How to solve privileges issues when restore PostgreSQL Database

To solve the issue you must assign the proper ownership permissions. Try the below which should resolve all permission related issues for specific users but as stated in the comments this should not be used in production:

root@server:/var/log/postgresql# sudo -u postgres psqlpsql (8.4.4)Type "help" for help.postgres=# \du               List of roles    Role name    | Attributes  | Member of-----------------+-------------+----------- <user-name>    | Superuser   | {}                 : Create DB postgres       | Superuser   | {}                 : Create role                 : Create DBpostgres=# alter role <user-name> superuser;ALTER ROLEpostgres=#

So connect to the database under a Superuser account sudo -u postgres psql and execute a ALTER ROLE <user-name> Superuser; statement.

Keep in mind this is not the best solution on multi-site hosting server so take a look at assigning individual roles instead: https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/sql-set-role.html and https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/sql-alterrole.html.

AWS RDS users if you are getting this it is because you are not a superuser and according to aws documentation you cannot be one. I have found I have to ignore these errors.

For people using Google Cloud Platform, any error will stop the import process.Personally I encountered two different errors depending on the pg_dump command I issued :

1- The input is a PostgreSQL custom-format dump. Use the pg_restore command-line client to restore this dump to a database.

Occurs when you've tried to dump your DB in a non plain text format. I.e when the command lacks the -Fp or --format=plain parameter. However, if you add it to your command, you may then encounter the following error :

2- SET SET SET SET SET SET CREATE EXTENSION ERROR: must be owner of extension plpgsql

This is a permission issue I have been unable to fix using the command provided in the GCP docs, the tips from this current thread, or following advice from Google Postgres team here. Which recommended to issue the following command :

pg_dump -Fp --no-acl --no-owner -U myusername myDBName > mydump.sql

The only thing that did the trick in my case was manually editing the dump file and commenting out all commands relating to plpgsql.

I hope this helps GCP-reliant souls.

Update :

It's easier to dump the file commenting out extensions, especially since some dumps can be huge :pg_dump ... | grep -v -E '(CREATE\ EXTENSION|COMMENT\ ON)' > mydump.sql

Which can be narrowed down to plpgsql : pg_dump ... | grep -v -E '(CREATE\ EXTENSION\ IF\ NOT\ EXISTS\ plpgsql|COMMENT\ ON\ EXTENSION\ plpgsql)' > mydump.sql