Re: Confusing error message with too-large file in pg_basebackup

Alvaro Herrera <alvherre(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> writes:
> Guillaume Lelarge wrote:
>> Le 20 nov. 2015 1:34 PM, "Alvaro Herrera" <alvherre(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> a
>> crit :
>>> Hmm, so we let configure --with-segsize to change the file size. The
>>> configure help says that the limit should be "less than your OS' limit
>>> on file size". We don't warn them that this could cause backup
>>> problems later on. Should we add a blurb about that somewhere?

>> If we do, we should already have done so because of the file size limit in
>> the tar format backup done with pg_dump.

> Agreed, please do. I cannot lend you my time machine right now, though,
> because I'm using it to go to a past conference I missed, so please ask
> someone else.

Um ... the segment size has no effect on pg_dump. It is true that you
can't use pg_dump's -Ft format if the text form of a table's data exceeds
8GB or whatever it is, but it matters not whether the table is segmented
internally. I'm not sure if this limitation is well-documented either,
but it's a completely different issue so far as users are concerned.

regards, tom lane