On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 12:04 AM, Bob Hatfield
<bobhatfield@gmail.com> wrote:
> Anyway, a better way for you would be to do a regular backup (with pg_start_backup, copy and pg_stop_backup) and then use wal archive_command to keep the xlogs between 2 full backups.
Thanks Julien. Can pg_start/stop_backup() be used for regular full
file system backups? All of the documentation I've read only refers
to using those for warm standby/wal shipping methods.
Yes, and it's the only way to do a file backup without stopping the server. Careful, the command can last a while as it forces a checkpoint (see the doc for more details).
It's used for warm standby to create a copy of the server, before the wals that'll be generated can continue to restore it.