Re: need help with rebuilding postgresql

Thanks for the input. Let me put it in this way:We are running a php
site over postgresql database server. The name of database instance is
FOIM. All of a sudden after Sunday, some guy hacked the system. We
need rebuild the system. Now we have new-installed OS along with
Postgres 7. Unfortunately, we don't have backup of database( we don't
pg_dump FOIM). But we have a old hard drive which contains all files.
Is it possible that we restore the FOIMl over file system level?
-thanks
jooy

On 10/16/07, Scott Marlowe <scott(dot)marlowe(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> On 10/16/07, jooy <oldatum(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> > On 10/16/07, Richard Huxton <dev(at)archonet(dot)com> wrote:
> > > jooy wrote:
> > > > Hello all,
> > > > We have a serious problem. Out dedicated server was hacked last
> > > > Sunday. And technical support used a new hard drive with new-installed
> > > > centOS to build our new server. Unfortunately, we don't have database
> > > > backup(pg_dump). We only have the old drive mounted and access normal
> > > > files. Is there any way we can just use those files to restore the
> > > > database? If we can, How? Any input are extremely welcome.
> > >
> > > You need an old copy of Postgesql - the same version you previously had.
> > > It should also have the same build-options. The simplest solution would
> > > probably be to do a minimal install of your old O.S. (a previous version
> > > of CentOS) and then the relevant version of PostgreSQL.
> > >
> > > If there's an RPM with the right version of PostgreSQL for your current
> > > CentOS, you could try that, but take a filesystem backup first.
> >
> > Thanks so much. We now have CentOS and postgresql ready. But we are
> > missing the backup files, that's, we haven't done pg_dump our
> > database. How to restore the database from some files like using mdb
> > file to restore a Access database? Is it possible in Postgres? I am
> > new to Postgres. Your help will be appreciated.
>
> I think you misunderstand. He's saying to make a FILE system backup
> of what's there now (i.e. cp -rp /where/my/db/is/now
> /where/i/backup/files) before trying to bring up a postgresql instance
> on the files as they are now.
>