Django PostgreSQL Copy

The package django-pg-copy provides Django management commands for backing up and restoring PostgreSQL databases. These were developed for copying production databases to development, to allow developers to share images with one another, or bring local development databases up to date. It can also be handy for creating different local databases for different branches, and for only creating one migration after tweaking models to get them the way they need to be.

We also use it with Jenkins to automatically back up production, and restore to a staging database environment, so we can test new migrations repeatedly to ensure they'll work when we run them in production.

Installation

pip install django-pg-copy

Then add 'pg_copy', to your INSTALLED_APPS list. It is recommended that it is used in all environments (development, production) so that you can use it against different instances of your database.

Settings

PG_COPY_BACKUP_PATH = 'db_backup'

By default, PostgreSQL backups will be stored in a directory called db_backup where you run the command. This setting will override that location.

It is also recommended to add this path to your .gitignore file, if the path falls under your version control repository.

Parameters

• --database: The database defined in the DATABASES settings to backup from or restore to.
• --db-override: A value to override the db argument sent to psql.
• --host-override: A value to override the host argument sent to psql.
• --pg-home: The path to the PostgreSQL installation, if it is not on your path.
• --file, -f: The filename to backup to, or restore from.
• --ignore-table, -i: Do not include this table in the backup. Can pass multiple tables: -i bigtable1 -i bigtable2
• --no-confirm: Restores the database without confirmation: be careful! (pg_restore only)

Example Commands

python manage.py pg_backup --settings=config.settings.production --database=default --filename=my_backup.sqlc

This command will create a backup in the same directory as manage.py called my_backup.sqlc using the default settings from DATABASES using the Django settings file located at config/settings/production.py.

python manage.py pg_backup

This command will create a backup in the directory ./db_backup/ (or the directory you specified with PG_COPY_BACKUP_PATH) called [timestamp].sqlc using the default settings from DATABASES using the default Django settings file resolved by manage.py.

python manage.py pg_backup -i bigtable1 -i bigtable2

This will do the same as the previous command, but omit the tables named bigtable1 and bigtable2.

python manage.py pg_restore

This command will provide a list of backup files in PG_COPY_BACKUP_PATH that can be restored. After selecting a backup file, it will confirm that the user wants to overwrite the destination database by showing which server and database will be overwritten from the settings.

python manage.py pg_restore --filename=my_file.sqlc --no-confirm

This command will read the file my_file.sqlc and confirm that the user wants to overwrite the destination database by showing which server and database will be overwritten from the settings.

Known Issues

• When restoring, PostgreSQL's pg_restore command will output some warnings. I haven't figured out a command line option to make these warnings disappear, but they can be safely ignored if you read them. TODO: include a paste of the output here.

Release Notes

Release notes are available on GitHub

Contributors

• Timothy Allen (https://github.com/FlipperPA)
• Ryan Sullivan (https://github.com/rgs258)
• Noel Victor (https://github.com/noeldvictor)