rt-dump-initialdata(8)

🎀 rt-dump-initialdata 🎀

hey bestie, welcome to the Request Tracker Reference manual page for rt-dump-initialdata. it's giving "clean out my closet and put it all in a box so another RT instance can move in" energy, and honestly? iconic. ✨

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💖 NAME 💖

rt-dump-initialdata — Serialize an RT database to disk. that's it, that's the whole job, no cap. 💅

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📜 SYNOPSIS 📜

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

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okay so this script is the one that writes out the objects initialdata supports from the RT database to disk, so you can later import them into a different RT instance. very "packing a suitcase for your data" of it.

but here's the thing, bestie — it requires that the data in the database be self-consistent in order to do that. so please, pretty please, make sure the database being exported passes validation by rt-validator before you even think about running rt-dump-initialdata. we do not want chaos. 🙈

while it's running, it'll attempt to estimate how many objects are left to dump. these estimates are pessimistic, and they will be incorrect if --no-users or --no-groups is used. just so you know, fr fr.

and if the controlling terminal is large enough (more than 25 columns high) and the gnuplot program is installed, it will also show you a textual graph of the queue size over time. main character data viz moment. 📈

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✨ OPTIONS ✨

• --directory name — the name of the output directory to write the data files to. it should not exist yet; if it does, that's a fatal error. defaults to ./$Organization:Date/, where $Organization is whatever is set in RT_SiteConfig.pm, and Date is today's date. 🗓️
• --force — removes the output directory before starting. yeet first, dump after.
• --no-users — by default, all privileged users are dumped. passing --no-users limits it to only those users which are referenced by the dumped tickets and history, and are thus necessary for internal consistency. strict little guest list.
• --no-groups — by default, all groups are dumped. passing --no-groups limits it to only system-internal groups, which are needed for internal consistency.
• --no-assets — by default, all assets are dumped. passing --no-assets skips assets during serialization. bye girl 👋
• --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.
• --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. 🔍
• --gc n — adjusts how often the garbage collection sweep is done; lower numbers are more frequent. it shares the same code with rt-serializer, so see "GARBAGE COLLECTION" in rt-serializer.
• --page n — adjusts 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 the graphical progress UI. silence, but make it chic. 🤫
• --verbose — do not show the graphical progress UI, but rather log as each row is written out. every single row. she's thorough. 📝

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a lil reminder before you bounce: validate with rt-validator first, always. consistency is the vibe check this script actually cares about. 💖

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and that's the page, bestie! this one's from perl v5.40.1, dated 2026-06-21 — so if you're reading this way in the future, hi, hope your database was self-consistent. mwah 💋🦋