Replicate your PostgreSQL database into another server using just one command.

Sometimes we need to replicate our production postgreSQL database to development/staging database in order to test new features with the existing data.

The common way is to dump the database to file, then using scp transfer the file to the new server and create the database from that file.

But, we can archive that without creating an intermediate file, just using a single command, using a single pipe.

pg_dump -C -h remotehost -U remoteuser dbname | psql -h localhost -U localuser dbname

If you development database already contains data, you should drop it first in order to avoid errors creating duplicated data.

psql -h localhost -U localuser dbname -c "drop schema public cascade; create schema public;"

I found this command very helpful because it's quite simple.

Note:
Test it using backup database or backup your current db first.

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Comments

[rhymes]

Nice tip!

You just reminded me of one more. If you have a big database you can save some time:

• using serial dumping with a custom format: pg_dump -Fc | pg_restore (instead of using SQL which is the default)
• using parallel restore with:

pg_dump -Fc DB_NAME -f DUMP_FILE.gz && pg_restore -d TARGET_DB -j NUM_CORES DUMP_FILE.gz

or

pg_dump -Fd DB_NAME DUMP_FOLDER && pg_restore -d TARGET_DB -j NUM_CORES DUMP_FOLDER

• using both parallel dumping and parallel restore:

pg_dump -Fd -j NUM_CORES DB_NAME -f DUMP_FOLDER && pg_restore -d TARGET_DB -j NUM_CORES DUMP_FOLDER

Hope it helps :D

[Levi Velázquez]

Thx, nice to know it.

[Mazharul islam]

thanks