On Linux, you can use the Linux volume manager, and create a temporary
snapshot and tar that up. If you have to go back to it, the database will
have to recover on startup, just as if the machine had crashed at that
point. That's much better than a regular tar, in which the database would
be likely unrecoverable.
Jon
On Wed, 19 Feb 2003, Ed L. wrote:
>
> I'd like to get some opinions on the best techniques for getting
> reliably consistent backups. My current understanding is that the
> only reliable way to get a consistent backup of a running system is
> through pg_dump or pg_dumpall. More specifically, it is my
> understanding that file backups (tar, etc) do not guarantee
> consistency due to the potential lag in cache writes to disk from
> running transactions.
>
> Is my understanding correct? Are there other ways of getting
> consistent backups of a live system?
>
> Thanks,
> Ed
>
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