Re: [PATCH] Report exit code from external recovery commands properly

On Sat, 2013-11-30 at 15:56 -0800, Peter Geoghegan wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 24, 2013 at 5:11 AM, Peter Eisentraut <peter_e@gmx.net> wrote:
> > How about this?
> 
> Hmm. You say:
> 
> +        If the command returns a nonzero exit status then a warning log
> +        message will be written.  An exception is that if the command was
> +        terminated by a signal or an error by the shell (such as command not
> +        found), a fatal error will be raised.
> 
> But in the case of the archiver, in contrast to the startup process,
> this isn't really a big deal. It'll just pick up where it left off.
> Whereas the reaper code shuts down the system if this happens in the
> startup process. In my opinion that's a distinction that bears
> emphasizing.

That snippet you quote is about archive_cleanup_command.  My patch
doesn't touch archive_command at all.

The current documentation about archive_command contains
  <para>   It is important that the archive command return zero exit status if and   only if it succeeds.  Upon getting
azero result,   <productname>PostgreSQL</> will assume that the file has been   successfully archived, and will remove
orrecycle it.  However, a nonzero   status tells <productname>PostgreSQL</> that the file was not archived;   it will
tryagain periodically until it succeeds.  </para>
 

which I think addresses your point.