On Wednesday 19 Feb 2003 5:23 pm, Ed L. wrote:
> I'd like to get some opinions on the best techniques for getting
> reliably consistent backups. My current understanding is that the
> only reliable way to get a consistent backup of a running system is
> through pg_dump or pg_dumpall.
Correct (pretty much).
> More specifically, it is my
> understanding that file backups (tar, etc) do not guarantee
> consistency due to the potential lag in cache writes to disk from
> running transactions.
Correct.
> Is my understanding correct? Are there other ways of getting
> consistent backups of a live system?
1. Stop postgresql alltogether, backup the entire data/base directory.
2. Replication (see mailing list archives/website for options)
pg_dump is almost certainly your best bet.
--
Richard Huxton
