Re: pg_basebackup, manifests and backends older than ~12

On 4/10/20 4:09 AM, Michael Paquier wrote:
>
> I have noticed that attempting to use pg_basebackup from HEAD leads to
> failures when using it with backend versions from 12 and older:
> $ pg_basebackup -D hoge
> pg_basebackup: error: backup manifests are not supported by server
> version 12beta2
> pg_basebackup: removing data directory "hoge"
>
> This is a bit backwards with what we did in the past to maintain
> compatibility silently when possible, for example look at the handling
> of temporary replication slots. Instead of an error when means to
> force users to have to specify --no-manifest in this case, shouldn't
> we silently disable the generation of the backup manifest? We know
> that this option won't work on older server versions anyway.

I'm a bit conflicted here. I see where you are coming from, but given
that writing a manifest is now the default I'm not sure silently
skipping it is ideal.

Regards,
--
-David
david(at)pgmasters(dot)net