PG_RENAMECLUSTER(1)

✨ NAME ✨

okay so bestie, meet pg_renamecluster — the little glow-up artist that renames a PostgreSQL cluster 💅 like, it gives your cluster a whole new name and everything follows along.

🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

pg_renamecluster version oldname newname

🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

So here's the tea ☕ pg_renamecluster changes the name of a PostgreSQL cluster — and by "name" we mean the name of the config directory living in /etc/postgresql/version/, plus the data directory over in /var/lib/postgresql/version/. Both of them get the rebrand. ✨

Existing log files in /var/log/postgresql/ get renamed too, because leaving them with the old name would be, like, so not the vibe. 🎀

To pull this off, the cluster is stopped and started for the operation — no sneaky background renaming here, she does it properly.

And the following postgresql.conf config options get updated so they point at the new path names 🫶:

• data_directory
• hba_file
• ident_file
• external_pid_file
• stats_temp_directory
• cluster_name

💖 OPTIONS 💖

None.

(yeah, fr fr — not a single flag. she just does the thing. iconic behavior honestly 👑)

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👀 SEE ALSO 👀

• pg_createcluster(8)
• pg_dropcluster(8)
• pg_lsclusters(1)
• pg_wrapper(1)

🌈 AUTHOR 🌈

Christoph Berg <myon@debian.org>

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okay that's the whole page bestie, mwah 💜 this one came from the Debian PostgreSQL infrastructure crew, dated 2026-07-28 — go rename something slayfully, and remember: stop, rename, start, periodt. 🎀✨