Chapter 25. Backup and Restore

Table of Contents

25.1. SQL Dump : 25.1.1. Restoring the Dump

[25.1.2. Using pg_dumpall](backup-dump.md#BACKUP-DUMP-ALL)

[25.1.3. Handling Large Databases](backup-dump.md#BACKUP-DUMP-LARGE)

25.2. File System Level Backup

25.3. Continuous Archiving and Point-in-Time Recovery (PITR) : 25.3.1. Setting Up WAL Archiving

[25.3.2. Making a Base Backup](continuous-archiving.md#BACKUP-BASE-BACKUP)

[25.3.3. Making a Base Backup Using the Low Level API](continuous-archiving.md#BACKUP-LOWLEVEL-BASE-BACKUP)

[25.3.4. Recovering Using a Continuous Archive Backup](continuous-archiving.md#BACKUP-PITR-RECOVERY)

[25.3.5. Timelines](continuous-archiving.md#BACKUP-TIMELINES)

[25.3.6. Tips and Examples](continuous-archiving.md#BACKUP-TIPS)

[25.3.7. Caveats](continuous-archiving.md#CONTINUOUS-ARCHIVING-CAVEATS)

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 clear 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; each is discussed in turn in the following sections.