public inbox for [email protected]  

help / color / mirror / Atom feed

From: Ron Johnson <[email protected]>
To: pgsql-generallists.postgresql.org <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: About backups
Date: Mon, 26 Jan 2026 13:22:36 -0500
Message-ID: <CANzqJaBnBBAWO7ot2V+oSNpR7VSnkAELMX0aqZcP=rHs2ddoig@mail.gmail.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <[email protected]>
References: <[email protected]>
	<[email protected]>
	<[email protected]>
	<CANzqJaAygQG3F3fKe25YV765kUkO=UQqefACpo+2KQJXew7g-Q@mail.gmail.com>
	<[email protected]>

On Mon, Jan 26, 2026 at 12:52 PM <[email protected]> wrote:

> I'm having a problem with this. I'm repurposing an old application written
> in Visual Basic 6 that did allow backups through signed stored procedures.


You must change your expectations and way of thinking.  *Postgresql is not
SQL Server*, and thus cannot be managed the same way as SQL Server.  That
is a fact of life which you must accept.


> This is a requirement for financial applications; the user can perform a
> backup whenever they want, but they can't access the database.
>

"ssh to a Linux account dedicated to pgbackrest" within the application is
my first thought.  Note, though, that pgbackrest does not have BACKUP
DATABASE's COPY_ONLY feature.  If you need that, pg_dump is your
only option.


> The new application is web-based, deployed in containers, and the database
> server container is not the same as the application's, so I can't use
> pg_dump in the application, or at least I don't know how to do it.
>
>  On Monday, January 26, 2026 at 12:31:48 PM GMT-5, Ron Johnson <
> [email protected]> wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jan 26, 2026 at 11:11 AM Adrian Klaver <[email protected]>
> wrote:
> On 1/26/26 08:01, [email protected] wrote:
>
> > Is there a way to implement the SQL Server command 'BACKUP DATABASE'?
> Not from within the Postgres instance.
> You will need to use:
>
> https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/app-pgdump.html
> Felix, pg_dump is a logical export tuned for speed and multithreading.
> Almost certainly not what you want.
> pgbackrest is the equivalent of BACKUP DATABASE and BACKUP LOG.  It's an
> external program (stuffing everything in the database engine is not The
> Unix Way) which typically you run from cron. Redrirect stdout and stderr to
> a log file with a timestamp in the name.  (That, at least, is what I've
> been doing for 8 years.  It works perfectly.)
> pgbackrest also has an "info" option which gives you details of all the
> backups currently in the repository. >
>
> > Is there a way to see the restores performed on a database?
>
> > Is there an equivalent table to msdb.dbo.restorehistory in SQL Server?
>
> > Is there a way to implement an equivalent if one doesn't exist?
>
>  From what I understand there are various ways of doing this in SQL
>
> Server, which way are you interested in?
> --
> Death to <Redacted>, and butter sauce.Don't boil me, I'm still alive.
> <Redacted> lobster!
>
>
>

-- 
Death to <Redacted>, and butter sauce.
Don't boil me, I'm still alive.
<Redacted> lobster!

view thread (10+ messages)  latest in thread

reply

Reply instructions:

You may reply publicly to this message via plain-text email
using any one of the following methods:

* Reply to all the recipients using the --to and --cc options:
  reply via email

  To: [email protected]
  Cc: [email protected], [email protected]
  Subject: Re: About backups
  In-Reply-To: <CANzqJaBnBBAWO7ot2V+oSNpR7VSnkAELMX0aqZcP=rHs2ddoig@mail.gmail.com>

* Save the following mbox file, import it into your mail client,
  and reply-to-all from there: mbox

This inbox is served by agora; see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox