Re: pg_stop_backup does not complete

On Wed, 2010-02-24 at 16:52 -0500, Tom Lane wrote:

> Before you could enter pg_abort_backup you'd have to control-C out of
> the pg_stop_backup call, and that action already accomplishes the only
> thing pg_abort_backup could do for you.

Agreed. I was responding to perceived user need.

> So what I am thinking is that this is really just a minor bit of user
> unfriendliness in pg_stop_backup. We should address it with one or
> both of these changes:
>
> * emit a NOTICE as soon as pg_stop_backup's actual work is done and
> it's starting to wait for the archiver (or maybe after it's waited
> for a few seconds, but much less than the present 60).

Pointless really. Nobody runs backups in production by typing
pg_stop_backup() except in a demo. Nobody will see this.

> * extend the existing WARNING (and the NOTICE too if we elect to have
> one) with a HINT message explicitly saying that you can cancel the
> wait but thus-and-such consequences might ensue.

If you can see the HINT, you can also see the WARNING. If you can see
the WARNING and do nothing, I don't think we need a "objects in the
mirror may be closer than they appear" message. If people can't work out
that if a) they are running something and b) that something is waiting
that they should cancel it then we aren't going to have much luck with
them.

--
Simon Riggs www.2ndQuadrant.com