Ask HN: Any good tools to pgdump multi tenant database?

3•polishdude20•11mo ago

Just joined a new company and they run a multi tenant database in postgres where each tenant is distinguished by their account ID. I'd like to be able to dump the data of a single account to my local instance to assist in debugging.

Problem is, many of the entities do not include an account ID. For example, a user can have an account ID but a user post will not but it will be tied to a user ID.

Also foreign keys aren't really implemented fully.

Are there any tools or techniques that could help make this process easier to do?

Comments

tudorg•11mo ago

You can try with data subsetting tools, a few that I know are: greenmask, jailer, tonic condenser, and I think there are more. They are not exactly for your use case, but might help you a bit. The problem is most of these tools can walk foreign keys, but only in one directions.

Also, since you said FK are not fully implemented, then there just won't be enough information for them to work with. So you can either work on fixing the foreign keys or have more complex scripts.

polishdude20•11mo ago

Thanks for the suggestions!

Yeah due to the unavailability of FK's, I'd have to somehow map certain ID columns to the tables they're for, accounting for slight naming convention differences.

woyten•11mo ago

In case you don’t have FKs you could specify virtual foreign keys in Greenmask.

Check out docs for details

https://docs.greenmask.io/latest/database_subset/#virtual-re...

abhisek•11mo ago

This is poor design. Multi-tenant data model design must have a tenant or segment ID for every tenant segmented tables. While it may not be a problem initially but as the business grows, you may need to move tenant data to separate DBs or even different regions based on compliance requirements. IMHO it is a good idea to run DB migrations and have a tenant ID populated in all tenant segmented tables

polishdude20•11mo ago

Oh yes I agree with you. It may become a big push to convince my org to do that

When Dawkins Met Claude

Where to buy a non-Apple, non-Google smartphone

Meta buys robotics startup to bolster its humanoid AI ambitions

One photographer's passion project of capturing local newsrooms

Anthropic potential $900B+ valuation round could happen within 2 weeks

Ubuntu is adding Generative AI features, and other Linux distros might follow

Man takes robot to airport, gets ticket for it, it gets on plane

IPv8 will not work [video]

Menace on the Streets

You'll Subscribe to Your Router, Too – The First Router Bribes Are Here [video]

Ember 6.12

Vibe code with me this Linux system on a browser tab

New Oscars rules: No AI actors, human-written scripts only

Jonathan Swift's Last Joke

South Africa withdraws AI policy due to fake AI-generated sources

The Man Who Built NVIDIA [audio]

Hilariously Useless: Mahalo's Guide to Playing the Xylophone (2011)

A terminal Markdown viewer built using Charm libraries

The Terraform.applying Symbol

Show HN: Which public repos are friendliest to an AI coding agent?

Tech layoffs skyrocketed in Q1 2026

Does Calvin still hurt in practice if you only use it for cross-shard writes?

Italian Competition Authority Launches Investigation into Vorwerk (Neato)

Kids promised 'forever homes' instead confined in for-profit institutions

Study: AI models that consider user's feeling are more likely to make errors

Canonical Under Attack

Linter for data science and statistical experiments

The best AI dictation apps, tested and ranked

Ask HN: How long do you commute by car each day?

LLMs can hide text in other text of the same length