Re: converting older databases

Sathish Duraiswamy wrote:
> hai
>
> Recently we migrated our database from 8.2.4 to 8.2.12 , went through
> manuals and followed the below steps
>
> 1.pg_dumpall to take data dump  of current database
> 2.stopped database
> 3.moved the pgsql to backup folder
> 4.downloaded 8.2.12 , configured - gmake - gmake install
> 5.recreated cluster directory
> 6.restored the database with datadump
>
> It was like complete re-installation process.
>
> Can anyone explain a alternative method to upgrade a existing database

details vary with platform and how postgresql was installed in the first
place.  with a 8.2.x install from the pgdg82 yum repositories on a
rhel/centos/fedora platform

    $ yum upgrade postgresql-server

would have sufficed.   its only necessary to dump/restore when going
between major versions (8.2.x to 8.3.x, for instance), or when making
architecture changes (x86_32 to x86_64, or float timestamp to integer
timestamp).