Re: PATCH: Exclude additional directories in pg_basebackup

On 9/1/16 9:53 AM, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
> On 8/15/16 3:39 PM, David Steele wrote:
>> That patch got me thinking about what else could be excluded and after
>> some investigation I found the following: pg_notify, pg_serial,
>> pg_snapshots, pg_subtrans.  These directories are all cleaned, zeroed,
>> or rebuilt on server start.
>>
>> The attached patch adds these directories to the pg_basebackup
>> exclusions and takes an array-based approach to excluding directories
>> and files during backup.
>
> We do support other backup methods besides using pg_basebackup.  So I
> think we need to document the required or recommended handling of each
> of these directories.  And then pg_basebackup should become a consumer
> of that documentation.
>
> The current documentation on this is at
> <https://www.postgresql.org/docs/devel/static/continuous-archiving.html#BACKUP-LOWLEVEL-BASE-BACKUP-DATA>,
> which covers pg_xlog and pg_replslot.  I think that documentation should
> be expanded, maybe with a simple list that is easy to copy into an
> exclude file, following by more detail on each directory.

Attached is a new patch that adds sgml documentation.  I can expand on
each directory individually if you think that's necessary, but thought
it was better to lump them into a few categories.

--
-David
david@pgmasters.net