Re: backup_label in a crash recovery

Tom Lane wrote:
> > I wonder why backup_label isn't automatically removed
> > in normal crash recovery case.
>
> Removing it automatically could be catastrophic if done
> incorrectly, no?
>
> It would be no less catastrophic if done incorrectly from outside the
> postmaster; see for example the problems people have had historically
> with startup scripts that think they should remove postmaster.pid.

I beg to differ.

Removing postmaster.pid can lead to a corrupt database.
Removing backup_label means that one of your backups will go wrong,
and a subsequent pg_stop_backup() will throw an error.

If you have a cluster failover during an online backup, I think
any reasonable person would suspect that the backup went wrong.
And if nothing else does, the error on pg_stop_backup() will tell you.

Given a choice, I expect that everybody who is intent enough
on availibility to implement such a solution will want the
database to come up if it can be done without data loss.

Is there a flaw in my reasoning?

Yours,
Laurenz Albe