Re: Duplicate history file?

Greetings,

* Julien Rouhaud (rjuju123(at)gmail(dot)com) wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 16, 2021 at 01:17:11AM -0400, Stephen Frost wrote:
> > > Consider that, really, an archive command should refuse to allow archiving
> > > > of WAL on a timeline which doesn’t have a corresponding history file in
> > > the
> > > > archive for that timeline (excluding timeline 1).
> > >
> > > Yes, that's a clear requirement that should be documented.
> >
> >
> > Is it a clear requirement that pgbackrest and every other organization that
> > has developed an archive command has missed? Are you able to point to a
> > tool which has such a check today?
>
> I don't know, as I don't have any knowledge of what barman, BART, pgbackrest,
> pg_probackup or any other backup solution does in any detail. I was only saying
> that what you said makes sense and should be part of the documentation,
> assuming that this is indeed a requirement.

This is exactly it. I don't agree that we can, or should, treat every
sensible thing that we realize about what the archive command or the
backup tool should be doing as some bug in our documentation that has to
be backpatched.

If you're serious about continuing on this path, it strikes me that the
next step would be to go review all of the above mentioned tools,
identify all of the things that they do and the checks that they have,
and then craft a documentation patch to add all of those- for both
archive command and pg_start/stop_backup.

I don't think it'd be as big as the rest of the PG documentation, but
I'm not sure.

Thanks,

Stephen