gs_dump

Functions

gs_dump can create export files in four formats, which are specified by -F or --format=, as listed in Table 1.

Table 1 Formats of exported files

Format	Value of -F	Description	Suggestion	Corresponding Import Tool
Plain-text	p	A plain-text script file containing SQL statements and commands. The commands can be executed on gsql, a command line terminal, to recreate database objects and load table data.	You are advised to use plain-text export files for small databases.	Before using gsql to restore database objects, you can use a text editor to edit the exported plain-text file as required.
Custom	c	A binary file that allows the restoration of all or selected database objects from an exported file.	You are advised to use custom-format archive files for medium or large database.	You can use gs_restore to import database objects from a custom-format archive.
Directory	d	A directory containing directory files and the data files of tables and BLOB objects.	-
.tar	t	A tar-format archive that allows the restoration of all or selected database objects from an exported file. It cannot be further compressed and has an 8-GB limitation on the size of a single table.	-

To reduce the size of an exported file, you can use the gs_dump tool to compress it to a plain-text file or custom-format file. By default, a plain-text file is not compressed when generated. When a custom-format archive is generated, a medium level of compression is applied by default. Archived exported files cannot be compressed using gs_dump.

Syntax

gs_dump [OPTION]... [DBNAME]

DBNAME does not follow a short or long option. It specifies the database to connect to.

For example:

Specify DBNAME without a -d option preceding it.

gs_dump -p port_number  postgres -f dump1.sql

Or

export PGDATABASE=postgres 

 gs_dump -p port_number -f dump1.sql

Environment variable: PGDATABASE

• -a, --data-only

  Generates only the data, not the schema (data definition). Dumps the table data, big objects, and sequence values.

• -b, --blobs

  Specifies a reserved port for function expansion. This parameter is not recommended.

• -c, --clean

  Before writing the command of creating database objects into the backup file, write the command of clearing (deleting) database objects to the backup files. (If no objects exist in the target database, gs_restore probably displays some error information.)

  This parameter is used only for the plain-text format. For the archive format, you can specify the option when using gs_restore.

• -C, --create

  The backup file content starts with the commands of creating the database and connecting to the created database. (If the script is in this format, any database to be connected is allowed before running the script.)

  This parameter is used only for the plain-text format. For the archive format, you can specify the option when using gs_restore.

• -E, --encoding=ENCODING

  Creates a dump file in the specified character set encoding. By default, the dump file is created in the database encoding. (Alternatively, you can set the environment variable PGCLIENTENCODING to the required dump encoding.)

• -n, --schema=SCHEMA

  Dumps only schemas matching the schema names. This option contains the schema and all its contained objects. If this option is not specified, all non-system schemas in the target database will be dumped. Multiple schemas can be selected by specifying multiple -n options. The schema parameter is interpreted as a pattern according to the same rules used by the \d command of gsql. Therefore, multiple schemas can also be selected by writing wildcard characters in the pattern. When you use wildcards, quote the pattern to prevent the shell from expanding the wildcards.

  

  • If -n is specified, gs_dump does not dump any other database objects that the selected schemas might depend upon. Therefore, there is no guarantee that the results of a specific-schema dump can be automatically restored to an empty database.
  • If -n is specified, the non-schema objects are not dumped.

  Multiple schemas can be dumped. Entering -n schemaname multiple times dumps multiple schemas.

  For example:

  gs_dump -h host_name -p port_number postgres -f backup/bkp_shl2.sql -n sch1 -n sch2

  In the preceding example, sch1 and sch2 are dumped.

• -N, --exclude-schema=SCHEMA

  Does not dump any tables matching the table pattern. The pattern is interpreted according to the same rules as for -n. -N can be specified multiple times to exclude schemas matching any of the specified patterns.

  When both -n and -N are specified, the schemas that match at least one -n option but no -N is dumped. If -N is specified and -n is not, the schemas matching -N are excluded from what is normally dumped.

  Dump allows you to exclude multiple schemas during dumping.

  Specifies -N exclude schema name to exclude multiple schemas while dumping.

  For example:

  gs_dump -h host_name -p port_number postgres -f backup/bkp_shl2.sql -N sch1 -N sch2

  In the preceding example, sch1 and sch2 will be excluded during the dumping.

