Mastering PostgreSQL 9.6

Using environment variables

One way to pass all kinds of parameters is to use environment variables. If information is not explicitly passed to pg_dump, it will look for the missing information in predefined environment variables. A list of all potential settings can be found here: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.6/static/libpq-envars.html.

The following overview shows some environment variables commonly needed for backups:

• PGHOST: It tells the system which host to connect to
• PGPORT: It defines the TCP port to be used
• PGUSER: It tells a client program about the desired user
• PGPASSWORD: It contains the password to be used
• PGDATABASE: It is the name of the database to connect to

The advantage of those environments is that the password won't ...