Re: Can a whole server be restored over to another server in a single command?

>> The destination server (we call the Secondary server) only needs to be a
>> copy of the Primary (live) server.
>>
>
> Well, the easiest solution is just to re-initdb the secondary and load
> pg_dumpall output into it.

We're using Debian and have servers on Etch and Lenny.

I've never carried out initialisation before and wasn't sure if I wasn't
getting into something I don't know enough about. AFAIK it should be
something like;

Stop DB
Delete the contents of the 'datadir'
Run initdb something, something
Start DB

I wasn't sure if the Debian installer hadn't set things up in some
special way.

> Is there anything you expect to gain by
> re-inventing portions of pg_dumpall?
>
>

The primary reason is that if you run the output from pg_dumpall --clean
into a DB which already has previous copies of the databases then there
are errors. Primarily, it can't drop a ROLE because existing objects
depend on it and errors are raised.

We want our systems guy to monitor the output from the synchronisation
script and they are not DB developers. Therefore, we need output which
doesn't show ERRORs. Normally, when they see ERROR's they would raise
it with us DB guys.

Currently I feel that the sync script I want is within my capabilities -
the re-init stuff would need investigation and testing. I'll get on
with the script and post up the result. There are parts which others
may find useful.

BTW - I've been using PG for years and really appreciate the hard work
put in by you guys. We've used it in all kinds of scenarios. One of
our clients was particularly happy about a Debian/PG box which replaced
their flakey Access DB share and ran perfectly for years until they
asked us to replace the whole application with a web app.

Cheers,

Kevin

> regards, tom lane
>
>