Re: Moving a tablespace

Michael Fuhr <mike(at)fuhr(dot)org> writes:
> On Tue, Aug 22, 2006 at 06:16:54PM -0700, Craig A. James wrote:
>> Is there a way to move a tablespace to a new location without a
>> dump/restore?

> The last paragraph of the Tablespaces documentation might be helpful:
> http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.1/interactive/manage-ag-tablespaces.html

> I just tested this and it appeared to work, but this hypothetical
> DBA might want to wait for others to comment before proceeding.

AFAIK it works fine. Shut down postmaster, move tablespace's directory
tree somewhere else, fix the symbolic link in $PGDATA/pg_tblspc, start
postmaster, update the pg_tablespace entry. There isn't anyplace else
in Postgres that knows where that link leads. But if you are running
a hot PITR backup, see the caveats in TFM about what will happen on the
backup machine.

> He might also want to initdb and populate a test cluster and practice
> the procedure before doing it for real.

"Always mount a scratch monkey" ...

regards, tom lane