• -o, --oids

  Dumps object identifiers (OIDs) as parts of the data in each table. Use this parameter if your application references the OID columns in some way (for example, in a foreign key constraint). If the preceding situation does not occur, do not use this parameter.

• -O, --no-owner

  Do not output commands to set ownership of objects to match the original database. By default, gs_dump issues the ALTER OWNER or SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION command to set ownership of created database objects. These statements will fail when the script is running unless it is started by a system administrator (or the same user that owns all of the objects in the script). To make a script that can be stored by any user and give the user ownership of all objects, specify -O.

  This parameter is used only for the plain-text format. For the archive format, you can specify the option when using gs_restore.

• -s, --schema-only

  Dumps only the object definition (schema) but not data.

• -S, --sysadmin=NAME

  Specifies a reserved port for function expansion. This parameter is not recommended.

• -t, --table=TABLE

  Specifies a list of tables, views, sequences, or foreign tables to be dumped. You can use multiple -t parameters or wildcard characters to specify tables.

  When using wildcards to specify dump tables, quote the pattern to prevent the shell from expanding the wildcards.

  The -n and -N options have no effect when -t is used, because tables selected by using -t will be dumped regardless of those options, and non-table objects will not be dumped.

  

  The number of -t parameters must be less than or equal to 100.

  If the number of -t parameters is greater than 100, you are advised to use the --include-table-file parameter to replace some -t parameters.

  If -t is specified, gs_dump does not dump any other database objects that the selected tables might depend upon. Therefore, there is no guarantee that the results of a specific-table dump can be automatically restored to an empty database.

  -t tablename only dumps visible tables in the default search path. -t '*.tablename' dumps tablename tables in all the schemas of the dumped database. -t schema.table dumps tables in a specific schema.

  -t tablename does not export the trigger information from a table.

  For example:

  gs_dump -h host_name -p port_number postgres -f backup/bkp_shl2.sql -t schema1.table1 -t schema2.table2

  In the preceding example, schema1.table1 and schema2.table2 are dumped.

• --include-table-file=FILENAME

  Specifies the table file to be dumped.

• -T, --exclude-table=TABLE

  Specifies a list of tables, views, sequences, or foreign tables not to be dumped. You can use multiple -t parameters or wildcard characters to specify tables.

  When -t and -T are input, the object will be stored in -t list not -T table object.

  For example:

  gs_dump -h host_name -p port_number postgres -f backup/bkp_shl2.sql -T table1 -T table2

  In the preceding example, table1 and table2 are excluded from the dumping.

• --exclude-table-file=FILENAME

  Specifies the table file to be dumped.

  

  Same as --include-table-file, the content format of this parameter is as follows:

  schema1.table1

  schema2.table2

  ...

• -x, --no-privileges|--no-acl

  Prevents the dumping of access permissions (grant/revoke commands).

• --column-inserts|--attribute-inserts

  Exports data by running the INSERT command with explicit column names {INSERT INTO table (column, ...) VALUES ...}. This will cause a slow restoration. However, since this option generates an independent command for each row, an error in reloading a row causes only the loss of the row rather than the entire table content.

• --disable-dollar-quoting

  Disables the use of dollar sign ($) for function bodies, and forces them to be quoted using the SQL standard string syntax.

• --disable-triggers

  Specifies a reserved port for function expansion. This parameter is not recommended.

• --exclude-table-data=TABLE

  Does not dump data that matches any of table patterns. The pattern is interpreted according to the same rules as for -t.

  --exclude-table-data can be entered more than once to exclude tables matching any of several patterns. When the user needs the specified table definition rather than data in the table, this option is helpful.

  To exclude data of all tables in the database, see --schema-only.

• --inserts

  Dumps data when the INSERT statement (rather than COPY) is issued. This will cause a slow restoration.

  However, since this option generates an independent command for each row, an error in reloading a row causes only the loss of the row rather than the entire table content. The restoration may fail if you rearrange the column order. The --column-inserts option is unaffected against column order changes, though even slower.

• --no-security-labels

  Specifies a reserved port for function expansion. This parameter is not recommended.

• --no-tablespaces

  This parameter is no longer used in 8.2.0.100 and is only kept for compatibility with earlier versions.

  Does not issue commands to select tablespaces. All the objects will be created during the restoration process, no matter which tablespace is selected when using this option.

