From Heroku Postgres

Migrating data from Heroku Postgres into Crunchy Bridge can be achieved in one of two ways, depending on the size of your dataset.

Datasets over 100 GB

For datasets larger than 100 GB, it is recommended to use Heroku's physical backups and WAL files to create a replica of your Heroku database and cutover your apps in a coordinated event. If you'd like to take this approach, please reach out to Crunchy Bridge support. We are very familiar with this process and can collaborate with you on each step.

Datasets under 100 GB

Heroku migrator

Crunchy Bridge has a special tool to help you migrate data from a Heroku database when targeting PostgreSQL 17. To get started, go to https://migrate.crunchybridge.com, and follow our How To guide for using the Heroku migrator.

Manual migration

If your dataset is under 100 GB and you do not want to use the migrator, you can use this manual approach instead. We strongly recommend validating that this approach will work for you by testing it in a staging environment before moving forward with your production clusters.

Disable `pgaudit`

All Crunchy Bridge instances are created with database auditing enabled for the postgres role. Therefore, to reduce excessive logging, temporarily disable pgaudit for the postgres role. On your Crunchy Bridge instance as the postgres role, while connected to your Crunchy Bridge instance:

ALTER USER postgres RESET pgaudit.log;

Pipe `pg_dump` on Heroku to `pg_restore` on Crunchy Bridge

Pipe the logical backup from pg_dump directly into pg_restore to your empty Crunchy Bridge instance. The dump is current as of the moment it is executed, so if this is being done for a cutover ensure that your application is in maintenance mode so that there are no changes to the data during the migration.

If your target Crunchy Bridge cluster is running PostgresSQL 17 you can run this from a Heroku bash session with the first line shown below. When targeting versions prior to PostgreSQL 17 the pg_dump/pg_restore command should instead be run from a host with PostgreSQL client tools for that version installed.

$ heroku run bash --app your-app-here

$ pg_dump -Fc $DATABASE_URL | pg_restore --no-acl --no-owner -d postgres://postgres:[email protected]:5432/postgres

Update ownership and permissions

Since the restore was executed using the postgres role, all the created tables are also owned by the postgres role, and so the Crunchy Bridge application role has no default permissions. To give the application role identical permissions to those that the Heroku role had, reset objects' owners to the application role. Run the SQL below, and then run the output as well.

Info

This is a two step process. The statements below will generate the commands used to grant permissions. You will run the statements below in your Crunchy cluster as the postgres role, and then you'll need to take the output of each one, which will be ALTER statements specific to your particular schema, and run those in order to update ownership and permissions in your cluster.

-- Tables
SELECT 'ALTER TABLE '|| schemaname || '."' || tablename ||'" OWNER TO application;'
FROM pg_tables WHERE NOT schemaname IN ('pg_catalog', 'information_schema')
ORDER BY schemaname, tablename;

-- Sequences
SELECT 'ALTER SEQUENCE '|| sequence_schema || '."' || sequence_name ||'" OWNER TO application;'
FROM information_schema.sequences
WHERE NOT sequence_schema IN ('pg_catalog', 'information_schema')
ORDER BY sequence_schema, sequence_name;

-- Views
SELECT 'ALTER VIEW '|| table_schema || '."' || table_name ||'" OWNER TO application;'
FROM information_schema.views
WHERE NOT table_schema IN ('pg_catalog', 'information_schema')
AND NOT table_name IN ('pg_stat_statements', 'pg_stat_statements_info')
ORDER BY table_schema, table_name;

-- Materialized Views
SELECT 'ALTER TABLE '|| oid::regclass::text ||' OWNER TO application;'
FROM pg_class WHERE relkind = 'm'
ORDER BY oid;

Here is an example of running the first statement block above, and then running the resulting output, an ALTER TABLE statement, in order to produce the change in permissions:

postgres=# SELECT 'ALTER TABLE '|| schemaname || '."' || tablename ||'" OWNER TO application;'
FROM pg_tables WHERE NOT schemaname IN ('pg_catalog', 'information_schema')
ORDER BY schemaname, tablename;
                       ?column?
-------------------------------------------------------
 ALTER TABLE public."sampledata" OWNER TO application;
(1 row)
Time: 65.915 ms

postgres=# ALTER TABLE public."sampledata" OWNER TO application;
ALTER TABLE
Time: 292.640 ms

postgres=#

Set up any additional roles

Be sure to create any other needed roles and set appropriate permissions depending on how they are used (for example, read-only roles used by your application). Note also that the application role is intended for use by your application while the postgres / superuser account is intended for administration (refer to User Management Concepts for details).

Re-enable `pgaudit`

Re-enable pgaudit on the postgres user by, on your Crunchy Bridge instance as the postgres role:

ALTER USER postgres SET pgaudit.log='all';

Update DATABASE_URL and exit maintenance mode

Once data is migrated, apps can be updated with the new, Crunchy Bridge, connection string and taken out of maintenance mode. If you wish to continue to use $DATABASE_URL in your app, be sure to detach the database URL from your app so that Heroku doesn't overwrite the Crunchy Bridge URL with the old Heroku Postgres URL, for example:

$ heroku addons:detach DATABASE --app your-app-here

Don't forget to validate the restore process in a staging environment prior making changes to your production application!