pg_probackup 2.1.2 released

PostgreSQL Professional are proud to announce the release of 
pg_probackup 2.1.2.

pg_probackup is a utility to manage backup and recovery of PostgreSQL 
database cluster. It is designed to perform periodic full and 
incremental page-level backups of the PostgreSQL instance that enable 
you to restore the server in case of a failure.

Changes since 2.0.26:

Portability:
   * Windows support is now considered stable. Installers with 
pg_probackup binaries for Windows are available on Download link below.

Bugfixes:
   * On Windows "permission denied" errors were silently ignored. 
Because pg_probackup uses PostgreSQL code for directory access, bugfix 
was submitted to PostgreSQL community: 
https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/2cad7829-8d66-e39c-b937-ac825db5203d%40postgrespro.ru. 
Reported by Yuri Kurenkov.
   * Path to PGDATA was not canonicalized. On Windows this could lead to 
producing empty backups. Reported by Yuri Kurenkov.
   * Previously `archive-push` command did not use O_EXCL flag when 
creating ".partial" file. In rare case of two PostgreSQL instances 
concurrently pushing the same WAL segment it could lead to corruption of 
pushed WAL segment.
   * Usage of parent link in `merge`, `restore` and `backup` commands 
instead of time sorting makes incremental chains more robust to time 
lapses and other anomalies.
   * Now after successful `merge`attribute "program_version" of the 
target backup is updated, CRC of a unchanged files are recalculated and 
WAL mode of parent backup is inherited from parent.
   * Changing backup metadata is now atomic.
   * Backups with missing or emtpy ".control" files can now be deleted 
via `delete` command.
   * Now handling of empty or containing garbage ".rotation" files is 
more lenient, WARNING is issued now instead of ERROR.
   * Now during backup for PG >= 10 skipped directory directory "log" 
instead on "pg_log". As previously this behavior can be changed via 
`--backup-pg-log` flag.
   * Disappeared during backup files were marked as 'not changed', now 
they just evicted from file list.

Improvements:
   * Remote backup and restore using SSH. It uses an operation model 
when backup catalog is located on local machine, while PostgreSQL is 
located on remote machine, the only exceptions are archive-push and 
archive-get commands which are always launched from database server 
side. For remote mode to work a local ssh binary is used. Currently 
remote operations are not supported on Windows, but work on it is in 
progress. Can be used via new options: `--remote-proto`, 
`--remote-host`, `--remote-port`, `--remote-user`, `--remote-path` and 
`--ssh-options`. All `--remote-*` and `--ssh-*` options can be used with 
`add-instance`, `set-config`, `backup`, `restore`, `archive-push` and 
`archive-get` commands.
   * Merge partially-expired incremental chains during backups retention 
purge. This is the analog of Oracle 'Incrementally Updated Backups' 
feature. Can be used via `--merge-expired` flag for `backup` and 
`delete` commands. Can be used only if `retention-window` policy is set.
   * Support of external directories via new option `--external-dirs`. 
It can be used for adding to backup any files and directories located 
outside of PGDATA, e.g. configs, logs and scripts. Flag 
`--skip-external-dirs` allows to skip restoring of external directories 
during `restore`. Also during `restore` external directories can be 
remapped via `--external-mapping` option.
   * New command `checkdb` provides additional facilities to check 
PostgreSQL instance. It allows to validate all data files located in 
PGDATA via block checksums matching and page header sanity checks. 
Optionally all indexes in all databases in PostgreSQL instance can be 
logically verified using extensions 'amcheck' or 'amcheck_next'. New 
options and flags: `--amcheck`, `--skip-block-validation` and 
`--heapallindexed`.
   * New flag `--temp-slot` allows user to use temporary replication 
slot for STREAM backups. Default temp slot name is "pg_probackup_slot" 
which can be changed via `--slot` option.
   * Flag `--dry-run` for `delete` and `backup` commands allows to 
perform a trial retention purge run without any changes.
   * Additional support of threads by `validate` command. Now it use 
multiple threads defined by `-j` option for checking WAL files.
   * Flag `--no-validate` can now be used with `backup` command. It 
allows not to force validation after successful backup.
   * Improved speed of parsing compressed WAL segments, previously some 
pages were readed twice, which broke gzip optimization for sequential 
access. Because pg_probackup uses PostgreSQL code for WAL parsing patch 
was submitted to PostgreSQL community: 
https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/flat/2ddf4a32-517e-d6f4-d992-4a63b6035bfd%40postgrespro.ru. 
Reported by Alex Ignatov alexign@ozon.ru.
   * Now invalid backups will be deleted during retention purge, if they 
are not guarded by retention.
   * For merged backup show merge_time in "Time" column of `show` 
command output in plain format.
   * Options `--master-*` and `--replica-timeout` are deprecated. 
Deprecated options are still usable for the purpose of backward 
compatibility.
   * Now an absolute path to pg_probackup binary is used in 
restore_command option of recovery.conf file generated by `restore` command.
   * Options `--time`, `--xid`, `--lsn`, `--timeline` and flags 
`--inclusive`, `--immediate` are deprecated. New options 
`--recovery-target-time`, `--recovery-target-xid`, 
`--recovery-target-lsn`, `--recovery-target-inclusive`, 
`--recovery-target-timeline` and `--recovery-target` should be used 
instead. Deprecated options and flags are still usable for the purpose 
of backward compatibility.
   * Option `--restore-target` has two allowed values: `immediate` which 
is identical to deprecated flag `--immediate` and `latest` which stands 
for default recovery behavior - recover to the end of the all available 
WAL log.
   * Previously locking was done at instance level, because of that 
concurrent operations at backup-level were impossible. Now locking is 
done at the backup level, so different operations on different backups 
should not interfere with each other.
   * Column "Time" of `show` command output in plain format for RUNNING 
backups now calculated on the fly.
   * Attribute "START LSN" of backup now written to backup meta right 
after start of the backup, not at the end of the backup. It will be 
needed for a future `resume` feature.


Download
--------
https://github.com/postgrespro/pg_probackup

-- 
Grigory Smolkin
Postgres Professional: http://www.postgrespro.com
The Russian Postgres Company