Re: Backing Up a Postgres database...

On Wed, 2003-09-24 at 13:51, Jonathan Telep wrote:
> Hello, I'm not sure who I should be posing this question to but I'm a
> System Administrator who has inherited several Debian Linux servers one
> of which apparently hosts a rather large Postgres database. One of my
> responsibilites is to back that database up each night and be able to
> recover it "on the fly" in the event of a problem. I have no idea how
> to even check which version of Postgres is loaded on this server, let
> alone, be able to back it up.
>
> Is there anyone who can give me just some basic commands on how to shut
> it down each night, back it up, verify that the back up is good and what
> to do in the event that I ever have to restore it? I know it seems like
> a lot but I'm swamped with a million things to do and would rather not
> have to read a couple hundred pages of material if I can avoid it.

If Postgresql was installed via apt, then you can start/stop it
using /etc/init.d/postgresql.

Backup with pg_dump, and restore with pg_restore.
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/7.3/static/index.html
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/7.3/static/reference-client.html
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/7.3/static/app-pgdump.html
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/7.3/static/app-pg-dumpall.html
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/7.3/static/app-pgrestore.html

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Ron Johnson, Jr. ron(dot)l(dot)johnson(at)cox(dot)net
Jefferson, LA USA

"As the night fall does not come at once, neither does
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