Re: How to Monitor backups - Mailing list pgsql-novice

Any automated monitoring job is based on the assumption that the tool automating it will work fine. With this assumption in mind, option 1 seems like the simplest and most efficient way. 

Of course, yet another precaution you can take is to schedule email to DBA if there is any error in the backup creation script itself (mail if there is anything in the stderr), which will also take into account any error generated by pg_dump/dumpall commands.

On Mon, Oct 14, 2013 at 11:08 AM, Birchall, Austen <austen.birchall@metoffice.gov.uk> wrote:

Hi again

9.2.4 on RHEL 6

I have a backup that runs by cronjob every day which is basically this:

00 19 * * *   /backup_scripts/locsng_backup.sh > /cron/locsng_backup.out 2>&1

View /backup_scripts/locsng_backup.sh:

# carry out schema only  backup of the db database
/pg_dumpall -l db -U postgres -s > /backups/pg_db_schema_backups/db_ci_schema_dump$date_of_backup.sql 2>&1

# carry out backup of db database
/pg_dump -Fc db -U postgres > /backups/pg_db_db_backups/db_ci_backup$date_of_backup

# carry out cluster wide metadata backup
/pg_dumpall -g > /backups/pg_cluster_dump/cluster_ci_medadata$date_of_backup.sql


Is there a best practise way of how to monitor this sort of backup?

 - my initial ideas are:

1. Check by cron if /cron/locsng_backup.out > 24 hours old (of course this will not work if cron fails) and if so notify the DBA by email?

2. As part of the script check if cron/locsng_backup.out > 0 bytes in size (of course this will not work if cron fails) and if so notify the DBA by email?

3. Does pg_dump,  pg_dumpall return an error code if it is unsuccessful and can be trapped in same way and then used to notify the DBA by email?


Thanks in advance

Austen


Austen Birchall  Senior Database Administrator
Met Office


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