PG_RESTORECLUSTER(1)

📦
version 293ubuntu1 · 8 versions
, in ubuntu stonking

✨ pg_restorecluster — the manual page bestie 💖

okay so picture this: it's <pink>pg_restorecluster</pink>, straight out of the Debian PostgreSQL infrastructure family, section 1 of the manual. she's the girl who brings your whole cluster back from the dead. no cap. 🫶

💫 NAME 💫

pg_restorecluster — restore from a pg_backupcluster backup 🌈

🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

pg_restorecluster [options] version cluster backup

👑 DESCRIPTION 👑

okay so here's the tea, bestie: pg_restorecluster restores a PostgreSQL cluster from a backup that was created by pg_backupcluster. 🦋 The cluster gets newly created in the system using the name you hand it on the command line — which, yes, means you can literally rename a cluster on restore. Main character energy fr fr. And the restored cluster's configuration gets updated to reflect that new name and new location, because she's nothing if not thorough. 💅

Now, the backup name you pass? It must end in either .basebackup or .dump. Usually that's gonna be the full path to a backup directory sitting in /var/backups/postgresql/version-cluster/, exactly the way pg_backupcluster ... list reports it. 📁✨

Basebackups get restored as-is, periodt. For dumps though, it's a different lil routine: pg_createcluster is used to create a new cluster, and then schema and data get restored via pg_restore. 🔥

✨ OPTIONS ✨

  • -d, --datadir DIR — use DIR as the data directory for the restored cluster. Default comes from createcluster.conf, and by default that's /var/lib/postgresql/version/cluster. 🍓
  • -p, --port N — use port N for the restored cluster. Default is the next free port. 🔌
  • -s, --start — start the cluster after restoring. Default is on when you're restoring from a dump, and off for basebackup restores. 🙈
And listen: after the cluster has been started, ANALYZE is run on all databases. She's proactive like that. 💅
  • --archive — configure the cluster for recovery from a WAL archive. This sets restore_command to retrieve WAL files from backup/../wal. 📦
  • --pitr TIMESTAMP
  • --recovery-target-time TIMESTAMP — on top of setting restore_command, this sets recovery_target_time to TIMESTAMP for point-in-time recovery. It also sets recovery_target_action='promote'. ⏰✨
  • --wal-archive DIR — for archive recovery, read the WAL from archive DIR. Default is backup/../wal. 🗂️

🌸 FILES 🌸

  • /var/backups — the default root directory for cluster backup directories.

Also, go peek at pg_backupcluster(1) for a description of files. iykyk. 📚

🧚 SEE ALSO 🧚

pg_backupcluster(1), pg_restore(1), vacuumdb(1).

💜 AUTHOR 💜

Christoph Berg <myon@debian.org> 💖

and that's the whole vibe, bestie — this page is from the Debian PostgreSQL infrastructure crew, version dated 2026-07-28. go restore something iconic. slay. 👑🌈💅

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