Re: Checkpoint Err on Startup of Rsynced System

On Tue, May 31, 2016 at 10:13 AM, Jim Longwill <longwill(at)psmfc(dot)org> wrote:
> I am trying to setup a 2nd, identical, db server (M2) for development and
> I've run into a problem with starting up the 2nd Postgres installation.
>
> Here's what I've done:
> 1) did a 'clone' of 1st (production) machine M1 (so both machines on Cent
> OS 7.2)
> 2) setup an rsync operation, did a complete 'rsync' from M1 to M2
> 3) did a final 'CHECKPOINT' command on M1 postgres
> 4) shutdown postgres on M1 with 'pg_ctl stop'
> 5) did final 'rsync' operation (then restarted postgres on M1 with
> 'pg_ctl start')
> 6) tried to startup postgres on M2
>
> It won't start, & in the log file gives the error message:
> ...
> < 2016-05-31 09:02:52.337 PDT >LOG: invalid primary checkpoint record
> < 2016-05-31 09:02:52.337 PDT >LOG: invalid secondary checkpoint record
> < 2016-05-31 09:02:52.337 PDT >PANIC: could not locate a valid checkpoint
> record
> < 2016-05-31 09:02:53.184 PDT >LOG: startup process (PID 26680) was
> terminated by signal 6: Aborted
> < 2016-05-31 09:02:53.184 PDT >LOG: aborting startup due to startup process
> failure
>
> I've tried several times to do this but always get this result. So, do I
> need to do a new 'initdb..' operation on machine M2 + restore from M1
> backups? Or is there another way to fix this?

It sounds like you did not include pg_xlog in your rsync. What you
have done is basically a cold backup. Cold backups must include
pg_xlog, at least if you want them to work without WAL archival. If
you look farther up in the log, it should tell you what xlog file it
needs, and you can copy that from M1 if it is still there.

Cheers,

Jeff