Re: Migrating from 8.3 to 8.4 on the same server

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>> Keep in mind that if you have tables and/or databases that don't
>> change frequently, you can dump those beforehand to minimize
>> the final downtime.

> That's true, I had thought about that also. I guess I would save the
> contents of the biggest tables to flat files using the COPY command,
> then delete the copied rows, before doing the dump. Is what what you
> had in mind?

No need to delete the copied rows: just use the handy -t and -T flags
for pg_dump to include/exclude specific tables. You also don't need
to save to a flat file first unless you need/want a separate backup.
For large tables foo and bar, assuming 8.3 on port 5432 and 8.4 on port
5840, you could do:

* pg_dump -t foo -t bar -p 5432 | psql -p 5840 -f -

Then your final migration steps would be:

* Stop the app
* pg_dump -T foo -T bar -p 5432 | psql -p 5840 -f -
* Turn fsync back on and change the port to 5432 for 8.4
* Stop the 8.3 database
* Restart 8.4
* Start the app

All off the top of my head, requires heavy testing by QA first,
assumes foo and bar are not used, etc. /disclaimer

- --
Greg Sabino Mullane greg(at)turnstep(dot)com
End Point Corporation http://www.endpoint.com/
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