Re: [GENERAL] PITR - base backup question

On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 9:18 AM, Michael Nolan <htfoot(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> I have what I have sometimes called a 'tepid spare' backup. Once a week I
> copy the physical files over to another system (actually to two of them) and
> every few hours I make sure the archived WAL log files are in sync (using
> rsync.)

I have a couple of comments...see below:

> 3. Shut down the Postgresql server running on the backup server, if any
> pg_ctl stop
> (Use 'ps ax' to make sure the server is stopped.)

probably pg_ctl -m fast stop or -m immediate...since we are overwriting it.

> 5. Delete the entire contents of the /disk1/postgres/data directory tree.
> MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE YOU ARE IN THE /disk1/postgres/data directory!
>
> cd /disk1/postgres/data
> pwd
> rm -rf *

why not just rm -rf /disk1/postgres/data?

> 6. Restore the tar file for the low-level backup from the live server
>
> tar xvf /usr/local/pgsql/tardir/pg_part1.tar
>
> (This restore may take 2-3 hours)
>
> 7. Remove the PostgreSQL log file and the WAL files that were restored
> from the tar archive

I prefer to exclude WAL files from the original tar, and recreate the
folders here (being careful to chown them to postgres account). Every
little bit helps.

> 12. Go to the directory where the WAL files have been archived on
> the server and remove all files older than the file matching the
> last .backup file. The fastest way to do this is as follows:
>
> cd /usr/local/pgsql/archivedir
> ls -1 > files

This is a nice touch. With a little bash-fu you could do a find |
xargs rm and list/kill the files in one pass. In the standby setups
I've done I usually script the whole process, a prep on the main and a
startup on the standby.

merlin