VACUUMDB(1) PostgreSQL 9.2.7 Documentation VACUUMDB(1)
NAME
vacuumdb - garbage-collect and analyze a PostgreSQL database
SYNOPSIS
vacuumdb [connection-option...] [option...] [--table | -t table [( column [,...] )]] [dbname]
vacuumdb [connection-option...] [option...] --all | -a
DESCRIPTION
vacuumdb is a utility for cleaning a PostgreSQL database. vacuumdb will also generate internal statistics used by the PostgreSQL query
optimizer.
vacuumdb is a wrapper around the SQL command VACUUM(7). There is no effective difference between vacuuming and analyzing databases via this
utility and via other methods for accessing the server.
OPTIONS
vacuumdb accepts the following command-line arguments:
-a, --all
Vacuum all databases.
[-d] dbname, [--dbname=]dbname
Specifies the name of the database to be cleaned or analyzed. If this is not specified and -a (or --all) is not used, the database name
is read from the environment variable PGDATABASE. If that is not set, the user name specified for the connection is used.
-e, --echo
Echo the commands that vacuumdb generates and sends to the server.
-f, --full
Perform "full" vacuuming.
-F, --freeze
Aggressively "freeze" tuples.
-q, --quiet
Do not display progress messages.
-t table [ (column [,...]) ], --table=table [ (column [,...]) ]
Clean or analyze table only. Column names can be specified only in conjunction with the --analyze or --analyze-only options.
Tip
If you specify columns, you probably have to escape the parentheses from the shell. (See examples below.)
-v, --verbose
Print detailed information during processing.
-V, --version
Print the vacuumdb version and exit.
-z, --analyze
Also calculate statistics for use by the optimizer.
-Z, --analyze-only
Only calculate statistics for use by the optimizer (no vacuum).
-?, --help
Show help about vacuumdb command line arguments, and exit.
vacuumdb also accepts the following command-line arguments for connection parameters:
-h host, --host=host
Specifies the host name of the machine on which the server is running. If the value begins with a slash, it is used as the directory
for the Unix domain socket.
-p port, --port=port
Specifies the TCP port or local Unix domain socket file extension on which the server is listening for connections.
-U username, --username=username
User name to connect as.
-w, --no-password
Never issue a password prompt. If the server requires password authentication and a password is not available by other means such as a
.pgpass file, the connection attempt will fail. This option can be useful in batch jobs and scripts where no user is present to enter a
password.
-W, --password
Force vacuumdb to prompt for a password before connecting to a database.
This option is never essential, since vacuumdb will automatically prompt for a password if the server demands password authentication.
However, vacuumdb will waste a connection attempt finding out that the server wants a password. In some cases it is worth typing -W to
avoid the extra connection attempt.
--maintenance-db=dbname
Specifies the name of the database to connect to discover what other databases should be vacuumed. If not specified, the postgres
database will be used, and if that does not exist, template1 will be used.
ENVIRONMENT
PGDATABASE, PGHOST, PGPORT, PGUSER
Default connection parameters
This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the environment variables supported by libpq (see Section 31.14, "Environment
Variables", in the documentation).
DIAGNOSTICS
In case of difficulty, see VACUUM(7) and psql(1) for discussions of potential problems and error messages. The database server must be
running at the targeted host. Also, any default connection settings and environment variables used by the libpq front-end library will
apply.
NOTES
vacuumdb might need to connect several times to the PostgreSQL server, asking for a password each time. It is convenient to have a
~/.pgpass file in such cases. See Section 31.15, "The Password File", in the documentation for more information.
EXAMPLES
To clean the database test:
$ vacuumdb test
To clean and analyze for the optimizer a database named bigdb:
$ vacuumdb --analyze bigdb
To clean a single table foo in a database named xyzzy, and analyze a single column bar of the table for the optimizer:
$ vacuumdb --analyze --verbose --table 'foo(bar)' xyzzy
SEE ALSO
VACUUM(7)
PostgreSQL 9.2.7 2014-02-17 VACUUMDB(1)