Re: File based Incremental backup v8

On Thu, Jan 29, 2015 at 9:47 AM, Marco Nenciarini
<marco.nenciarini@2ndquadrant.it> wrote:
> The current implementation of copydir function is incompatible with LSN
> based incremental backups. The problem is that new files are created,
> but their blocks are still with the old LSN, so they will not be backed
> up because they are looking old enough.

I think this is trying to pollute what's supposed to be a pure
fs-level operation ("copy a directory") into something that is aware
of specific details like the PostgreSQL page format.  I really think
that nothing in storage/file should know about the page format.  If we
need a function that copies a file while replacing the LSNs, I think
it should be a new function living somewhere else.

A bigger problem is that you are proposing to stamp those files with
LSNs that are, for lack of a better word, fake.  I would expect that
this would completely break if checksums are enabled.  Also, unlogged
relations typically have an LSN of 0; this would change that in some
cases, and I don't know whether that's OK.

The issues here are similar to those in
http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/20150120152819.GC24381@alap3.anarazel.de
- basically, I think we need to make CREATE DATABASE and ALTER
DATABASE .. SET TABLESPACE fully WAL-logged operations, or this is
never going to work right.  If we're not going to allow that, we need
to disallow hot backups while those operations are in progress.

-- 
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company