Re: Suggestion: pg_dump self-cleanup if out-of-disk

David Johnston wrote
>
> Jeff Janes wrote
>> On Sun, Nov 17, 2013 at 11:12 PM, David Johnston <

>> polobo@

>> > wrote:
>>
>>> Having recently had a pg_dump error out due to not having enough disk it
>>> occurs to me that it would be nice for pg_dump to remove the partial
>>> dump
>>> file it was creating (if possible/known) instead of having it sit around
>>> taking up that last bit of available space and itself being unusable for
>>> restore purposes anyway. Given these tend to be large the benefit to
>>> cleanup seems quite strong and fairly direct to accomplish since we just
>>> created the file only a short while previous. Call it a beginner or
>>> part-time-dba usability feature.
>>>
>>
>> I don't think I like this. If I unexpectedly filled up a partition with
>> a
>> dump file, I think the first thing I would want to do is 'head' or 'more'
>> the partial dump to see what is making it so big--e.g. that I am dumping
>> the wrong cluster/database/schema. I wouldn't want the software to hide
>> the evidence.
> So yeah, my situation was I had too many "archive dumps" maintained so
> that while each dump was just fine in totality they took up too much space
> and the last one aborted but left that space occupied.
>
> I'll admit my situation is novice-level admin work but I wouldn't put it
> past others to encounter this situation. Leaving the target drive full
> just seems hostile. Forensics should be do-able from knowing the command
> that was used. And maybe upon such an abort STDERR could be used to
> output relevant diagnostic information (e.g., host, port, user, the result
> of a version() call, etc...) instead of leaving gigabytes of a partial
> database dump around which might not even have enough detail. This would
> be a useful addition in its own right since what pg_dump sees does not
> always directly match the command that was issued.
>
> David J.

I doubt anyone is likely to work on this at the moment but it seems like a
decent starter project for someone interested in contributing. As such,
IMO, it would make a decent ToDo item generally even if additional features
are needed to maintain enough forensic data to figure out if the specific
pg_dump call was incorrect or if other environmental factors were at play.

Anyone agree enough to add this to the wiki in the pg_dump/pg_restore
section?

David J.

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