Heikki Linnakangas <heikki(dot)linnakangas(at)enterprisedb(dot)com> writes:
> Which is unfortunate, really. I wish we had a mode where the server
> simply refrained from removing/recycling WAL segments while the backup
> is running. You could then just:
> 1. pg_start_backup()
> 2. tar the data directory, except for pg_xlog
> 3. tar pg_xlog
> 4. pg_stop_backup().
I think there's a termination issue there --- the safe stop point
would (appear to be) past whatever WAL you'd copied during step 3.
Still, the possibility of adding modes such as this seems to me to be a
good argument for not inventing a new version of pg_start_backup/
pg_stop_backup every time.
regards, tom lane