Directory to write the output to. pg_basebackup will create the directory and any parent directories if necessary. The directory may already exist, but it is an error if the directory already exists and is not empty.

When the backup is in tar mode, and the directory is specified as - (dash), the tar file will be written to stdout.

This option is required.

Selects the format for the output. format can be one of the following:

The maximum transfer rate of data transferred from the server. Values are in kilobytes per second. Use a suffix of M to indicate megabytes per second. A suffix of k is also accepted, and has no effect. Valid values are between 32 kilobytes per second and 1024 megabytes per second.

The purpose is to limit the impact of pg_basebackup on the running server.

This option always affects transfer of the data directory. Transfer of WAL files is only affected if the collection method is fetch.

Write a minimal recovery.conf in the output directory (or into the base archive file when using tar format) to ease setting up a standby server. The recovery.conf file will record the connection settings and, if specified, the replication slot that pg_basebackup is using, so that the streaming replication will use the same settings later on.

This option can only be used together with -X stream. It causes the WAL streaming to use the specified replication slot. If the base backup is intended to be used as a streaming replication standby using replication slots, it should then use the same replication slot name in recovery.conf. That way, it is ensured that the server does not remove any necessary WAL data in the time between the end of the base backup and the start of streaming replication.

If this option is not specified and the server supports temporary replication slots (version 10 and later), then a temporary replication slot is automatically used for WAL streaming.

This option prevents the creation of a temporary replication slot during the backup even if it's supported by the server.

Temporary replication slots are created by default if no slot name is given with the option -S when using log streaming.

The main purpose of this option is to allow taking a base backup when the server is out of free replication slots. Using replication slots is almost always preferred, because it prevents needed WAL from being removed by the server during the backup.

Relocate the tablespace in directory olddir to newdir during the backup. To be effective, olddir must exactly match the path specification of the tablespace as it is currently defined. (But it is not an error if there is no tablespace in olddir contained in the backup.) Both olddir and newdir must be absolute paths. If a path happens to contain a = sign, escape it with a backslash. This option can be specified multiple times for multiple tablespaces. See examples below.

If a tablespace is relocated in this way, the symbolic links inside the main data directory are updated to point to the new location. So the new data directory is ready to be used for a new server instance with all tablespaces in the updated locations.

Currently, this option only works with plain output format; it is ignored if tar format is selected.

Specifies the location for the write-ahead log directory. waldir must be an absolute path. The write-ahead log directory can only be specified when the backup is in plain mode.

Includes the required write-ahead log files (WAL files) in the backup. This will include all write-ahead logs generated during the backup. Unless the method none is specified, it is possible to start a postmaster directly in the extracted directory without the need to consult the log archive, thus making this a completely standalone backup.

The following methods for collecting the write-ahead logs are supported:

Enables gzip compression of tar file output, with the default compression level. Compression is only available when using the tar format, and the suffix .gz will automatically be added to all tar filenames.

Enables gzip compression of tar file output, and specifies the compression level (0 through 9, 0 being no compression and 9 being best compression). Compression is only available when using the tar format, and the suffix .gz will automatically be added to all tar filenames.

Sets checkpoint mode to fast (immediate) or spread (default) (see Section 25.3.3).

Sets the label for the backup. If none is specified, a default value of “pg_basebackup base backup” will be used.

By default, when pg_basebackup aborts with an error, it removes any directories it might have created before discovering that it cannot finish the job (for example, data directory and write-ahead log directory). This option inhibits tidying-up and is thus useful for debugging.

Note that tablespace directories are not cleaned up either way.

Enables progress reporting. Turning this on will deliver an approximate progress report during the backup. Since the database may change during the backup, this is only an approximation and may not end at exactly 100%. In particular, when WAL log is included in the backup, the total amount of data cannot be estimated in advance, and in this case the estimated target size will increase once it passes the total estimate without WAL.

When this is enabled, the backup will start by enumerating the size of the entire database, and then go back and send the actual contents. This may make the backup take slightly longer, and in particular it will take longer before the first data is sent.

By default, pg_basebackup will wait for all files to be written safely to disk. This option causes pg_basebackup to return without waiting, which is faster, but means that a subsequent operating system crash can leave the base backup corrupt. Generally, this option is useful for testing but should not be used when creating a production installation.

Enables verbose mode. Will output some extra steps during startup and shutdown, as well as show the exact file name that is currently being processed if progress reporting is also enabled.

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_basebackup doesn't connect to any particular database in the cluster, database name in the connection string will be ignored.

Specifies the host name of the machine on which the 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.

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.

Specifies the number of seconds between status packets sent back to the server. This allows for easier monitoring of the progress from server. A value of zero disables the periodic status updates completely, although an update will still be sent when requested by the server, to avoid timeout disconnect. The default value is 10 seconds.

User name to connect as.

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.

Force pg_basebackup to prompt for a password before connecting to a database.

This option is never essential, since pg_basebackup will automatically prompt for a password if the server demands password authentication. However, pg_basebackup 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.

Print the pg_basebackup version and exit.

Show help about pg_basebackup command line arguments, and exit.