Re: Postgres 8.0 Backups

Scott Marlowe <smarlowe@g2switchworks.com> writes:
> On Mon, 2005-01-24 at 10:47, Pallav Kalva wrote:
>> I am working on a backup script for Postgres 8.0 online backups and
>> since i have to copy the whole pgdata directory , i am wondering after i
>> copy the pgdata directory can I run gzip or tar on the data directory ?

> Generally speaking, file system level backups are not the best way to
> backup postgresql, since they require either shutting down the server or
> using a snapshot file system to get a coherent backup.

In the context of online backup operations, that advice isn't relevant
anymore ...

Personally I would do "tar cfz pgdata.tar.gz $PGDATA" or equivalent,
rather than making an explicit copy of the directory tree first.

            regards, tom lane