NAME

pg_backupcluster - simple pg_basebackup and pg_dump front-end

SYNOPSIS

pg_backupcluster [options] version cluster action

DESCRIPTION

pg_backupcluster provides a simple interface to create PostgreSQL cluster backups using pg_basebackup(1) and pg_dump(1).

To ease integration with systemd operation, the alternative syntax "pg_basebackup version-cluster action" is also supported.

ACTIONS

createdirectory: Create /var/backups and /var/backups/version-cluster. This action can be run as root to create the directories required for backups. All other actions will also attempt to create the directories when missing, but can of course only do that when running as root. They will switch to the cluster owner after this step.
basebackup: Backup using pg_basebackup(1). The resulting basebackup contains the WAL files required to run recovery on startup.
dump: Backup using pg_dump(1). Global objects (users, tablespaces) are dumped using pg_dumpall(1) --globals-only. Individual databases are dumped into PostgreSQL's custom format.
expirebasebackups N: Remove all but last the N basebackups.
expiredumps N: Remove all but last the N dumps.
receivewal: Launch pg_receivewal. WAL files are gzip-compressed in PG 10+.
compresswal: Compress WAL files in archive.
archivecleanup: Remove obsolete WAL files from archive using pg_archivecleanup(1).
list: Show dumps, basebackups, and WAL, with size.

OPTIONS

-c --checkpoint=spread|fast: Passed to pg_basebackup. Default is spread.
-k --keep-on-error: Keep faulty backup directory on error. By default backups are delete on error.
-v --verbose: Verbose output, even when not running on a terminal.

FILES

/var/backups: Default root directory for cluster backup directories.
/var/backups/version-cluster: Default directory for cluster backups.
/var/backups/version-cluster/timestamp.basebackup: Backup from pg_backupcluster ... basebackup.

config.tar.gz: Tarball of cluster configuration directory (postgresql.conf, pg_hba.conf, ...) in /etc/postgresql.
tablespace.tar.gz, pg_wal.tar.gz, backup_manifest: Tablespace and WAL tarballs and backup info written by pg_basebackup.
status: Completion timestamp of backup run.

/var/backups/version-cluster/timestamp.dump: Backup from pg_backupcluster ... dump.

config.tar.gz: Tarball of cluster configuration directory (postgresql.conf, pg_hba.conf, ...) in /etc/postgresql.
createcluster.opts: Options (encoding, locale, data checksums) to be passed to pg_createcluster for restoring this cluster.
globals.sql: Global objects (roles, tablespaces) from pg_dumpall --globals-only.
databases.sql: SQL commands to create databases and restore database-level options.
database.dump: Database dumps from pg_dump --format=custom.
status: Completion timestamp of backup run.

/var/backups/version-cluster/wal: WAL files from pg_receivewal.

CAVEATS

For dump-style backups, not all properties of the original cluster are preserved:

In PostgreSQL 10 and earlier, ALTER ROLE ... IN DATABASE is not supported.
Not all initdb options are carried over. Currently supported are --encoding, --lc-collate, --lc-collate, and -k --data-checksums.

The earliest PostgreSQL version supported for dumps is 9.3. For basebackups, the earliest supported version is 9.1. receivewal (and hence archive recovery) are supported in 9.5 and later.

AUTHOR

Christoph Berg <myon@debian.org>