Message-ID: <53E9419A.6010400@agliodbs.com>
Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2014 15:20:10 -0700
From: Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com>
Organization: PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
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To: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, Kevin Grittner <kgrittn@ymail.com>
CC: "pgsql-docs@postgresql.org" <pgsql-docs@postgresql.org>
Subject: Re: Sample archive_command is still problematic
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On 08/11/2014 12:49 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
> Kevin Grittner <kgrittn@ymail.com> writes:
>> Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com> wrote:
>>> Yeah, realistically, I think we need to start supplying a script or two
>>> in /contrib and referencing that.=EF=BF=BD I'm not sure how to make it =
work for
>>> the Windows users though.
>=20
>> That might work.=EF=BF=BD We should do something, though.=EF=BF=BD The e=
xample we
>> give in the docs is not production quality IMO, and is something of
>> an embarrassment.
>=20
> Well, it's not really intended to be production grade, and I think the
> docs say so (perhaps not emphatically enough).

Thing is, if we supply a sample command in the docs ... even if it's
preceeded by ***DO NOT USE WILL EAT YOUR SERVER*** ... people will still
copy-and-paste it, and then put it into production.

> The problem with such things as sample scripts is that it might get hard
> for people to tell the difference between barnacles (like email ;-))
> and properties that they'd better preserve in any custom script.
> The documentation is primarily trying to make the point that the archive
> action must not overwrite any existing file (which is such a property)
> and that's why it has the test ! -f.  It doesn't really address the
> question of appropriate error handling, which is what Josh is on about.

I'm suggesting that we've established that there is no one-liner which
will not cause real problems for users who copy it.  Given that, we
should not supply a one-liner, even as an example; we should supply some
sample scripts, and a reference in the docs:

"Please look at /share/archiving-scripts/ for some sample shell scripts
for archiving, or use a project like WAL-E, Barman, or OmniPITR."

The alternative is to supply a C utility ourselves for log copying, but
I think the presence of multiple archiving utilities is a good argument
that it's not possible for any given utility to cover more than 30% of
use-cases.

--=20
Josh Berkus
PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://pgexperts.com


--=20
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