Archive logging not cleaning up pg_wal directory

From: Justin Swanhart <greenlion(at)gmail(dot)com>
To: pgsql-general(at)lists(dot)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Archive logging not cleaning up pg_wal directory
Date: 2025-04-10 12:28:36
Message-ID: CAJM9iN3w3UdA3q4_Xnw+Pg+Nnxe4OAUjLQ7EgLtPe36y4A0HDA@mail.gmail.com
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Hi,

I have the following in my postgresql.conf for archive logging:
archive_command='test ! -f /var/lib/postgresql/prod_archive_logs/%f && cp
%p /var/lib/postgresql/prod_archive_logs/%f'

This command is properly copying the log files to my archive directory but
they remain in the `pg_wal` directory after they are copied, consuming
hundreds of gigs of space. Am I supposed to create a cron job to clean out
the `pg_wal` directory periodically (keep only 1 day of logs I guess?)

I tried to use mv:
archive_command='test ! -f /var/lib/postgresql/prod_archive_logs/%f && mv
%p /var/lib/postgresql/prod_archive_logs/%f'

When I did this the archives were moved away to the archive directory but
when I tried to set up replication the server could not find the archived
log to replicate from so I changed it to "cp" and now have this problem.

What am I missing?

Regards,

--Justin

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