vacuumdb — garbage-collect and analyze a PostgreSQL database
vacuumdb [connection-option...] [option...] [ -t | --table table [( column [,...] )] ] ... [dbname]
vacuumdb [connection-option...] [option...] -a | --all
vacuumdb is a utility for cleaning a PostgreSQL database. vacuumdb will also generate internal statistics used by the PostgreSQL query optimizer.
vacuumdb is a wrapper around the SQL command VACUUM. There is no effective difference between vacuuming and analyzing databases via this utility and via other methods for accessing the server.
vacuumdb accepts the following command-line arguments:
-a--allVacuum all databases.
[-d] dbname[--dbname=]dbnameSpecifies the name of the database to be cleaned or analyzed, when -a/--all is not used. If this is not specified, the database name is read from the environment variable PGDATABASE. If that is not set, the user name specified for the connection is used. The dbname can be a connection string. If so, connection string parameters will override any conflicting command line options.
--disable-page-skippingDisable skipping pages based on the contents of the visibility map.
This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 9.6 and later.
-e--echoEcho the commands that vacuumdb generates and sends to the server.
-f--fullPerform “full” vacuuming.
-F--freezeAggressively “freeze” tuples.
-j njobs--jobs=njobsExecute the vacuum or analyze commands in parallel by running njobs commands simultaneously. This option may reduce the processing time but it also increases the load on the database server.
vacuumdb will open njobs connections to the database, so make sure your max_connections setting is high enough to accommodate all connections.
Note that using this mode together with the -f (FULL) option might cause deadlock failures if certain system catalogs are processed in parallel.
--min-mxid-age mxid_ageOnly execute the vacuum or analyze commands on tables with a multixact ID age of at least mxid_age. This setting is useful for prioritizing tables to process to prevent multixact ID wraparound (see Section 24.1.5.1).
For the purposes of this option, the multixact ID age of a relation is the greatest of the ages of the main relation and its associated TOAST table, if one exists. Since the commands issued by vacuumdb will also process the TOAST table for the relation if necessary, it does not need to be considered separately.
This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 9.6 and later.
--min-xid-age xid_ageOnly execute the vacuum or analyze commands on tables with a transaction ID age of at least xid_age. This setting is useful for prioritizing tables to process to prevent transaction ID wraparound (see Section 24.1.5).
For the purposes of this option, the transaction ID age of a relation is the greatest of the ages of the main relation and its associated TOAST table, if one exists. Since the commands issued by vacuumdb will also process the TOAST table for the relation if necessary, it does not need to be considered separately.
This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 9.6 and later.
-P parallel_workers--parallel=parallel_workersSpecify the number of parallel workers for parallel vacuum. This allows the vacuum to leverage multiple CPUs to process indexes. See VACUUM.
This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 13 and later.
-q--quietDo not display progress messages.
--skip-lockedSkip relations that cannot be immediately locked for processing.
This option is only available for servers running PostgreSQL 12 and later.
-t table [ (column [,...]) ]--table=table [ (column [,...]) ]Clean or analyze table only. Column names can be specified only in conjunction with the --analyze or --analyze-only options. Multiple tables can be vacuumed by writing multiple -t switches.
If you specify columns, you probably have to escape the parentheses from the shell. (See examples below.)
-v--verbosePrint detailed information during processing.
-V--versionPrint the vacuumdb version and exit.
-z--analyzeAlso calculate statistics for use by the optimizer.
-Z--analyze-onlyOnly calculate statistics for use by the optimizer (no vacuum).
--analyze-in-stagesOnly calculate statistics for use by the optimizer (no vacuum), like --analyze-only. Run several (currently three) stages of analyze with different configuration settings, to produce usable statistics faster.
This option is useful to analyze a database that was newly populated from a restored dump or by pg_upgrade. This option will try to create some statistics as fast as possible, to make the database usable, and then produce full statistics in the subsequent stages.
-?--helpShow help about vacuumdb command line arguments, and exit.
vacuumdb also accepts the following command-line arguments for connection parameters:
-h host--host=hostSpecifies 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.
-p port--port=portSpecifies the TCP port or local Unix domain socket file extension on which the server is listening for connections.
-U username--username=usernameUser name to connect as.
-w--no-passwordNever 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--passwordForce vacuumdb to prompt for a password before connecting to a database.
This option is never essential, since vacuumdb will automatically prompt for a password if the server demands password authentication. However, vacuumdb 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.
--maintenance-db=dbnameSpecifies the name of the database to connect to to discover which databases should be vacuumed, when -a/--all is used. If not specified, the postgres database will be used, or if that does not exist, template1 will be used. This can be a connection string. If so, connection string parameters will override any conflicting command line options. Also, connection string parameters other than the database name itself will be re-used when connecting to other databases.
PGDATABASEPGHOSTPGPORTPGUSERDefault connection parameters
PG_COLORSpecifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. Possible values are always, auto and never.
This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the environment variables supported by libpq (see Section 33.14).
In case of difficulty, see VACUUM and psql for discussions of potential problems and error messages. The database server must be running at the targeted host. Also, any default connection settings and environment variables used by the libpq front-end library will apply.
vacuumdb might need to connect several times to the PostgreSQL server, asking for a password each time. It is convenient to have a ~/.pgpass file in such cases. See Section 33.15 for more information.
To clean the database test:
$vacuumdb test
To clean and analyze for the optimizer a database named bigdb:
$vacuumdb --analyze bigdb
To clean a single table foo in a database named xyzzy, and analyze a single column bar of the table for the optimizer:
$vacuumdb --analyze --verbose --table='foo(bar)' xyzzy
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