> > I'm aiming for the minimum feature set - which means we do need to take
> > care over whether that set is insufficient and also to pull any part
> > that doesn't stand up to close scrutiny over the next few days.
>
> As you can see, we are still chewing on NT. What PITR features are
> missing? I assume because we can't stop file system writes during
> backup that we will need a backup parameter file like I described. Is
> there anything else that PITR needs?
No, we don't need to stop writes ! Not even to split a mirror,
other db's need that to be able to restore, but we dont.
We only need to tell people to backup pg_control first. The rest was only
intended to enforce
1. that pg_control is the first file backed up
2. the dba uses a large enough PIT (or xid) for restore
I think the idea with an extra file with WAL start position was overly
complicated, since all you need is pg_control (+ WAL end position to enforce 2.).
If we don't want to tell people to backup pg_control first, imho the next
best plan would be to add a "WAL start" input (e.g. xlog name) parameter
to recovery.conf, that "fixes" pg_control.
Andreas