Remote On-line Backup

I just want to make sure that I've got a good enough understanding of
the built-in on-line backup facility to be able to minimize data loss
and unavailability of the database during a remote recovery from on-
line backup.

Here are the steps I'm proposing:

1. Set up archive_command in postgresql.conf on oldhost to archive to
remote repository on newhost.
2. Perform base backup on oldhost. (I'll probably just use rsync to
backup directly to newhost.)
3. On newhost, remove postmaster.pid from $PGDATA, disable
archive_command in postgresql.conf, and create clean pg_xlog tree.
4. Stop the postmaster on oldhost.
5. If the WAL file referenced by the backup file in my archive
directory on newhost is not archived when the postmaster is stopped,
copy it from oldhost to pg_xlog on newhost.
6. Create recovery.conf on newhost.
7. Start the postmaster on newhost.
8. Rejoice when recovery.done appears.

The part I most want to make sure I understand well enough is step 5,
which I'm understanding to be a modification of steps 2 and 6 from
section 23.3.3 in the docs. As I understand it, there's a pretty good
possibility that the WAL file referenced by stop_backup() will not be
archived by the time I stop the postmaster on oldhost. In which case,
I should be in good shape to recover if I have a base backup, the
archived WAL files up to that final file referenced by stop_backup(),
and the partial segment file referenced by stop_backup(), which
should be the only unarchived WAL segment file and just needs to
exist in pg_xlog on newhost for things to run smoothly.

Does this seem right? Or will I rather want to copy all the contents
of pg_xlog from oldhost as they represent current (as of stopping the
postmaster) unarchived WAL activity?

--
Thomas F. O'Connell
Database Architecture and Programming
Co-Founder
Sitening, LLC

http://www.sitening.com/
3004 B Poston Avenue
Nashville, TN 37203-1314
615-260-0005 (cell)
615-469-5150 (office)
615-469-5151 (fax)