  This parameter is used only for the plain-text format. For the archive format, you can specify the option when using gs_restore.

• --no-unlogged-table-data

  Specifies a reserved port for function expansion. This parameter is not recommended.

• --non-lock-table

  Specifies a reserved port for function expansion. This parameter is not recommended.

• --quote-all-identifiers

  Forcibly quotes all identifiers. This parameter is useful when you dump a database for migration to a later version, in which additional keywords may be introduced.

• --section=SECTION

  Specifies dumped name sections (pre-data, data, or post-data).

• --serializable-deferrable

  Uses a serializable transaction for the dump to ensure that the used snapshot is consistent with later database status. Perform this operation at a time point in the transaction flow, at which everything is normal. This ensures successful transaction and avoids serialization failures of other transactions, which requires serialization again.

  This option has no benefits for disaster recovery. During the upgrade of the original database, load a database copy as a report or other shared read-only dump is helpful. The option does not exist, dump reveals a status which is different from the submitted sequence status of any transaction.

  This option will make no difference if there are no active read-write transactions when gs_dump is started. If the read-write transactions are in active status, the dump start time will be delayed for an uncertain period.

• --use-set-session-authorization

  Specifies that the standard SQL SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION command rather than ALTER OWNER is returned to ensure the object ownership. This makes dumping more standard. However, if a dump file contains objects that have historical problems, restoration may fail. A dump using SET SESSION AUTHORIZATION requires the system administrator rights, whereas ALTER OWNER requires lower permissions.

• --with-encryption=AES128

  Specifies that dumping data needs to be encrypted using AES128.

• --with-key=KEY

  Specifies that the key length of AES128 must be 16 bytes.

• --include-nodes

  Includes the TO NODE or TO GROUP statement in the dumped CREATE TABLE or CREATE FOREIGN TABLE statement. This parameter is valid only for HDFS and foreign tables.

• --include-extensions

  Includes extensions in the dump.

• --include-depend-objs

  Includes information about the objects that depend on the specified object in the backup result. This parameter takes effect only if the -t or --include-table-file parameter is specified.

• --exclude-self

  Excludes information about the specified object from the backup result. This parameter takes effect only if the -t or --include-table-file parameter is specified.

• --cstore-fine-disaster (Discarded)

  If this parameter is selected and a table whose fine_disaster_table_role is primary is dumped, a table definition whose fine_disaster_table_role is standby is generated.

  This parameter is discarded in 8.2.1.

• --only-publications

  If this parameter is specified, only the definitions of all publications (publication) in the current database are dumped. This parameter is supported by version 8.2.1 or later clusters.

• --dont-overwrite-file

  The existing files in plain-text, .tar, and custom formats will be overwritten. This parameter is not used for the directory format.

  For example:

  Assume that the backup.sql file exists in the current directory. If you specify -f backup.sql in the input command, and the backup.sql file is generated in the current directory, the original file will be overwritten.

  If the backup file already exists and --dont-overwrite-file is specified, an error will be reported with the message that the dump file exists.

  gs_dump -p port_number postgres -f backup.sql -F plain --dont-overwrite-file

• The -s/--schema-only and -a/--data-only parameters do not coexist.
• The -c/--clean and -a/--data-only parameters do not coexist.
• --inserts/--column-inserts and -o/--oids do not coexist, because OIDS cannot be set using the INSERT statement.
• --role must be used in conjunction with --rolepassword.
• --binary-upgrade-usermap must be used in conjunction with --binary-upgrade.
• --include-depend-objs/--exclude-self takes effect only when -t/--include-table-file is specified.
• --exclude-self must be used with --include-depend-objs.

Connection parameters:

• -h, --host=HOSTNAME

  Specifies the host name. If the value begins with a slash (/), it is used as the directory for the UNIX domain socket. The default is taken from the PGHOST environment variable (if available). Otherwise, a Unix domain socket connection is attempted.

  This parameter is used only for defining names of the hosts outside a cluster. The names of the hosts inside the cluster must be 127.0.0.1.

  Example: the host name

  Environment Variable: PGHOST

• -p, --port=PORT

  Specifies the host port.

  Environment variable: PGPORT

• -U, --username=NAME

  Specifies the user name of the host to connect to.

