Importing data into Cloud SQL

This page describes how to import data into Cloud SQL instances. You can import data from SQL dump or CSV files.

For best practices for importing data, see Best Practices for Importing and Exporting Data.

After completing an import operation, verify the results.

Before you begin

Make sure you have configured the required roles and permissions. These procedures require you to import a file from Cloud Storage. To import data from Cloud Storage, the Cloud SQL instance's service account or user must have:

  • Either the Cloud SQL Admin role, or a custom role that includes the cloudsql.instances.import permission.
  • The roles/storage.LegacyObjectReader IAM role (which has the storage.objects.get permission).
  • If the service account or user is also performing export operations, grant the cloudsql.instances.export permission, and the roles/storage.legacyBucketWriter IAM role.

For help with IAM roles, see Cloud Identity and Access Management for Cloud Storage.

You can find the instance's service account name in the Google Cloud Console on your instance's Overview page. You can verify the roles for your Cloud Storage bucket by using the gsutil tool:

gsutil iam get gs://[BUCKET_NAME]

Learn more about using IAM with buckets.

Importing data from a SQL dump file into Cloud SQL

  • Create a SQL dump file. Use instructions from the bullet below that applies to your situation. These instructions set certain flags that make the dump file compatible with Cloud SQL.

  • The database and table you are importing into must already exist on your Cloud SQL instance. For help with creating a database, see Creating a database.
  • Before importing a SQL dump, ensure that all the users who own objects or were granted permissions on objects in the dumped database exist in the new database. If they do not, the import will fail to recreate the objects with the original ownership and/or permissions. (Sometimes this is what you want, but usually it is not.)

    For help creating users, see Creating users.

To import data from a SQL dump file to a Cloud SQL instance:

Console

  1. Go to the Cloud SQL Instances page in the Google Cloud Console.

    Go to the Cloud SQL Instances page

  2. Select the instance to open its Overview page.
  3. Click Import in the button bar.
  4. Under Choose the file you'd like to import data from, enter the path to the bucket and SQL dump file to use for the import. Or to browse to the file:
    1. Click Browse.
    2. Under Location, double-click the name of the bucket in the list.
    3. Select the file in the list.
    4. Click Select.

    You can import a compressed (.gz) or an uncompressed (.sql) file.

  5. For Format, select SQL.

  6. Select the database you want the data to be imported into.

    This causes Cloud SQL to run the USE DATABASE statement before the import.

  7. If you want to specify a PostgreSQL user to perform the import, select the user.

    If your import file contains statements that must be performed by a specific PostgreSQL user, use this field to specify that user.

  8. Click Import to start the import.

gcloud

  1. Create a Cloud Storage bucket, if you haven't already.

    For help with creating a bucket, see Creating Storage Buckets.

  2. Upload the file to your bucket.

    For help with uploading files to buckets, see Uploading objects.

  3. Describe the instance you are importing to: 
    gcloud sql instances describe [INSTANCE_NAME]
  4. Copy the serviceAccountEmailAddress field.
  5. Use gsutil iam to grant the storage.objectAdmin IAM role to the service account for the bucket. 
      gsutil iam ch serviceAccount:[SERVICE-ACCOUNT]:objectAdmin \
  gs://[BUCKET-NAME]
    For help with setting IAM permissions, see Using IAM permissions.
  6. Import the database: 
    gcloud sql import sql [INSTANCE_NAME] gs://[BUCKET_NAME]/[IMPORT_FILE_NAME] \
                            --database=[DATABASE_NAME]

    For information about using the import sql command, see the sql import sql command reference page.

    If the command returns an error like `ERROR_RDBMS`, review the permissions; this error is often due to permissions issues.

  7. If you do not need to retain the IAM permissions you set previously, remove them using gsutil iam.

REST API v1beta4

    Create a SQL dump file. Use instructions from the bullet below that applies to your situation. These instructions set certain flags that make the dump file compatible with Cloud SQL.

  1. Create a Cloud Storage bucket, if you haven't already.

    For help with creating a bucket, see Creating Storage Buckets.

  2. Upload the file to your bucket.

    For help with uploading files to buckets, see Uploading objects.

  3. Provide your instance with the storage.objectAdmin IAM role for your bucket. For help with setting IAM permissions, see Using IAM permissions.
  4. Import your dump file:

    Before using any of the request data below, make the following replacements:

    • project-id: The project ID
    • instance-id: The instance ID
    • bucket_name: The Cloud Storage bucket name
    • path_to_sql_file: The path to the SQL file
    • database_name: The name of a database inside the Cloud SQL instance

    HTTP method and URL: 

    POST https://sqladmin.googleapis.com/sql/v1beta4/projects/project-id/instances/instance-id/import

    Request JSON body: 

    {
 "importContext":
   {
      "fileType": "SQL",
      "uri": "gs://bucket_name/path_to_sql_file",
      "database": "database_name"
    }
}

    To send your request, expand one of these options:

    You should receive a JSON response similar to the following:

    To use a different user for the import, specify the importContext.importUser property.

    For the complete list of parameters for this request, see the instances:import page.
  5. If you do not need to retain the IAM permissions you set previously, remove them now.
To see how the underlying REST API request is constructed for this task, see the APIs Explorer on the instances:import page.

Importing data from a CSV file into Cloud SQL

  • The database and table you are importing into must already exist on your Cloud SQL instance. For help with creating a database, see Creating a database. To create a table in the database, use the CREATE TABLE SQL statement in the psql client.
  • Your CSV file must conform to the CSV file format requirements below.

