PMDump

Tool for migrating Papermerge DMS data between different versions.

Basically you export data from one (older) version as tar.gz archive and import it into the 3.4 (latest).

For PMDump version 0.3 export command works for following Papermerge DMS versions/databases

db/pmg version	2.0	2.1	3.2	3.3	3.4
SQLite	✅	✅	✅	✅	✅
PostgreSQL	❌	✅	✅	✅	✅

Currently import command works to import only into 3.4 either SQLite or PostgreSQL database.

• ✅ - means: it works
• ❌ - means: no plans to implement this part yet. If you need this to be implemented, please open a ticket and provide docker compose with your setup.

Get It

Download suitable binary file directly from release page

wget -O pmdump <URL to the binary of the latest version for your platform>

OR

curl -o pmdump  <URL to the binary of the latest version for your platform>

And then:

chmod +x pmdump
sudo mv pmdump /usr/local/bin/

You can add the current directory to your PATH temporarily:

export PATH=$PWD:$PATH

Usage

There are two commands:

• export
• import

for both you need to specify also configuration file. For export command, configuration file indicates "the source". For import command configuration file indicates "the destination".

Export Config

create source.yaml file in which you need specify version of the Papermerge DMS from where to export, media root folder, and database.

For example, to export from Papermerge DMS 2.0 (i.e. app version 2.0), which stores its data in SQLite database:

app_version: 2.0
media_root: /path/to/media/folder/
database_url: sqlite:///path/to/data/papermerge.db

In case of exporting data from app version 3.3 which store data in postgres database, configuration yaml file would look like:

media_root: /home/eugen/DockerCompose/pm3.3.1-pg/media
database_url: postgresql://coco:[email protected]:5432/pmgdb?sslmode=disable
app_version: 3.3

app_version - it the version of Papermerge DMS from which you intend to export data. Version must be specified in <major>.<minor> format. Here are some examples of valid values: 2.0, 2.1, 3.0, 3.2, 3.4.

media_root is folder where Papermerge DMS stores actual files. pmdump should have access to this folder. Papermerge DMS uses PAPERMERGE__MAIN__MEDIA_ROOT environment variable to configure its media root folder. If not configured, it defaults to /core_app/media/.

database_url - is the database URL. For SQLite it is the path to sqlite3 file, prefixed with sqlite://. Some examples: sqlite:///home/eugen/DockerCompose/pm3.4-sqlite/data/db.sqlite3, sqlite:///var/data/db.sqlite3. Notice in examples there are three ///: two stand for the sqlite scheme, and one stands for root folder.

For PostgreSQL scheme must either postgres:// or postgresql://. Here are some valid examples: postgresql://coco:[email protected]:5432/pmgdb?sslmode=disable, postgresql://coco:[email protected]:5432/pmgdb

Export Command

Export command will save all data into zipped tar archive. You specify name of the exported file via -f flag and configuration file via -c flag:

$ pmdump -c source.yaml -f pm3.3.tar.gz export

Note export command must be at the end of parameters list. Placing export command BEFORE parameters list won't work:

// wrong! "export" command must be at the end!
$ pmdump export -c source.yaml -f pm3.3.tar.gz

If you place export before parameters flag, you will get "missing configuration" error.

The general form for export command is:

$ pmdump <flag parameters> export

Here are couple of valid examples for export command:

$ pmdump -c examples/source_3_3_pg.yaml -f pm3.3_pg.tar.gz export

Import

Create dest_pg.yaml file

media_root: /home/eugen/DockerCompose/pm3.4-pg/media/
database_url: postgresql://coco:[email protected]:5432/pmg34?sslmode=disable
app_version: 3.4

Run import command (notice that import is at the end of parameters)

pmdump -c dest_pg.yaml -f /path/to/archive.tar.gz import

If you are importing into SQLite database, configuration file, dest_sqlite.yaml, will look like:

media_root: /home/eugen/DockerCompose/pm3.4-sqlite/media/
database_url: sqlite:///home/eugen/DockerCompose/pm3.4-sqlite/data/db.sqlite3
app_version: 3.4

And command is same:

pmdump -c dest_sqlite.yaml -f /path/to/archive.tar.gz import

Development

You need golang version 1.24:

$ go version

go version go1.24.0

To compile from source code use following commands:

$ go mod download
$ go mod tidy
$ go build dump.go

Above commands will create pmdump binary.