Re: Moving postgresql data to another computer

Hi All,

Well, needless to say I naively copied the data over.

First off I did not stop the database server (thus violating
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/interactive/backup-file.html) and I
am not near my desktop. Does that mean my copy is in essence useless
and I have to start over ?

-Don

Richard Broersma wrote:
> On Tue, May 11, 2010 at 1:16 PM, Donald Catanzaro, PhD
> <dgcatanzaro(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
>
>> I am a newbie to PostgreSQL and I recently installed it on my desktop
>> (Windows XP) I created a database fine and worked a bunch of queries. I am
>> traveling now and I needed access to my database on my laptop (Windows
>> Vista). So before I left, I installed PosgreSQL on the laptop and then
>> copied the data in the PostgreSQL data directory over to my laptop.
>> I put the data directory from my desktop in a different place on my laptop
>> and now I would like to access the data but I can not seem to figure out how
>> to do this.
>>
>
> The easiest (and therefore safest) way to tranfer the databases from
> one server cluster to another is to dump the entire contents of the
> database to a text file and then load the text file onto the second
> server instance.
>
> This methods works as long as the second server instance postgresql
> version >= to the initial instance. Its best if both versions are the
> same if you want to transfer the data in both directions.
>
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/interactive/backup-dump.html
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/interactive/app-pg-dumpall.html
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/interactive/app-pgrestore.html
>
>
>> I naively tried to just replace all the files in the data directory on my
>> laptop with the files from the data directory of the desktop but when I do
>> so, I get the following error: "could not connect to server: Connection
>> refused (0x0000274D/10061) Is the server running on host "127.0.0.1" and
>> accepting TCP/IP connections on port 5432? "
>>
>
> Transferring the actual binary files is more risky since much more
> care is needed to insure a consistent and functional copy.
> Notice the method of creating a consistent copy:
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/interactive/backup-file.html
>
>
> If you have a consistent copy, you might need to point PostgreSQL to
> work from the copied data directory.
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.4/interactive/server-start.html
>
>
>

--
-Don

Don Catanzaro, PhD
Landscape Ecologist
dgcatanzaro(at)gmail(dot)com
16144 Sigmond Lane
Lowell, AR 72745
479-751-3616