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Message-ID: <b42b73150808270718k10446b95x2782f758cff125f@mail.gmail.com>
Date: Wed, 27 Aug 2008 10:18:14 -0400
From: "Merlin Moncure" <mmoncure@gmail.com>
To: "Michael Nolan" <htfoot@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [GENERAL] PITR - base backup question
Cc: "Richard Broersma" <richard.broersma@gmail.com>,
	"pgsql-general@postgresql.org" <pgsql-general@postgresql.org>,
	pgsql-admin@postgresql.org
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On Wed, Aug 27, 2008 at 9:52 AM, Michael Nolan <htfoot@gmail.com> wrote:
>> 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.
>
> The scripts to create the system level backups and copy them to the backup
> servers and to rsync the WAL files are both cron jobs.
>
> I've considered writing a script to do all the restore tasks on the backup
> server, but I figure if someone other than me ever has to do it, for example
> if there is a problem when I'm unavailable, that person will probably want
> to watch the entire process carefully, since he or she will be far less
> familiar with the configuration.

Here are some basic facts of life about PITR/log shipping.  It is a
disaster prevention feature.  Here's the scenario:

You are going to depend upon it on 3 a.m. early saturday morning three
years in the future, only you are not going to be there.  A drive just
went out on the main, but instead of degrading the entire backplane
went amber.   You are going to be in Barbados on your honeymoon, with
no connectivity to the outside world (your blushing bride made you
leave the laptop at home).  The guy doing the switchover to the
standby is the only one that could be gotten a hold of, he still
hasn't gotten over the 12 hour bender from Friday.  He's never really
understood why your company took your advice and went with PostgreSQL
instead of SQL Server, is cranky, and doesn't like you that much.  He
secretly hopes the standby wont come up and barely knows how to use a
console.

write the script.
test it.

merlin