privileges needed by pg_dumpall, but
320 can switch to a role with the required rights. Some installations
321 have a policy against logging in directly as a superuser, and use
322 of this option allows dumps to be made without violating the
323 policy.
324
326 PGHOST
327 PGOPTIONS
328 PGPORT
329 PGUSER
330 Default connection parameters
331 PG_COLOR
333 Specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. Possible
334 values are always, auto and never.
335 This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the
337 environment variables supported by libpq (see Section 33.14).
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340 Since pg_dumpall calls pg_dump internally, some diagnostic messages
341 will refer to pg_dump.
342 The --clean option can be useful even when your intention is to restore
344 the dump script into a fresh cluster. Use of --clean authorizes the
345 script to drop and re-create the built-in postgres and template1
346 databases, ensuring that those databases will retain the same
347 properties (for instance, locale and encoding) that they had in the
348 source cluster. Without the option, those databases will retain their
349 existing database-level properties, as well as any pre-existing
350 contents.
351 Once restored, it is wise to run ANALYZE on each database so the
353 optimizer has useful statistics. You can also run vacuumdb -a -z to
354 analyze all databases.
355 The dump script should not be expected to run completely without
357 errors. In particular, because the script will issue CREATE ROLE for
358 every role existing in the source cluster, it is certain to get a “role
359 already exists” error for the bootstrap superuser, unless the
360 destination cluster was initialized with a different bootstrap
361 superuser name. This error is harmless and should be ignored. Use of
362 the --clean option is likely to produce additional harmless error
363 messages about non-existent objects, although you can minimize those by
364 adding --if-exists.
365 pg_dumpall requires all needed tablespace directories to exist before
367 the restore; otherwise, database creation will fail for databases in
368 non-default locations.
369
371 To dump all databases:
372 $ pg_dumpall > db.out
374 To reload database(s) from this file, you can use:
376 $ psql -f db.out postgres
378 It is not important to which database you connect here since the script
380 file created by pg_dumpall will contain the appropriate commands to
381 create and connect to the saved databases. An exception is that if you
382 specified --clean, you must connect to the postgres database initially;
383 the script will attempt to drop other databases immediately, and that
384 will fail for the database you are connected to.
385
387 Check pg_dump(1) for details on possible error conditions.
388PostgreSQL 12.6 2021 PG_DUMPALL(1)