Re: pg_xlog -> pg_xjournal?

On Sun, May 31, 2015 at 7:46 PM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:
> Hm. I think the impact on third-party backup tools would be rather bad,
> but there's a simple modification of the idea that might fix that:
> just always create pg_xlog as a symlink to pg_xjournal during initdb.
> Anybody who blindly removes pg_xlog won't have done anything
> irreversible. We could deprecate pg_xlog and stop creating the symlink
> after a few releases, once third-party tools have had a reasonable
> amount of time to adjust.

I like the solution. Simple and effective.
+1

> In the end though, this is a lot of thrashing for a problem that
> only comes up rarely ...

It happens often enough for the problem to be the first mentioned
use-case of pg_resetxlog at Stack Overflow:

"pg_resetxlog is a tool of last resort for getting your database
running again after:
1. You deleted files you shouldn't have from pg_xlog;"

(http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12897429/what-does-pg-resetxlog-do-and-how-does-it-work)

Preventing failure in the case of faults is of course one of the
primary objectives of any database.