pgcopydb is a tool that automates running pg_dump | pg_restore between two
running Postgres servers. To make a copy of a database to another server as
quickly as possible, one would like to use the parallel options of pg_dump
and still be able to stream the data to as many pg_restore jobs.
The idea would be to use pg_dump --jobs=N --format=directory postgres://user@source/dbname | pg_restore --jobs=N --format=directory -d postgres://user@target/dbname in a way. This command line can't be made to
work, unfortunately, because pg_dump --format=directory writes to local
files and directories first, and then later pg_restore --format=directory
can be used to read from those files again.
Given that, pgcopydb then uses pg_dump and pg_restore for the schema parts of the process, and implements its own data copying multi-process streaming parts. Also, pgcopydb bypasses pg_restore index building and drives that internally so that all indexes may be built concurrently.
pgcopydb implements both the base copy of a database and also Change Data Capture to allow replay of changes from the source database to the target database. The Change Data Capture facility is implemented using Postgres Logical Decoding infrastructure and the wal2json plugin.
The pgcopydb follow command implements a logical replication client for
the logical decoding plugin wal2json.
The pgcopydb clone --follow command implements a full solution for online
migration. Beware that online migrations involve a lot more complexities
when compared to offline migration. It is always a good idea to first
implement offline migration first. The command pgcopydb clone is used to
implement the offline migration approach.
Full documentation is available online, including manual pages of all the pgcopydb sub-commands. Check out https://pgcopydb.readthedocs.io/.
$ pgcopydb help
pgcopydb
clone Clone an entire database from source to target
fork Clone an entire database from source to target
follow Replay changes from the source database to the target database
snapshot Create and export a snapshot on the source database
+ compare Compare source and target databases
+ copy Implement the data section of the database copy
+ dump Dump database objects from a Postgres instance
+ restore Restore database objects into a Postgres instance
+ list List database objects from a Postgres instance
+ stream Stream changes from the source database
ping Attempt to connect to the source and target instances
help Print help message
version Print pgcopydb version
pgcopydb compare
schema Compare source and target schema
data Compare source and target data
pgcopydb copy
db Copy an entire database from source to target
roles Copy the roles from the source instance to the target instance
extensions Copy the extensions from the source instance to the target instance
schema Copy the database schema from source to target
data Copy the data section from source to target
table-data Copy the data from all tables in database from source to target
blobs Copy the blob data from the source database to the target
sequences Copy the current value from all sequences in database from source to target
indexes Create all the indexes found in the source database in the target
constraints Create all the constraints found in the source database in the target
pgcopydb dump
schema Dump source database schema as custom files in work directory
roles Dump source database roles as custom file in work directory
pgcopydb restore
schema Restore a database schema from custom files to target database
pre-data Restore a database pre-data schema from custom file to target database
post-data Restore a database post-data schema from custom file to target database
roles Restore database roles from SQL file to target database
parse-list Parse pg_restore --list output from custom file
pgcopydb list
databases List databases
extensions List all the source extensions to copy
collations List all the source collations to copy
tables List all the source tables to copy data from
table-parts List a source table copy partitions
sequences List all the source sequences to copy data from
indexes List all the indexes to create again after copying the data
depends List all the dependencies to filter-out
schema List the schema to migrate, formatted in JSON
progress List the progress
pgcopydb stream
setup Setup source and target systems for logical decoding
cleanup Cleanup source and target systems for logical decoding
prefetch Stream JSON changes from the source database and transform them to SQL
catchup Apply prefetched changes from SQL files to the target database
replay Replay changes from the source to the target database, live
+ sentinel Maintain a sentinel table
receive Stream changes from the source database
transform Transform changes from the source database into SQL commands
apply Apply changes from the source database into the target database
pgcopydb stream sentinel
setup Setup the sentinel table
get Get the sentinel table values
