Re: Missing WAL files - file-based replication

Tom, thanks for the quick reply.

Unfortunately, rebuilding the backup server from the master is not really
an option at this point. This is a fairly large database (~1TB), are there
any other options that will allow us to get the backup server to ingest WAL
files without database corruption?

Thanks,
Scott

On Sun, Apr 28, 2013 at 11:22 AM, Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us> wrote:

> Scott Briggs <scott(dot)br(at)gmail(dot)com> writes:
> > So we're using 8.3 with file-based replication using rsync to a warm
> backup
> > server. The problem is the backup server crashed and somehow WAL files
> got
> > lost so the backup server is continuously looking for WAL files that are
> no
> > longer available on the master.
>
> > My question is, how can I skip to a set WAL file so that the recovery
> > process can start ingesting WAL files again? I realize there's going to
> be
> > a certain amount of data loss but that's not as important as getting the
> > backup server processing log files, in other words I don't care about the
> > data loss.
>
> There isn't any way to do that, and even if there were I wouldn't
> recommend it, because you wouldn't just end up with "lost" data, you'd
> end up with corrupted data. Indexes in particular would probably be
> unusably inconsistent, leading to wrong answers, occasional PANICs
> on the backup server, etc.
>
> I'd recommend re-syncing the backup to the master using a fresh base
> backup. Yeah, it's more work, but you'll have an actual backup not
> a useless pile of inconsistent bits.
>
> regards, tom lane
>