Re: post-freeze damage control

On 4/11/24 23:48, David Steele wrote:
> On 4/11/24 20:26, Tomas Vondra wrote:
>>
>> On 4/11/24 03:52, David Steele wrote:
>>> On 4/11/24 10:23, Tom Kincaid wrote:
>>>>
>>>> The extensive Beta process we have can be used to build confidence we
>>>> need in a feature that has extensive review and currently has no known
>>>> issues or outstanding objections.
>>>
>>> I did have objections, here [1] and here [2]. I think the complexity,
>>> space requirements, and likely performance issues involved in restores
>>> are going to be a real problem for users. Some of these can be addressed
>>> in future releases, but I can't escape the feeling that what we are
>>> releasing here is half-baked.
>>
>> I haven't been part of those discussions, and that part of the thread is
>> a couple months old already, so I'll share my view here instead.
>>
>> I do not think it's half-baked. I certainly agree there are limitations,
>> and there's all kinds of bells and whistles we could add, but I think
>> the fundamental infrastructure is corrent and a meaningful step forward.
>> Would I wish it to handle .tar for example? Sure I would. But I think
>> it's something we can add in the future - if we require all of this to
>> happen in a single release, it'll never happen.
>
> Fair enough, but the current release is extremely limited and it would
> be best if that was well understood by users.
>
>> FWIW that discussion also mentions stuff that I think the feature should
>> not do. In particular, I don't think the ambition was (or should be) to
>> make pg_basebackup into a stand-alone tool. I always saw pg_basebackup
>> more as an interface to "backup steps" correctly rather than a complete
>> backup solution that'd manage backup registry, retention, etc.
>
> Right -- this is exactly my issue. pg_basebackup was never easy to use
> as a backup solution and this feature makes it significantly more
> complicated. Complicated enough that it would be extremely difficult for
> most users to utilize in a meaningful way.
>

Perhaps, I agree we could/should try to do better job to do backups, no
argument there. But I still don't quite see why introducing such
infrastructure to "manage backups" should be up to the patch adding
incremental backups. I see it as something to build on top of
pg_basebackup/pg_combinebackup, not into those tools.

> But they'll try because it is a new pg_basebackup feature and they'll
> assume it is there to be used. Maybe it would be a good idea to make it
> clear in the documentation that significant tooling will be required to
> make it work.
>

Sure, I'm not against making it clearer pg_combinebackup is not a
complete backup solution, and documenting the existing restrictions.

regards

--
Tomas Vondra
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