Backup & Restore

Backup and restore the Magnet AI PostgreSQL database (with pgvector) using pg_dump, psql, and pg_restore.

Connection Details

Magnet AI uses these environment variables (usually from your .env file):

• DB_HOST
• DB_PORT
• DB_NAME
• DB_USER
• DB_PASSWORD

In the examples below we map them to the standard psql/pg_dump variables:

export PGHOST="$DB_HOST"
export PGPORT="$DB_PORT"
export PGDATABASE="$DB_NAME"
export PGUSER="$DB_USER"
export PGPASSWORD="$DB_PASSWORD"

Tip: prefer a .pgpass file (or your platform’s secret store) over exporting PGPASSWORD in long-lived shells.

Backup

Plain SQL (portable)

# Backup (plain SQL)
pg_dump --no-owner --no-privileges --format=plain --file=backup.sql "$PGDATABASE"

# Optional compression
gzip -9 backup.sql

Custom format (recommended for larger databases)

# Backup (custom format)
pg_dump --no-owner --no-privileges --format=custom --file=backup.dump "$PGDATABASE"

Restore

Restores are destructive. Prefer restoring into a new database first, then switching your app to the new database.

Restore from plain SQL

# Create the target DB if needed
createdb "$PGDATABASE"

# Restore (fails fast on errors)
psql --set ON_ERROR_STOP=on --dbname="$PGDATABASE" < backup.sql

If you compressed the backup (backup.sql.gz), restore like this:

gunzip -c backup.sql.gz | psql --set ON_ERROR_STOP=on --dbname="$PGDATABASE"

Restore from custom format

# Create the target DB if needed
createdb "$PGDATABASE"

# Restore (drops/recreates objects from the dump)
pg_restore --clean --if-exists --no-owner --dbname="$PGDATABASE" backup.dump