Re: Can I pause the pg_dump or pg_restore

Sam Mason wrote:
> On Wed, May 20, 2009 at 06:22:46PM +0530, Gurjeet Singh wrote:
>
>> I don't know if the following would be recommended, but did some research
>> and it seems that one can use STOP and CONT signals on Linux/Unix to
>> pause/continue a process.
>>
>
> As David noted; sending a STOP is exactly what your shell does for you
> when you hit the Ctrl+Z key combination.  It'll subsequently send a CONT
> when you put it into the background (by typing "bg") or resume it in the
> foreground (when using "fg").
>
> Note that when used on the pg_dump process all you're doing is stopping
> it from writing out the backup.  The server process will still be
> running and waiting for the backup to finish writing the data.  It will
> thus hold the transaction open and any other state needed to keep things
> going.  This should be fine for temporary pauses, but it wouldn't be
> recommended to pause the backup for days at a time.
>
>
Just curious.... why would you want to pause a backup/restore?