Schedule daily PostgreSQL backups

Schedule daily PostgreSQL backups

28 Nov 2012 | postgresql, backups, cron, pg_dump

Create cron task to back up database

$ vim /etc/cron.d/db_backups

# m  h  dom mon dow user     command
12 3  *   *   * <user> pg_dump -c <db_name> > \
                            "/path/to/backups/`date +\%Y-\%m-\%d-<db_name>.sql`"

This will create a backup at 3:12am every day. Be sure to put a newline at the end of the file.

Don't forget to create the /path/to/backups directory and allow postgres to write to it.