On Tue, 2026-09-29 at 21:03 +0530, Toppr Tenali wrote: > I would like to suggest a clarification to the PostgreSQL documentation > regarding base > backups and local WAL recycling. > > The documentation explains separately that: > > - archived WAL required by a base backup can eventually be deleted once that > backup > is safely archived
I'd say that is wrong - you need to *retain* the WAL required to recover a backup, otherwise you cannot restore it. Where in the documentation do you see that sentence? > - WAL segments in pg_wal can be recycled or removed after they are no longer > needed > and, when archiving is enabled, have been successfully archived. Right, but you forgot that replication slots will also keep PostgreSQL from deleting WAL segments. > However, I could not find an explicit statement about whether taking or > completing a > base backup itself affects when WAL segments in the local pg_wal directory > become > eligible for recycling/removal. > > Could the documentation explicitly clarify this relationship? I don't think that there is a relationship between WAL recycling and a base backup, so there is nothing to document. Yours, Laurenz Albe
