Re: backup tools ought to ensure created backups are durable

On Mon, Mar 28, 2016 at 3:11 AM, Michael Paquier <michael(dot)paquier(at)gmail(dot)com>
wrote:

> On Mon, Mar 28, 2016 at 8:30 AM, Andres Freund <andres(at)anarazel(dot)de> wrote:
> > As pointed out in
> >
> http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/20160327232509.v5wgac5vskusedin@awork2.anarazel.de
> > our backup tools (i.e. pg_basebackup, pg_dump[all]), currently don't
> > make any efforts to ensure their output is durable.
> >
> > I think for backup tools of possibly critical data, that's pretty much
> > unaceptable.
>
> Definitely agreed, once a backup/dump has been taken and those
> utilities exit, we had better ensure that they are durably on disk.
> For pg_basebackup and pg_dump, as everything except pg_dump/plain
> require a target directory for the location of the output result, we
> really can make things better.
>
>
Definitely agreed on fixing it. But I don't think your summary is right.

pg_basebackup in tar mode can be sent to stdout, does not require a
directory. And the same for pg_dump in any mode except for directory. So we
can't just drive it off the mode, some more detailed checks are required.

--
Magnus Hagander
Me: http://www.hagander.net/
Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/