Thread: Server Backup: pg_dump vs pg_dumpall

Hey,

I'm writing a backup script. Right now, I only have one database on my postgresql server. I'm deciding if I should use pg_dump or pg_dumpall when backing up the server. As far as I can tell, pg_dumpall cannot compress the dumps automatically and it only dumps data in the standard SQL text file format. This means that I would not be able to use pg_restore to selectively restore the database, correct?

What is *NOT* included in a pg_dump that IS in pg_dumpall (Other than all the databases)? Things like user-defined functions and datatypes? Roles? Views?

I was leaning towards pg_dumpall, but then I realized that it only dumps in the standard SQL text file format, and it cannot be compressed automatically.

Thanks for any advice.

Hi --

> I'm writing a backup script. Right now, I only have one database on my postgresql server. I'm
> deciding if I should use pg_dump or pg_dumpall when backing up the server. As far as I can tell,
> pg_dumpall cannot compress the dumps automatically and it only dumps data in the standard SQL
> text file format. This means that I would not be able to use pg_restore to selectively restore the
> database, correct?
>
> What is *NOT* included in a pg_dump that IS in pg_dumpall (Other than all the databases)?
> Things like user-defined functions and datatypes? Roles? Views?

The pg_dumpall gets users and groups that are not dumped in the single database versions; I used
to use pg_dump on each of several databases on a given server and then pg_dumpall with suitable
parameters to get only those bits and nothing else. User defined stuff, views etc. are all in a given
database so they will be in the pg_dump.

HTH,

Greg Williamson

On Mon, Jul 20, 2009 at 4:23 PM, APseudoUtopia<apseudoutopia@gmail.com> wrote:
> Hey,
>
> I'm writing a backup script. Right now, I only have one database on my
> postgresql server. I'm deciding if I should use pg_dump or pg_dumpall when
> backing up the server. As far as I can tell, pg_dumpall cannot compress the
> dumps automatically and it only dumps data in the standard SQL text file
> format. This means that I would not be able to use pg_restore to selectively
> restore the database, correct?
>
> What is *NOT* included in a pg_dump that IS in pg_dumpall (Other than all
> the databases)? Things like user-defined functions and datatypes? Roles?
> Views?
>
> I was leaning towards pg_dumpall, but then I realized that it only dumps in
> the standard SQL text file format, and it cannot be compressed
> automatically.

I use pg_dump on databases and pg_dumpall --globals to get the user
accounts and such.

APseudoUtopia wrote:
> I'm writing a backup script. Right now, I only have one database on my
> postgresql server. I'm deciding if I should use pg_dump or pg_dumpall
> when backing up the server. As far as I can tell, pg_dumpall cannot
> compress the dumps automatically and it only dumps data in the
> standard SQL text file format. This means that I would not be able to
> use pg_restore to selectively restore the database, correct?
>
> What is *NOT* included in a pg_dump that IS in pg_dumpall (Other than
> all the databases)? Things like user-defined functions and datatypes?
> Roles? Views?
>
> I was leaning towards pg_dumpall, but then I realized that it only
> dumps in the standard SQL text file format, and it cannot be
> compressed automatically.

Things that span all databases in your cluster (like your roles) do not
get saved with pg_dump. So yes, if you only have one database,
pg_dumpall is probably what you should be using. You can always pipe the
output of pg_dumpall to your compression program of choice.

APseudoUtopia wrote:
> Hey,
>
> I'm writing a backup script. Right now, I only have one database on my
> postgresql server. I'm deciding if I should use pg_dump or pg_dumpall
> when backing up the server. As far as I can tell, pg_dumpall cannot
> compress the dumps automatically and it only dumps data in the
> standard SQL text file format. This means that I would not be able to
> use pg_restore to selectively restore the database, correct?
>
> What is *NOT* included in a pg_dump that IS in pg_dumpall (Other than
> all the databases)? Things like user-defined functions and datatypes?
> Roles? Views?

views are part of a database, so they are included, so are user defined
functions.    whats not included are, primarily, roles/users.
>
> I was leaning towards pg_dumpall, but then I realized that it only
> dumps in the standard SQL text file format, and it cannot be
> compressed automatically.

pgdumpall ....   | gzip > dumpfile.sql.gz

John R Pierce wrote:
> APseudoUtopia wrote:
> ...
>>
>> I was leaning towards pg_dumpall, but then I realized that it only
>> dumps in the standard SQL text file format, and it cannot be
>> compressed automatically.
>
> pgdumpall ....   | gzip > dumpfile.sql.gz
>
>
>
That deals with compression. But if you want to use the new
parallel-restore feature in 8.4 pg_restore which can be *way* faster if
you have multiple cores available then you will need to backup using
pg_dump with the custom format (-Fc).

Cheers,
Steve

On 2009-07-20, APseudoUtopia <apseudoutopia@gmail.com> wrote:
> --001636c5b16936e279046f2a9776
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
>
> Hey,
>
> I'm writing a backup script. Right now, I only have one database on my
> postgresql server. I'm deciding if I should use pg_dump or pg_dumpall when
> backing up the server. As far as I can tell, pg_dumpall cannot compress the
> dumps automatically and it only dumps data in the standard SQL text file
> format. This means that I would not be able to use pg_restore to selectively
> restore the database, correct?
>
> What is *NOT* included in a pg_dump that IS in pg_dumpall (Other than all
> the databases)? Things like user-defined functions and datatypes? Roles?
> Views?

roles mostly AIUI

> I was leaning towards pg_dumpall, but then I realized that it only dumps in
> the standard SQL text file format, and it cannot be compressed
> automatically.

you can pipe its product through your favourite stream compressor (lzma, bzip2,
gzip etc)