How Do I Backup My PostgreSQL Database with Cron?

Question

I can run commands like vacuumdb, pg_dump, and psql just fine in a script if I preface them like so:

/usr/bin/sudo -u postgres /usr/bin/pg_dump -Fc mydatabase &g         


        

Answer 1

Another version to get the list of databases:
psql -lqt | grep -vE '^ +(template[0-9]+|postgres)? *\|' | cut -d'|' -f1| sed -e 's/ //g' -e '/^$/d'

As my psql -lqt output is:

 abcdefghij         | postgres | UTF8     | en_US.UTF-8 | en_US.UTF-8 | 
 postgres           | postgres | UTF8     | en_US.UTF-8 | en_US.UTF-8 | 
 template0          | postgres | UTF8     | en_US.UTF-8 | en_US.UTF-8 | =c/postgres          +
                    |          |          |             |             | postgres=CTc/postgres
 template1          | postgres | UTF8     | en_US.UTF-8 | en_US.UTF-8 | =c/postgres          +
                    |          |          |             |             | postgres=CTc/postgres
 abc                | postgres | UTF8     | en_US.UTF-8 | en_US.UTF-8 | 

Answer 2

databases=psql -h localhost -U postgres -q -x -t -c "\l" | grep 'Name' | sed 's/ //g' | sed 's/Name|//g'

Answer 3

I have set my cron like this. Every 59 minutes since monday to friday

*/59 * * * 1-5 sh /home/my_user/scripts/back_my_bd.sh 

The script to run the backup is inside back_my_bd.sh file and the content is:

pg_dump -U USERDATABASE DATABASENAME > /home/my_user/sql/mybackup.sql

And i created the .pgpass file inside home directory to allow the backup whithout specify the user and password

localhost:5432:DATABASENAME:USER:PASSWORD

Sorry my english is not good!

Answer 4

I have a dynamic bash script that backs up all the databases on the server. It gets a list of all the databases and then vacuums each DB before performing a backup. All logs are written to a file and then that log is emailed to me. This is something you could use if you want.

Copy the code below into a file and add the file to your crontab. I have setup my pg_hba.conf to trust local connections.

#!/bin/bash
logfile="/backup/pgsql.log"
backup_dir="/backup"
touch $logfile
databases=`psql -h localhost -U postgres -q -c "\l" | sed -n 4,/\eof/p | grep -v rows\) | grep -v template0 | grep -v template1 | awk {'print $1'}`

echo "Starting backup of databases " >> $logfile
for i in $databases; do
        dateinfo=`date '+%Y-%m-%d %H:%M:%S'`
        timeslot=`date '+%Y%m%d%H%M'`
        /usr/bin/vacuumdb -z -h localhost -U postgres $i >/dev/null 2>&1
        /usr/bin/pg_dump -U postgres -i -F c -b $i -h 127.0.0.1 -f $backup_dir/$i-database-$timeslot.backup
        echo "Backup and Vacuum complete on $dateinfo for database: $i " >> $logfile
done
echo "Done backup of databases " >> $logfile

tail -15 /backup/pgsql.log | mailx youremail@domain.com

Answer 5

Since you seem to have superuser rights anyway, you could put those commands into the crontab of the postgres user like so:

sudo su postgres
crontab -e

and then put the pg_dump/vacuumdb commands there.

Answer 6

Instead of the following command: databases=psql -h localhost -U postgres -q -c "\l" | sed -n 4,/\eof/p | grep -v rows\) | grep -v template0 | grep -v template1 | awk {'print $1'}

You can use below: databases=psql -t -c "select datname from pg_database where datname not like 'template%';" | grep -v '^$'

The first one return '|' for template databases and an empty line.

The second one is cleaner.