From: | Christophe Pettus <xof(at)thebuild(dot)com> |
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To: | Stephen Frost <sfrost(at)snowman(dot)net> |
Cc: | Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com>, Fujii Masao <masao(dot)fujii(at)gmail(dot)com>, David Steele <david(at)pgmasters(dot)net>, PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers(at)lists(dot)postgresql(dot)org> |
Subject: | Re: Remove Deprecated Exclusive Backup Mode |
Date: | 2019-02-24 20:47:10 |
Message-ID: | 26C56DD9-FB4F-4C26-8D13-1468D3A96709@thebuild.com |
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Lists: | pgsql-hackers |
> On Feb 24, 2019, at 12:00, Stephen Frost <sfrost(at)snowman(dot)net> wrote:
>
> Do they realize how that existing backup strategy is flawed?
Undoubtedly, some do, some don't. However, given that it has been the *only* backup API for a very long time, many organizations have spent a lot of time closing all of the holes.
It's not impossible to do safe backups with the existing API. Unquestionably, there are installations doing backups that might end up with a silently badly one, but it's entirely possible to do that unsafely (in many of the same ways) with the non-exclusively API.
The installations that need to fix the scripts are also exactly the ones that can't use pg_basebackup or another pre-packaged solution, usually because they have a specific way of taking the file system copy (SAN snapshot, etc.) that those don't support.
> We don't cater to this line of argument when it comes to breaking
> changes in the backend, or when we break monitoring scripts, and I don't
> see a reason why we should do so here.
Those cases are not analogous.
1. Backend APIs are declared non-stable, and do not have a wide audience compared to backing up the database.
2. Monitoring scripts, while important, are not as critical as the backup system. (And, in fact, I didn't agree with breaking those views either, but that's another discussion.)
> Ok, then please do so, and please be prepared to continue to maintain
> the documentation of both methods moving forward, because others have
> tried and have (rightfully, in my opinion) decided that it's frankly not
> worth the effort and ultimately just terribly confusing for users that
> we have these two different backup methods and even just updating the
> documentation for one or the other is downright painful (to the point
> that people litterally give up on it).
We're going to have to do that anyway. For as long as we are maintaining the documentation on a version that has both APIs, we're going to have to say, "Don't use this one, and *here's why*." Saying, "Don't use this one because we said so" when it is an API of long standing that works just as it always did isn't going to cut it.
--
-- Christophe Pettus
xof(at)thebuild(dot)com
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