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NAME

destroydb -- destroy an existing database

SYNOPSIS

destroydb [-i] [-a system] [-h host] [-p port] [dbname]

DESCRIPTION

Destroydb destroys an existing database. To execute this command, the user must be the database administrator, or DBA, for this database. The program runs silently; no confirmation message will be displayed. After the database is destroyed, a Unix shell prompt will reappear.

Destroydb is a shell script that invokes psql. Hence, a postmaster process must be running on the database server host before destroydb is executed. In addition, the PGOPTION and PGREALM environment variables will be passed on to psql and processed as described in psql(1) .

The optional argument dbname specifies the name of the database to be destroyed. All references to the database are removed, including the directory containing this database and its associated files. Dbname defaults to the value of the USER environment variable.

Destroydb understands the following command-line options:

-i
Prompts before destroying a database (interactive).
-a system
Specifies an authentication system system (see pgintro(1) ) to use in connecting to the postmaster process. The default is site-specific.
-h host
Specifies the hostname of the machine on which the postmaster is running. Defaults to the name of the local host, or the value of the PGHOST environment variable (if set).
-p port
Specifies the Internet TCP port on which the postmaster is listening for connections. Defaults to 5432, or the value of the PGPORT environment variable (if set).

EXAMPLES

# destroy the demo database
destroydb demo
# destroy 5432 demo database using the postmaster on host eden,
# port using the Kerberos authentication system.
destroydb -a kerberos -p 5432 -h eden demo

FILES

$PGDATA/base/dbname
The location of the files corresponding to the database dbname.

SEE ALSO

destroydb(l) , createdb(1) , initdb(1) , psql(1) . postmaster(1) .

DIAGNOSTICS

Error: Failed to connect to backend (host=xxx, port=xxx)
Destroydb could not attach to the postmaster process on the specified host and port. If you see this message, ensure that the postmaster is running on the proper host and that you have specified the proper port. If your site uses an authentication system, ensure that you have obtained the required authentication credentials.
user `username' is not in `pg_user'
You do not have a valid entry in the relation `pg_user' and cannot do anything with Postgres at all; contact your Postgres site administrator.
user `username' is not allowed to create/destroy databases
You do not have permission to destroy databases; contact your Postgres site administrator.
database `dbname' does not exist
The database to be removed does not have an entry in the `pg_database' class.
database `dbname' is not owned by you
You are not DBA for the specified database.
database destroy failed on dbname
An internal error occurred in psql or the backend server. Contact your Postgres site administrator to ensure that ensure that the files and database entries associated with the database are completely removed.


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