Re: Incremental Backup of a particular database

I've been thinking about PITR.  Since we have one production instance
and one test instance of Postgres, in order to perform a PITR
on any particular database would require reloading the entire instance
onto another server, and extracting what I needed.  Clunky, but
do-able.

From my Informix years, I remember a tool that would read your backups,
and extract out whatever you wanted, down to a table level
SQL.  Wouldn't that be ideal....

Jason Minion wrote:
> There is no incremental backup process that focuses on an individual
> database for PostgreSQL. Anything that has to do with PITR on a
> PostgreSQL installation is system-wide, and cannot be configured to
> support a single database out of many in an installation. If you need
> to support PITR with a single database, you will need to initdb
> another directory and set up another PostgreSQL postmaster to manage
> that installation separate from your primary installation (and on a
> different port, etc), or set up PostgreSQL for that specific database
> on another server.
>
> Also, there really are no incremental backup tools for PostgreSQL,
> assuming you are looking at an incremental backup in the way that the
> Progress database system takes an incremental backup (copy of all of
> the blocks changed since the last full or incremental backup).
> PostgreSQL has PITR, which is a roll-forward system using log data
> from a full point-in-time backup, as well as pg_dump. One could say
> that the log files are the incremental backups. However, many
> commercial database systems (that many are migrating to PostgreSQL
> from) provide both an "incremental" backup option (very fast
> recovery) as well as a "log based recovery" option (slow recovery),
> and of the two, PostgreSQL supports only the log based recovery
> through PITR.
>
> Please correct me where possible guys, I enjoy the stability and
> useability of my PostgreSQL very much, but I have to admit that I lose
> a bit more sleep over it than some other db's with regards to recovery
> time in a DR scenario. I am very eager to see where we go in the future.
>
> Jason Minion
> jason.minion@sigler.com
>
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* pgsql-admin-owner@postgresql.org
> [mailto:pgsql-admin-owner@postgresql.org] *On Behalf Of *Yogvinder Singh
> *Sent:* Thursday, January 18, 2007 5:23 AM
> *To:* Shoaib Mir
> *Cc:* pgsql-admin@postgresql.org
> *Subject:* Re: [ADMIN] Incremental Backup of a particular database
>
> So it means there is no way i can take incremental backup of  one of
> the databases from a postgresql database server??
>
> Regards,
> Yogvinder Singh,
> Software Engineer, E-WorkStyle Group,
> Newgen Software Technologies Ltd.
> D-152, Okhla Phase - 1
> New Delhi
> Tel no 26815467 Ext 143
>
>
>
>     ----- Original Message -----
>     *From:* Shoaib Mir <mailto:shoaibmir@gmail.com>
>     *To:* Yogvinder Singh <mailto:yogvinder@newgen.co.in>
>     *Cc:* pgsql-admin@postgresql.org <mailto:pgsql-admin@postgresql.org>
>     *Sent:* Thursday, January 18, 2007 4:07 PM
>     *Subject:* Re: [ADMIN] Incremental Backup of a particular database
>
>     When the pg_dump process starts it takes one point and then makes
>     a backup for that specific time even if more updates on the
>     database are happening during the pg_dump process. So when you
>     restore on the other machine it will restore to that specific time
>     when the pg_dump process started.
>
>     ----------------
>     Shoaib Mir
>     EnterpriseDB (www.enterprisedb.com <http://www.enterprisedb.com>)
>
>     On 1/18/07, *Yogvinder Singh* < yogvinder@newgen.co.in
>     <mailto:yogvinder@newgen.co.in>> wrote:
>
>         pg_dump is a utility for saving a PostgreSQL database into a
>         script or an
>         archive file. The script files are in plain-text format and
>         contain  the SQL
>         commands required to reconstruct the database to the
>         state  it       was  in
>         at  the  time  it  was saved.
>
>         "At the time it was saved" What is the meaning of this statement?
>
>
>         Regards,
>         Yogvinder Singh,
>         Software Engineer, E-WorkStyle Group,
>         Newgen Software Technologies Ltd.
>         D-152, Okhla Phase - 1
>         New Delhi
>         Tel no 26815467 Ext 143
>
>
>         ----- Original Message -----
>         From: "Yogvinder Singh" <yogvinder@newgen.co.in
>         <mailto:yogvinder@newgen.co.in>>
>         To: "Andy Shellam (Mailing Lists)"
>         <andy.shellam-lists@mailnetwork.co.uk
>         <mailto:andy.shellam-lists@mailnetwork.co.uk>>
>         Cc: <pgsql-admin@postgresql.org
>         <mailto:pgsql-admin@postgresql.org>>
>         Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 10:44 AM
>         Subject: Re: [ADMIN] Incremental Backup of a particular database
>
>
>         > I only want one of many databases to be restored to the
>         other server
>         > incrementally.
>         > Is this possible?
>         > If yes, Wht are the steps??
>         >
>         > Regards,
>         > Yogvinder Singh,
>         > Software Engineer, E-WorkStyle Group,
>         > Newgen Software Technologies Ltd.
>         > D-152, Okhla Phase - 1
>         > Tel no 26815467 Ext 143
>         >
>         >
>         > ----- Original Message -----
>         > From: "Andy Shellam (Mailing Lists)"
>         < andy.shellam-lists@mailnetwork.co.uk
>         <mailto:andy.shellam-lists@mailnetwork.co.uk>>
>         > To: "Yogvinder Singh" <yogvinder@newgen.co.in
>         <mailto:yogvinder@newgen.co.in>>
>         > Cc: < pgsql-admin@postgresql.org
>         <mailto:pgsql-admin@postgresql.org>>
>         > Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 8:17 PM
>         > Subject: Re: [ADMIN] Incremental Backup of a particular database
>         >
>         >
>         > > I believe the option for a "warm standby" (which sounds
>         like it is what
>         > > you need) was made available in 8.2.0.
>         > > You'd have to look at the manual though, I haven't had
>         time to
>         > > investigate, and I'm not sure whether it's cluster-wide, or
>         > > database-specific.
>         > >
>         > >
>         > > Yogvinder Singh wrote:
>         > > > Hi Ppl,
>         > > >
>         > > > I have Two PostgreSQL Database Servers. The situation is
>         like this:-
>         > > > 1) On first database server ball the operations (i.e
>         live server) will
>         > > > be done. This server may contain n number of databases.
>         > > >
>         > > > 2) On the second database server, i want to keep one
>         particular
>         > > > database (from the first database server  ) and keep it
>         updated to the
>         > > > latest from the First Database Server. I just want to be
>         able to take
>         > > > some sort of incremental backup from the first server
>         and restore it
>         > > > to the second server.
>         > > >
>         > > > Is this situation feasible. How can i take an
>         incremental backup of a
>         > > > particular database out of many databases? On which
>         version this is
>         > > > supported? IF not supported, is there any alternative
>         way to handle
>         > > > this situatio.
>         > > >
>         > > > Regards,
>         > > > Yogvinder Singh,
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>         > > TIP 3: Have you checked our extensive FAQ?
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