  Environment variable: PGUSER

• -w, --no-password

  Never issue a password prompt. The connection attempt fails if the host requires password verification and the password is not provided in other ways. This parameter is useful in batch jobs and scripts in which no user password is required.

• -W, --password=PASSWORD

  Specifies the user password to connect to. If the host uses the trust authentication policy, the administrator does not need to enter the -W option. If the -W option is not provided and you are not a system administrator, the Dump Restore tool will ask you to enter a password.

• --role=ROLENAME

  Specifies a role name to be used for creating the dump. If this option is selected, the SET ROLE command will be issued after the database is connected to gs_dump. It is useful when the authenticated user (specified by -U) lacks the permissions required by gs_dump. It allows the user to switch to a role with the required permissions. Some installations have a policy against logging in directly as a system administrator. This option allows dumping data without violating the policy.

• --rolepassword=ROLEPASSWORD

  Password for the role

Description

Scenario 1

If your database cluster has any local additions to the template1 database, restore the output of gs_dump into an empty database with caution. Otherwise, you are likely to obtain errors due to duplicate definitions of the added objects. To create an empty database without any local additions, copy data from template0 rather than template1. Example:

CREATE DATABASE foo WITH TEMPLATE template0;

The .tar format file size must be smaller than 8 GB. (This is the tar file format limitations.) The total size of a .tar archive and any of the other output formats are not limited, except possibly by the OS.

The dump file generated by gs_dump does not contain the statistics used by the optimizer to make execution plans. Therefore, you are advised to run ANALYZE after restoring from a dump file to ensure optimal performance. The dump file does not contain any ALTER DATABASE ... SET commands; these settings are dumped by gs_dumpall, along with database users and other installation settings.

Scenario 2

When the value of SEQUENCE reaches the maximum or minimum value, backing up the value of SEQUENCE using gs_dump will exit due to an execution error. Handle the problem by referring to the following example:

1. The value of SEQUENCE reaches the maximum value, but the maximum value is less than 2^63-2.

Error message example:

Object defined by sequence

CREATE SEQUENCE seq INCREMENT 1 MINVALUE 1 MAXVALUE 3 START WITH 1;

Perform the gs_dump backup.

gs_dump -U dbadmin -W {password} -p 37300 postgres -t PUBLIC.seq -f backup/MPPDB_backup.sql
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2019-12-27 15:09:49]: The total objects number is 337.
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2019-12-27 15:09:49]: WARNING:  get invalid xid from GTM because connection is not established
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2019-12-27 15:09:49]: WARNING:  Failed to receive GTM rollback transaction response  for aborting prepared (null).
gs_dump: [port='37300'] [postgres] [archiver (db)] [2019-12-27 15:09:49] query failed: ERROR:  Can not connect to gtm when getting gxid, there is a connection error.
gs_dump: [port='37300'] [postgres] [archiver (db)] [2019-12-27 15:09:49] query was: RELEASE bfnextval

Handling procedure:

Run the following SQL statement to connect to the PostgreSQL database and change the maximum value of sequence seq1:

gsql -p 37300 postgres -r -c "ALTER SEQUENCE PUBLIC.seq MAXVALUE 10;"

Use the dump tool to back up the data.

gs_dump -U dbadmin -W {password} -p 37300 postgres -t PUBLIC.seq -f backup/MPPDB_backup.sql
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2019-12-27 15:10:53]: The total objects number is 337.
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2019-12-27 15:10:53]: [100.00%] 337 objects have been dumped.
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2019-12-27 15:10:53]: dump database postgres successfully
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2019-12-27 15:10:53]: total time: 230  ms

2. The value of SEQUENCE reaches the minimum or the maximum value of 2^63-2.

The gs_dump command does not support backup of the SEQUENCE value in this scenario.

The SQL end does not support the modification of MAXVALUE when SEQUENCE reaches the maximum value of 2^63-2 or the modification of MINVALUE when SEQUENCE reaches the minimum value.

