Re: Backup

On 10/16/24 12:52, Tomas Vondra wrote:
> On 10/16/24 21:37, Andy Hartman wrote:
>> I am very new to Postgres and have always worked in the mssql world. I'm

> You didn't specify the Postgres version - that matters, because older
> pg_dump versions (before PG 16) do not support compression. Since PG 16
> you can use either -Fc or -Fd (instead of the tar format), and it'll
> compress the output using gzip.

Oh, it goes back further then that:

https://www.postgresql.org/docs/7.1/app-pgdump.html

"-F format, --format=format

Format can be one of the following:

p

output a plain text SQL script file (default)
t

output a tar archive suitable for input into pg_restore. Using
this archive format allows reordering and/or exclusion of schema
elements at the time the database is restored. It is also possible to
limit which data is reloaded at restore time.
c

output a custom archive suitable for input into pg_restore.
This is the most flexible format in that it allows reordering of data
load as well as schema elements. This format is also compressed by default.

"

>
> Alternatively, you can use --compress=method:level (the supported
> methods depend on how the packages were built, no idea what platform
> you're on etc.). See
>
> https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/app-pgdump.html
>
> If you're on older version, you should be able to write the dump to
> standard output, and compress that way. Something like
>
> pg_dump -Fc | gzip -c > compressed.dump.gz
>
> However, be aware that pg_dump is more an export tool than a backup
> suitable for large databases / quick recovery. It won't allow doing PITR
> and similar stuff.
>
>
> regards
>

--
Adrian Klaver
adrian(dot)klaver(at)aklaver(dot)com