Richard Tucker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > 1) Issue an ALTER SYSTEM BEGIN BACKUP command which turns on atomic write, > checkpoints the database and disables further checkpoints (so wal files > won't be reused) until the backup is complete. > 2) Change ALTER SYSTEM BACKUP DATABASE TO <directory> read the database > directory to find which files it should backup rather than pg_class and for > each file just use system(cp...) to copy it to the backup directory. > 3) ALTER SYSTEM FINISH BACKUP does at it does now and backs up the pg_xlog > directory and renables database checkpointing.
> Does this sound right? I really dislike the notion of turning off checkpointing. What if the backup process dies or gets stuck (eg, it's waiting for some operator to change a tape, but the operator has gone to lunch)? IMHO, backup systems that depend on breaking the system's normal operational behavior are broken. It should be sufficient to force a checkpoint when you start and when you're done --- altering normal operation in between is a bad design. regards, tom lane ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 5: Have you checked our extensive FAQ? http://www.postgresql.org/users-lounge/docs/faq.html