Message-Id: <4B7D68BF020000250002F3D4@gw.wicourts.gov>
Date: Thu, 18 Feb 2010 16:20:15 -0600
From: "Kevin Grittner" <Kevin.Grittner@wicourts.gov>
To: "Brad Littlejohn" <blittlejohn@posportal.com>,
	"'pgsql-admin@postgresql.org'" <pgsql-admin@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: Apply WAL logs after database restore
References: <FC2125863502344C9B615565CF826F7CD9B323A2@posexch1.posportal.com>
In-Reply-To: <FC2125863502344C9B615565CF826F7CD9B323A2@posexch1.posportal.com>
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Brad Littlejohn <blittlejohn@posportal.com> wrote:
 
> I performed a backup of the database, using pg_dump
 
> I have WAL-based log shipping enabled on that server.
> 
> I just created a second database server that will be a recovery
> server, compiled and installed PostgreSQL onto it, and restored
> the full backup taken from the primary database onto it. Since
> this wasn't a base backup (using tar, cpio, etc.), how would I
> apply the WAL logs to this secondary server, to get it up to
> current?
 
That can't be done -- pg_dump uses COPY or INSERT statements
(depending on your pg_dump options) which are *row* based, while WAL
files are *page* based.  They are alternative techniques which can't
be mixed and matched.
 
> All of the documentation I've read so far uses a base backup. Is
> there any way to apply the logs generated since that backup
> created by pg_dump to get the secondary database up to current?
 
No, you can only apply WAL files to a file-based image of the source
database, not to a database created through other means which
happens to contain the same data.
 
-Kevin