How to pass in password to pg_dump?

Question

I\'m trying to create a cronjob to back up my database every night before something catastrophic happens. It looks like this command should meet my needs:

0          


        

Answer 1

A secure way of passing the password is to store it in .pgpass file

Content of the .pgpass file will be in the format:

db_host:db_port:db_name:db_user:db_pass

#Eg
localhost:5432:db1:admin:tiger
localhost:5432:db2:admin:tiger

Now, store this file in the home directory of the user with permissions u=rw (0600) or less

To find the home directory of the user, use echo $HOME

Restrict permissions of the file chmod 0600 /home/ubuntu/.pgpass