CSV file format requirements

CSV files must have one line for each row of data and use comma-separated fields.

To see instructions for exporting to a CSV file formatted for Cloud SQL, see Exporting data from Cloud SQL to a CSV file.

To import data to a Cloud SQL instance using a CSV file:

Console

  1. Go to the Cloud SQL Instances page in the Google Cloud Console.

    Go to the Cloud SQL Instances page

  2. Select the instance to open its Overview page.
  3. Click Import in the button bar.
  4. Under Choose the file you'd like to import data from, enter the path to the bucket and CSV file to use for the import. Or to browse to the file:
    1. Click Browse.
    2. Under Location, double-click the name of the bucket in the list.
    3. Select the file in the list.
    4. Click Select.

    You can import a compressed (.gz) or an uncompressed (.csv) file.

  5. Under Format, select CSV.
  6. Specify the Database and Table in your Cloud SQL instance where you want to import the CSV file.
  7. You can optionally specify a user to use for the import.
  8. Click the Import to start the import.

gcloud

  1. Create a Cloud Storage bucket, if you haven't already.

    For help with creating a bucket, see Creating Storage Buckets.

  2. Upload the file to your bucket.

    For help with uploading files to buckets, see Uploading objects.

  3. Upload data from the CSV file to the bucket.
  4. Describe the instance you are exporting from: 
    gcloud sql instances describe [INSTANCE_NAME]
  5. Copy the serviceAccountEmailAddress field.
  6. Use gsutil iam to grant the storage.objectAdmin IAM role to the service account for the bucket. For help with setting IAM permissions, see Using IAM permissions.
  7. Import the file: 
    gcloud sql import csv [INSTANCE_NAME] gs://[BUCKET_NAME]/[FILE_NAME] \
                            --database=[DATABASE_NAME] --table=[TABLE_NAME]

    For information about using the import csv command, see the sql import csv command reference page.

  8. If you do not need to retain the IAM permissions you set previously, remove them using gsutil iam.

REST API v1beta4

  1. Create a Cloud Storage bucket, if you haven't already.

    For help with creating a bucket, see Creating Storage Buckets.

  2. Upload the file to your bucket.

    For help with uploading files to buckets, see Uploading objects.

  3. Provide your instance with the storage.objectAdmin IAM role for your bucket. For help with setting IAM permissions, see Using IAM permissions.
  4. Import data from the file:

    Before using any of the request data below, make the following replacements:

    • project-id: The project ID
    • instance-id: The instance ID
    • bucket_name: The Cloud Storage bucket name
    • path_to_csv_file: The path to the CSV file
    • database_name: The name of a database inside the Cloud SQL instance
    • table_name: The name of the database table

    HTTP method and URL: 

    POST https://sqladmin.googleapis.com/sql/v1beta4/projects/project-id/instances/instance-id/import

    Request JSON body: 

    {
 "importContext":
   {
      "fileType": "CSV",
      "uri": "gs://bucket_name/path_to_csv_file",
      "database": "database_name",
      "csvImportOptions":
       {
         "table": "table_name"
       }
   }
}

    To send your request, expand one of these options:

    You should receive a JSON response similar to the following:

    To use a different user for the import, specify the importContext.importUser property.

    For the complete list of parameters for this request, see the instances:import page.
  5. If you do not need to retain the IAM permissions you set previously, remove the permissions.

If you get an error such as ERROR_RDBMS, ensure the table exists. If the table exists, confirm that you have the correct permissions on the bucket. For help configuring access control in Cloud Storage, see Create and Manage Access Control Lists.

To see how the underlying REST API request is constructed for this task, see the APIs Explorer on the instances:import page.

Importing data into Cloud SQL using pg_restore

You can use the pg_restore utility to import a database into Cloud SQL. pg_restore only works with archive files created by pg_dump. Learn more about pg_restore.

If the dump file was created with plain-text format, run the following command:

pg_restore -h CLOUD_SQL_INSTANCE_IP -U USERNAME --format=plain --no-owner --no-acl -d DATABASE_NAME SQL_FILE.sql

If the dump file was created with custom format, run the following command:

pg_restore --list  DATABASE_NAME .dmp | sed -E 's/(.* EXTENSION )/; \1/g' >  DATABASE_NAME.toc

The sed post-processing comments out all extension statements in the SQL dump file.

To import in parallel, use the -j NUM_CORES flag. NUM_CORES is the number of cores on the source instance. Use the same flag with pg_dump to export in parallel.

Troubleshooting

Click the links in the table for details:

For this problem... The issue might be... Try this...
Import is taking too long. Too many active connections can interfere with import operations. Close unused connections, or restart the Cloud SQL instance before beginning an import operation.
Import fails. Exported file may contain database users who do not yet exist. Clean up the failed database before retrying the import. Create the database users before doing the import.

Import is taking too long

Import is taking too long, blocking other operations.

The issue might be

Too many active connections can interfere with import operations. Connections consume CPU and memory, limiting the resources available.

Things to try

Close unused operations. Check CPU and memory usage to make sure there are plenty of resources available. The best way to ensure maximum resources for the import operation is to restart the instance before beginning the operation. A restart:

  • Closes all connections.
  • Ends any tasks that may be consuming resources.

Import fails

Import fails when one or more users referenced in the exported SQL dump file does not exist.

The issue might be

Before importing a SQL dump, all the database users who own objects or were granted permissions on objects in the dumped database must exist. If they do not, the restore fails to recreate the objects with the original ownership and/or permissions.

Things to try

Clean up the failed database before retrying the import. Create the database users before importing the SQL dump.

What's next