Scenario 3

gs_dump is mainly used to export metadata of the entire database. The performance of exporting a single table is optimized, but the performance of exporting multiple tables is poor. If multiple tables need to be exported, you are advised to export them one by one. Example:

gs_dump -U dbadmin -W {password} -p 37300 postgres -t public.table01 -s -f backup/table01.sql
gs_dump -U dbadmin -W {password} -p 37300 postgres -t public.table02 -s -f backup/table02.sql

When services are stopped or during off-peak hours, you can increase the value of --non-lock-table to improve the gs_dump performance. Example:

gs_dump -U dbadmin -W {password} -p 37300 postgres -t public.table03 -s --non-lock-table -f backup/table03.sql

Examples

Use gs_dump to dump a database as a SQL text file or a file in other formats.

In the following examples, password indicates the password configured by the database user. backup/MPPDB_backup.sql indicates an exported file where backup indicates the relative path of the current directory. 37300 indicates the port ID of the database server. postgres indicates the name of the database to be accessed.

Before exporting files, ensure that the directory exists and you have the read and write permissions on the directory.

Example 1: Use gs_dump to export the full information of the postgres database. The exported MPPDB_backup.sql file is in plain-text format.

gs_dump -U dbadmin -W {password} -f backup/MPPDB_backup.sql -p 37300 postgres -F p
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-27 09:49:17]: The total objects number is 356.
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-27 09:49:17]: [100.00%] 356 objects have been dumped.
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-27 09:49:17]: dump database postgres successfully
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-27 09:49:17]: total time: 1274  ms

Use gsql to import data from the export plain-text file.

Example 2: Use gs_dump to export the full information of the postgres database. The exported MPPDB_backup.tar file is in .tar format.

gs_dump -U dbadmin -W {password} -f backup/MPPDB_backup.tar -p 37300 postgres -F t
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-27 10:02:24]: The total objects number is 1369.
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-27 10:02:53]: [100.00%] 1369 objects have been dumped.
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-27 10:02:53]: dump database postgres successfully
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-27 10:02:53]: total time: 50086  ms

Example 3: Use gs_dump to export the full information of the postgres database. The exported MPPDB_backup.dmp file is in custom format.

gs_dump -U dbadmin -W {password} -f backup/MPPDB_backup.dmp -p 37300 postgres -F c
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-27 10:05:40]: The total objects number is 1369.
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-27 10:06:03]: [100.00%] 1369 objects have been dumped.
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-27 10:06:03]: dump database postgres successfully
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-27 10:06:03]: total time: 36620  ms

Example 4: Use gs_dump to export the full information of the postgres database. The exported MPPDB_backup file is in directory format.

gs_dump -U dbadmin -W {password} -f backup/MPPDB_backup -p 37300  postgres -F d
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-27 10:16:04]: The total objects number is 1369.
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-27 10:16:23]: [100.00%] 1369 objects have been dumped.
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-27 10:16:23]: dump database postgres successfully
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-27 10:16:23]: total time: 33977  ms 

Example 5: Use gs_dump to export the information of the postgres database, excluding the information of the table specified in the /home/MPPDB_temp.sql file. The exported MPPDB_backup.sql file is in plain-text format.

gs_dump -U dbadmin -W {password} -p 37300 postgres --exclude-table-file=/home/MPPDB_temp.sql -f backup/MPPDB_backup.sql
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-27 10:37:01]: The total objects number is 1367.
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-27 10:37:22]: [100.00%] 1367 objects have been dumped.
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-27 10:37:22]: dump database postgres successfully
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-27 10:37:22]: total time: 37017  ms

Example 6: Use gs_dump to export only the information about the views that depend on the testtable table. Create another testtable table, and then restore the views that depend on it.

Back up only the views that depend on the testtable table.

gs_dump -s -p 37300 postgres -t PUBLIC.testtable --include-depend-objs --exclude-self -f backup/MPPDB_backup.sql -F p
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-15 14:12:54]: The total objects number is 331.
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-15 14:12:54]: [100.00%] 331 objects have been dumped.
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-15 14:12:54]: dump database postgres successfully
gs_dump[port='37300'][postgres][2018-06-15 14:12:54]: total time: 327  ms

Change the name of the testtable table.

gsql -p 37300 postgres -r -c "ALTER TABLE PUBLIC.testtable RENAME TO testtable_bak;"

Create a testtable table.

CREATE TABLE PUBLIC.testtable(a int, b int, c int);

Restore the views for the new testtable table.

gsql -p 37300 postgres -r -f backup/MPPDB_backup.sql