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Create manual PostgreSQL® backups

Aiven provides fully automated backup management for PostgreSQL. All backups are encrypted with service-specific keys, and point-in-time recovery is supported to allow recovering the system to any point within the backup window. Aiven stores the backups to the closest available cloud storage to enhance restore speed.

To create a backup for your own use, use pg_dump and follow the steps in this article.

Variables

These are the placeholders you will need to replace in the code sample:

VariableDescription
POSTGRESQL_URIURL for PostgreSQL connection, from the service overview page

Create backups with pg_dump

Perform a backup of your database using the standard PostgreSQL pg_dump command. Full detail on the parameters can be found in the associated documentation, but a typical command would look something like this:

pg_dump 'POSTGRESQL_URI' \
-f backup_folder \
-j 2 \
-F directory

This command creates a backup in directory format (ready for use with pg_restore) using 2 concurrent jobs and storing the output to a folder called backup_folder.

tip

pg_dump can be run against any standby node, using the Replica URI from the Aiven web console. Creating more jobs via the -j option could be especially useful, since it may not be a problem to add extra load to the standby node.