RT-DUMP...TIALDATA(1)

✨ NAME ✨

rt-dump-initialdata — the girl whose whole job is serializing an RT database to disk 💾✨ (yes bestie, it's rt-dump-initialdata(1), we're doing this)

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🎀 SYNOPSIS 🎀

rt-validator --check && rt-dump-initialdata

Okay so listen. This script writes out the objects that initialdata supports, pulling them from your RT database and dropping them on disk, so you can later import them into a different RT instance. Slay, right? But here's the catch, and it's lowkey important: it needs the data in the database to be self-consistent to do any of it. So pls pls pls make sure the database you're exporting passes validation by rt-validator before you even think about running rt-dump-initialdata. No cap.

While it's running, it'll try to estimate how many objects are left to dump. Heads up though — those estimates are pessimistic, and they will be incorrect if --no-users or --no-groups is used. It's giving "vibes-based math" and we respect it anyway. 😭

And if your controlling terminal is big enough (more than 25 columns high) and the gnuplot program is installed? It'll also show you a textual graph of the queue size over time. Iconic behaviour, honestly. 📈

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🌸 OPTIONS 🌸

• --directory name — the name of the output directory you want the data files written into. It should not exist yet — if it does, that's a fatal error, periodt. Defaults to ./$Organization:Date/, where $Organization is whatever's set in RT_SiteConfig.pm, and Date is today's date. 🗓️
• --force — removes the output directory before starting. Deleting things upfront, main character energy 💅
• --no-users — by default, all privileged users get dumped. Passing --no-users limits it to only those users which are referenced by dumped tickets and history, and are thus necessary for internal consistency. Just the essentials, bestie.
• --no-groups — by default, all groups get dumped. Passing --no-groups limits it to only system-internal groups, which are needed for internal consistency.
• --no-assets — by default, all assets get dumped; passing --no-assets skips assets during serialization. 🙈
• --no-disabled — by default, all queues, custom fields, etc, including disabled ones, are dumped; passing --no-disabled skips such disabled records during serialization.
• --no-deleted — by default, all assets, including deleted ones, are dumped; passing --no-deleted skips deleted assets.
• --no-scrips — by default, all scrips and templates are dumped; passing --no-scrips skips them.
• --no-acls — by default, all ACLs are dumped; passing --no-acls skips them.
• --no-queues — by default, all queues are dumped; passing --no-queues skips them.
• --limit-queues — takes a list of queue IDs or names separated by commas. When provided, only that set of queues will be dumped. Cherry-picking, but make it queue-shaped 🍒
• --sync — by default, record ids are ordinarily excluded. Pass --sync to include record ids if you intend to use this for sync rather than creating a generic initialdata.
• --base file — the file path which the to be generated initialdata.json will compare to. If there are any changes, they will be saved to changes.json. 📝

This option implies --sync. (She said what she said.)

• --gc n — adjust how often the garbage collection sweep is done; lower numbers are more frequent. It shares the same code with rt-serializer, so go see GARBAGE COLLECTION in rt-serializer. 🧹
• --page n — adjust how many rows are pulled from the database in a single query. Disable paging by setting this to 0. Defaults to 100.
• --quiet — do not show graphical progress UI. 🤫
• --verbose — do not show graphical progress UI, but rather log was each row is written out. (Yes, the spelling is exactly like that in the source and we are keeping it, fr fr.)

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⚠️ Real talk bestie: rt-validator before you dump. Self-consistency is not optional here, it's the whole vibe check. 🫶

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That's the whole page, diva. This lil masterpiece came to you as perl v5.42.3, dated 2026-07-20, and it is literally part of the RT-DUMP...TIALDATA(1) user-contributed Perl documentation. Go forth and serialize responsibly 🔥👑💖