Carsten Lohrke wrote: >> c) Upgrading between major versions of PostgreSQL requires the DB admin >> to bump the database using the old version, moving the database away and >> to reload the dump into a new database cluster using the new version of >> PostgreSQL. Having to take down the old server and purging the old >> version of PostgreSQL before being able to try out the new one is more >> than cumbersome. Therefore a slotted postgresql-server is needed to make >> the upgrade easier. > > As I read upstream's documentation¹, this is incorrect: > > # It is recommended that you use the pg_dump and pg_dumpall programs from > # the newer version of PostgreSQL, to take advantage of any enhancements > # that may have been made in these programs. Current releases of the dump > # programs can read data from any server version back to 7.0.
While the dump command can read clusters created by an older version it is still necessary to dump and reload your data on version bumps between major versions as written in http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.3/static/install-upgrading.html: [...] The internal data storage format typically changes in every major release of PostgreSQL. Therefore, if you are upgrading an existing installation that does not have a version number of "8.3.x", you must back up and restore your data. If you are upgrading from PostgreSQL "8.3.x", the new version can use your current data files so you should skip the backup and restore steps below because they are unnecessary. [...] Cheers, Tiziano -- gentoo-dev@lists.gentoo.org mailing list