+ set Set the sentinel table values
pgcopydb stream sentinel set
startpos Set the sentinel start position LSN
endpos Set the sentinel end position LSN
apply Set the sentinel apply mode
prefetch Set the sentinel prefetch mode
When using pgcopydb it is possible to achieve the result outlined before
with this simple command line:
$ export PGCOPYDB_SOURCE_PGURI="postgres://[email protected]/dbname"
$ export PGCOPYDB_TARGET_PGURI="postgres://[email protected]/dbname"
$ pgcopydb clone --table-jobs 8 --index-jobs 2A typical output from the command would contain lots of lines of logs, and then a table summary with a line per table and some information (timing for the table COPY, cumulative timing for the CREATE INDEX commands), and then an overall summary that looks like the following:
19:18:24.447 76974 INFO Running pgcopydb version 0.15.74.gc74047a from "/usr/bin/pgcopydb"
19:18:24.451 76974 INFO [SOURCE] Copying database from "postgres://pagila:0wn3d@source/pagila?keepalives=1&keepalives_idle=10&keepalives_interval=10&keepalives_count=60"
19:18:24.451 76974 INFO [TARGET] Copying database into "postgres://pagila:0wn3d@target/pagila?keepalives=1&keepalives_idle=10&keepalives_interval=10&keepalives_count=60"
19:18:24.506 76974 INFO Using work dir "/tmp/pgcopydb"
19:18:24.519 76974 INFO Exported snapshot "00000003-00000023-1" from the source database
19:18:24.522 76985 INFO STEP 1: fetch source database tables, indexes, and sequences
19:18:24.886 76985 INFO Fetched information for 5 tables (including 0 tables split in 0 partitions total), with an estimated total of 1000 thousands tuples and 128 MB on-disk
19:18:24.892 76985 INFO Fetched information for 4 indexes (supporting 4 constraints)
19:18:24.894 76985 INFO Fetching information for 1 sequences
19:18:24.909 76985 INFO Fetched information for 1 extensions
19:18:25.030 76985 INFO Found 0 indexes (supporting 0 constraints) in the target database
19:18:25.042 76985 INFO STEP 2: dump the source database schema (pre/post data)
19:18:25.046 76985 INFO /usr/bin/pg_dump -Fc --snapshot 00000003-00000023-1 --section=pre-data --section=post-data --file /tmp/pgcopydb/schema/schema.dump 'postgres://pagila:0wn3d@source/pagila?keepalives=1&keepalives_idle=10&keepalives_interval=10&keepalives_count=60'
19:18:25.182 76985 INFO STEP 3: restore the pre-data section to the target database
19:18:25.202 76985 INFO /usr/bin/pg_restore --dbname 'postgres://pagila:0wn3d@target/pagila?keepalives=1&keepalives_idle=10&keepalives_interval=10&keepalives_count=60' --section pre-data --jobs 2 --use-list /tmp/pgcopydb/schema/pre-filtered.list /tmp/pgcopydb/schema/schema.dump
19:18:25.354 77000 INFO STEP 4: starting 8 table-data COPY processes
19:18:25.428 77002 INFO STEP 8: starting 8 VACUUM processes
19:18:25.451 76985 INFO Skipping large objects: none found.
2024-06-10 19:18:25.462 +03 [77031] LOG: unexpected EOF on client connection with an open transaction
19:18:25.471 77001 INFO STEP 6: starting 2 CREATE INDEX processes
19:18:25.471 77001 INFO STEP 7: constraints are built by the CREATE INDEX processes
19:18:25.482 76985 INFO STEP 9: reset sequences values
19:18:25.483 77040 INFO Set sequences values on the target database
19:18:33.807 76985 INFO STEP 10: restore the post-data section to the target database
19:18:33.821 76985 INFO /usr/bin/pg_restore --dbname 'postgres://pagila:0wn3d@target/pagila?keepalives=1&keepalives_idle=10&keepalives_interval=10&keepalives_count=60' --section post-data --jobs 2 --use-list /tmp/pgcopydb/schema/post-filtered.list /tmp/pgcopydb/schema/schema.dump
19:18:33.879 76985 INFO All step are now done, 9s352 elapsed
19:18:33.880 76985 INFO Printing summary for 5 tables and 4 indexes
OID | Schema | Name | Parts | copy duration | transmitted bytes | indexes | create index duration
------+--------+------------------+-------+---------------+-------------------+---------+----------------------
16398 | public | pgbench_accounts | 1 | 7s130 | 91 MB | 1 | 878ms
16395 | public | pgbench_tellers | 1 | 69ms | 1002 B | 1 | 44ms
16401 | public | pgbench_branches | 1 | 46ms | 71 B | 1 | 37ms
16386 | public | table1 | 1 | 56ms | 0 B | 1 | 40ms
16392 | public | pgbench_history | 1 | 67ms | 0 B | 0 | 0ms
Step Connection Duration Transfer Concurrency
-------------------------------------------------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ------------
Catalog Queries (table ordering, filtering, etc) source 183ms 1
Dump Schema source 134ms 1
Prepare Schema target 128ms 1
COPY, INDEX, CONSTRAINTS, VACUUM (wall clock) both 8s483 18
COPY (cumulative) both 7s368 128 MB 8
CREATE INDEX (cumulative) target 965ms 2
CONSTRAINTS (cumulative) target 34ms 2
VACUUM (cumulative) target 120ms 8
Reset Sequences both 38ms 1
Large Objects (cumulative) (null) 0ms 0
Finalize Schema both 61ms 2
-------------------------------------------------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ------------
Total Wall Clock Duration both 9s352 24
See our documentation.
The reason why pgcopydb has been developed is mostly to allow two aspects
that are not possible to achieve directly with pg_dump and pg_restore,
and that requires just enough fiddling around that not many scripts have
been made available to automate around.
First aspect is that for pg_dump and pg_restore to implement concurrency
they need to write to an intermediate file first.
The docs for
pg_dump say the
following about the --jobs parameter:
You can only use this option with the directory output format because this is the only output format where multiple processes can write their data at the same time.
The docs for
pg_restore say
the following about the --jobs parameter:
Only the custom and directory archive formats are supported with this option. The input must be a regular file or directory (not, for example, a pipe or standard input).
So the first idea with pgcopydb is to provide the --jobs concurrency and
bypass intermediate files (and directories) altogether, at least as far as
the actual TABLE DATA set is concerned.
The trick to achieve that is that pgcopydb must be able to connect to the
source database during the whole operation, when pg_restore may be used
from an export on-disk, without having to still be able to connect to the
source database. In the context of pgcopydb requiring access to the source
database is fine. In the context of pg_restore, it would not be
acceptable.
The other aspect that pg_dump and pg_restore are not very smart about is
how they deal with the indexes that are used to support constraints, in
particular unique constraints and primary keys.
Those indexes are exported using the ALTER TABLE command directly. This is
fine because the command creates both the constraint and the underlying
index, so the schema in the end is found as expected.
That said, those ALTER TABLE ... ADD CONSTRAINT commands require a level
of locking that prevents any concurrency. As we can read on the docs for
ALTER TABLE:
Although most forms of ADD table_constraint require an ACCESS EXCLUSIVE lock, ADD FOREIGN KEY requires only a SHARE ROW EXCLUSIVE lock. Note that ADD FOREIGN KEY also acquires a SHARE ROW EXCLUSIVE lock on the referenced table, in addition to the lock on the table on which the constraint is declared.
The trick is then to first issue a CREATE UNIQUE INDEX statement and when
the index has been built then issue a second command in the form of ALTER TABLE ... ADD CONSTRAINT ... PRIMARY KEY USING INDEX ..., as in the
following example taken from the logs of actually running pgcopydb:
...
21:52:06 68898 INFO COPY "demo"."tracking";
21:52:06 68899 INFO COPY "demo"."client";
21:52:06 68899 INFO Creating 2 indexes for table "demo"."client"
21:52:06 68906 INFO CREATE UNIQUE INDEX client_pkey ON demo.client USING btree (client);
21:52:06 68907 INFO CREATE UNIQUE INDEX client_pid_key ON demo.client USING btree (pid);
21:52:06 68898 INFO Creating 1 indexes for table "demo"."tracking"
21:52:06 68908 INFO CREATE UNIQUE INDEX tracking_pkey ON demo.tracking USING btree (client, ts);
21:52:06 68907 INFO ALTER TABLE "demo"."client" ADD CONSTRAINT "client_pid_key" UNIQUE USING INDEX "client_pid_key";
21:52:06 68906 INFO ALTER TABLE "demo"."client" ADD CONSTRAINT "client_pkey" PRIMARY KEY USING INDEX "client_pkey";
21:52:06 68908 INFO ALTER TABLE "demo"."tracking" ADD CONSTRAINT "tracking_pkey" PRIMARY KEY USING INDEX "tracking_pkey";
...
This trick is worth a lot of performance gains on its own, as has been discovered and experienced and appreciated by pgloader users already.
At run-time pgcopydb depends on the pg_dump and pg_restore tools being
available in the PATH. The tools version should match the Postgres version
of the target database.
When you have multiple versions of Postgres installed, consider exporting
the PG_CONFIG environment variable to the version you want to use.
pgcopydb then uses the PG_CONFIG from the path and runs ${PG_CONFIG} --bindir to find the pg_dump and pg_restore binaries it needs.
The pgcopydb command line also includes entry points that allows
implementing any step on its own.
pgcopydb snapshot &pgcopydb dump schemapgcopydb restore pre-datapgcopydb copy table-datapgcopydb copy blobspgcopydb copy sequencespgcopydb copy indexespgcopydb copy constraintspgcopydb restore post-datakill %1
Using individual commands fails to provide the advanced concurrency
capabilities of the main pgcopydb clone command, so it is strongly
advised to prefer that main command.
Also when using separate commands, one has to consider the --snapshot
option that allows for consistent operations. A background process should
then export the snapshot and maintain a transaction opened for the duration
of the operations. See documentation for pgcopydb snapshot.
Copyright (c) The PostgreSQL Global Development Group.
This project is licensed under the PostgreSQL License, see LICENSE file for details.
This project includes bundled third-party dependencies, see NOTICE file for details.