How to Backup and Restore PostgreSQL Database (5 Tips)

PostgreSQL database server (also known as Postgres) is an advance database management system. The Postgres server provides psql, pg_dump and pg_dumpall command line utilities to backup and restore databases.

This article will describe various ways to use of pg_dump command to backup database. Also you will learn how to restore postgres database backup via command line.

Backup and Restore Database in Postgres

Below is some connections options which you can use for connecting remote server or authenticated server with all queries given in this article.

• -d, --dbname=DBNAME database name
• -h, --host=HOSTNAME database server hostname or ip
• -p, --port=PORT database server port number (default: 5432)
• -U, --username=NAME connect as specified database user
• -W, --password force password prompt
• --role=ROLENAME do SET ROLE before dump

1. PostgreSQL Backup Single Database

• Backup a single database in PostgreSQL server. Use “-d” comamnd line option to provide database name to pg_dump command. Make sure to replace your actual database name in place of mydb.

  pg_dump -h localhost -U postgres -W -d mydb > mydb.sql 
  

• Restore a single database from backup in PostgreSQL. Just use “psql” command to restore PostgreSQL database.

  psql -h localhost -U postgres -W -d mydb < mydb.sql 
  

2. PostgreSQL Backup All Databases

• Backup all databases in PostgreSQL using pg_dumpall utility.

  pg_dumpall -h localhost -U postgres -W > alldbs.sql 
  

• Restore: all database backup using following command.

  psql -h localhost -U postgres -W < alldbs.sql 
  

3. PostgreSQL Backup Single Table

• Backup: a single table named mytable from mydb database.

  pg_dump -h localhost -U postgres -d mydb -W -t table_1 > mydb-table_1.sql 
  

• Restore: single table backup to database. Make sure your backup file contains only single table backup which you want to restore.

  psql -h localhost -U postgres -W -d mydb < mydb-table_1.sql 
  

4. Compressed Backup and Restore Database

• Backup PostgreSQL database in compressed format. Use gzip command line utility to accept piped backup data and make archive file.

  pg_dump -h localhost -U postgres -W -d mydb | gzip > mydb.sql.gz 
  

• Restore database from compressed backup file directly. Here gunzip will extract backup file and send data to psql command via pipe interface.

  gunzip -c mydb.sql.gz | psql -h localhost -U postgres -W -d mydb 
  

5. Split Backup in Multiple Files and Restore

• Backup: PostgreSQL database and split backup in multiple files of specified size. It helps us to backup a large database and transfer to other host easily. As per below example it will split backup files of 100mb in size.

  pg_dump -h localhost -U postgres -W -d mydb | split -b 100m – mydb.pql 
  

• Restore: database backup from multiple splited backup files.

  cat mydb.sql* | psql -h localhost -U postgres -W -d mydb 
  

• Backup: database in compressed splited files of specified size.

  pg_dump -h localhost -U postgres -W -d mydb | gzip | split -b 100m – mydb.sql.gz 
  

• Restore: database from multiple files of compressed files.

  cat mydb.sql.gz* | gunzip | psql -h localhost -U postgres -W -d mydb 
  

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you have learned about backup and restore of PostgreSQL server database, tables.