Historical version. PostgreSQL 8.2 has reached end of support. See the current manual.
Chapter 23. Backup and Restore
- Table of Contents
- 23.1. SQL Dump
- 23.1.1. Restoring the dump
- 23.1.2. Using pg_dumpall
- 23.1.3. Handling large databases
- 23.2. File System Level Backup
- 23.3. Continuous Archiving and Point-In-Time Recovery (PITR)
- 23.3.1. Setting up WAL archiving
- 23.3.2. Making a Base Backup
- 23.3.3. Recovering using a Continuous Archive Backup
- 23.3.4. Timelines
- 23.3.5. Caveats
- 23.4. Warm Standby Servers for High Availability
- 23.4.1. Planning
- 23.4.2. Implementation
- 23.4.3. Failover
- 23.4.4. Record-based Log Shipping
- 23.4.5. Incrementally Updated Backups
- 23.5. Migration Between Releases
As with everything that contains valuable data, PostgreSQL databases should be backed up regularly. While the procedure is essentially simple, it is important to have a basic understanding of the underlying techniques and assumptions.
There are three fundamentally different approaches to backing up PostgreSQL data:
SQL dump
File system level backup
Continuous archiving
Each has its own strengths and weaknesses.
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