VACUUMDB(1) PostgreSQL Client Applications VACUUMDB(1)
NAME
vacuumdb - garbage-collect and analyze a PostgreSQL database
SYNOPSIS
vacuumdb [ connection-option... ] [ [ --full ] [ -f ] ] [ [ --verbose ] [ -v ] ] [ [ --analyze ] [ -z ] ] [ [ --freeze ] [
-F ] ] [ --table | -t table
[ ( column [,...] ) ]
] [ dbname ]
vacuumdb [ connection-options... ] [ [ --all ] [ -a ] ] [ [ --full ] [ -f ] ] [ [ --verbose ] [ -v ] ] [ [ --analyze ] [ -z
] ] [ [ --freeze ] [ -F ] ]
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 [vacuum(7)]. There is no effective difference between vacuuming 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.
-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 option.
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.
-z
--analyze
Calculate statistics for use by the optimizer.
-F
--freeze
Aggressively ``freeze'' tuples.
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 authentica-
tion. 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.
ENVIRONMENT
PGDATABASE
PGHOST
PGPORT
PGUSER Default connection parameters
This utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, also uses the environment variables supported by libpq (see in the documentation).
DIAGNOSTICS
In case of difficulty, see VACUUM [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 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 [vacuum(7)]
Application 2010-05-14 VACUUMDB(1)