R: How to move a DB from one server to another...

Thank you Tom.

I see. But what if the need is different? Say I have four databases on my
central server and I need to copy *only one* of them to another server.

Same server version and platform: 8.0.3 on Windows.

I can't believe there's no easy way to do this. PostgreSQL appears to be an
extremely good RDBMS but if it lacks this feature it can't fit our needs
and, I guess, there are many other people in the same situation.

I've found the same question in many forums, m-lists and web sites. Never
found a concrete answer up till now. Is this in the development plans? I
really do believe if PostgreSQL wants to be an alternative to SQLServer,
Oracle or even mySQL, an easy copy/move/replicate feature is a must. You
agree?

Of course we could use SQL (CREATE DATABASE, CREATE TABLE, INSERT INTO....)
but this would take years on large databases, while a rough "copy this
folder to the new server" would take just a few seconds.

Has anybody faced/solved this issue?

Thank you in advance,

Federico Simonetti




> -----Messaggio originale-----
> Da: pgsql-hackers-win32-owner@postgresql.org
> [mailto:pgsql-hackers-win32-owner@postgresql.org] Per conto
> di Tom Lane
> Inviato: giovedì 23 giugno 2005 0.29
> A: Federico Simonetti (Etheye)
> Cc: pgsql-hackers-win32@postgresql.org
> Oggetto: Re: [pgsql-hackers-win32] How to move a DB from one
> server to another...
>
> "Federico Simonetti (Etheye)" <flame@etheye.com> writes:
> > I've even tried to zip the entire database folder, but no luck. I'm
> > stuck with this problem. Why is it so difficult to move a database
> > from one server to another?
>
> You can move the entire $PGDATA tree --- not parts, all of it
> --- to another machine of the same architecture running the
> same major Postgres release.  Anything else is not going to
> work.  It's a good idea to be sure the postmaster is shut
> down while you copy the directory tree.
>
> If you thought you were doing that, then let's see the exact
> error messages you get.
>
>             regards, tom lane
>
> ---------------------------(end of
> broadcast)---------------------------
> TIP 4: Don't 'kill -9' the postmaster