On Fri, 22 Aug 2008, Tena Sakai wrote:
> Many thanks, Jeff.
>
> I am now clued in as to what "postgres" means in the
> context of "psql -f infile postgres". Also, thanks
> for a tip for stdout and stderr redirection.
>
> What I am still a bit shaky is whether or not I should
> issue "createdb" prior to restore. I would appreciate
> it if you could elucidate.
>
No, if you look at the dumpall file, it contains all the 'create database'
commands to recreate the DBs that were dumped.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Jeff Frost [mailto:jeff@frostconsultingllc.com]
> Sent: Fri 8/22/2008 3:18 PM
> To: Tena Sakai
> Cc: pgsql-admin@postgresql.org
> Subject: Re: [ADMIN] restoring from dump
>
> On Fri, 22 Aug 2008, Tena Sakai wrote:
>
>> Hi Everybody,
>>
>> I had a machine crash a couple of days ago, from which
>> I have recovered (ie., postgres is running now), but I
>> want to restore from a dump I had made. The dump is
>> made by pg_dumpall and I have a gzipped file.
>>
>> I am a bit unclear as to how to proceed.
>>
>> (A) I get rid of what I have now and use createdb to
>> make a "new" database and use psql.
>>
>> (B) Don't bother with createdb and let the tables be
>> overwritten.
>>
>> Also the manual tells me (in section 24.1.2):
>> psql -f infile postgres
>> The last parameter: "postgres" is this the database
>> super-user? If so, do I need to spell it out if I am
>> logged in as user postgres? If not, what is this?
>
> Tena,
>
> If you have a gzipped dumpall file, then you would restore it like so:
>
> zcat dumpall.gz | psql postgres
>
> I generally redirect the stdout and stderr output to files for later review
> like this:
>
> zcat dumpall.gz | psql postgres > /tmp/restore.out 2> /tmp/restore.err
>
>
> In this case 'postgres' is the initial database that you're connecting to with
> psql. This is sometimes called the maintenance database. The dumpall file
> will contain all the create database commands necessary for restoring every
> database that was dumped.
>
>
--
Jeff Frost, Owner <jeff@frostconsultingllc.com>
Frost Consulting, LLC http://www.frostconsultingllc.com/
Phone: 916-647-6411 FAX: 916-405-4032