{[project]} Command & Configuration Reference

Configuration Reference

The {[project]} Configuration Reference details all configuration options.

can be used entirely with command-line parameters but a configuration file is more practical for installations that are complex or set a lot of options. The default location for the configuration file is /etc/pgbackrest/pgbackrest.conf. If no file exists in that location then the old default of /etc/pgbackrest.conf will be checked.

The following option types are used:

String: A text string, commonly an identifier, password, etc.

Command line example: --stanza=demo
Configuration file example: repo1-cipher-pass=zWaf6XtpjIVZC5444yXB...

Path: Used to uniquely identify a location in a directory structure. Paths must begin with /, double // is not allowed, and no ending / is expected.

Command line example: --repo1-path=/var/lib/pgbackrest
Configuration file example: repo1-path=/var/lib/pgbackrest

Boolean: Enables or disables the option. Only y/n are valid argument values.

Command line examples: --start-fast, --no-start-fast, --start-fast=y, --start-fast=n
Configuration file examples: start-fast=y, start-fast=n

Integer: Used for ports, retention/retry counts, parallel processes allowed, etc.

Command line example: --compress-level=3
Configuration file example: pg1-port=5432

Size: Used for buffer sizes, disk usage, etc. Size can be specified in bytes (default) or KiB, MiB, GiB, TiB, or PiB where the multiplier is a power of 1024. For example, the case-insensitive value 5GiB (or 5GB, 5g) can be used instead of 5368709120. Fractional values such as 2.5GiB are not allowed, use 2560MiB instead.

Command line example: --archive-get-queue-max=1GiB
Configuration file example: buffer-size=2MiB

Time: Time in seconds.

Command line example: --io-timeout=90
Configuration file example: db-timeout=600

List: Option may be provided multiple times.

Command line example: --db-exclude=db1 --db-exclude=db2 --db-exclude=db5
Configuration file example, each on its own line: db-exclude=db1 db-exclude=db2 db-exclude=db5

Key/Value: Option may be provided multiple times in the form key=value.

Command line example: --tablespace-map=ts_01=/db/ts_01 --tablespace-map=ts_02=/db/ts_02
Configuration file example, each on its own line: tablespace-map=ts_01=/db/ts_01 tablespace-map=ts_02=/db/ts_02

Settings

The log section defines logging-related settings.

Trace-level logging may expose secrets such as keys and passwords. Use with caution!
Level for file logging.

The following log levels are supported:

off
- No logging at all (not recommended)
error
- Log only errors
warn
- Log warnings and errors
info
- Log info, warnings, and errors
detail
- Log detail, info, warnings, and errors
debug
- Log debug, detail, info, warnings, and errors
trace
- Log trace (very verbose debugging), debug, info, warnings, and errors
debug
Level for console logging.

The following log levels are supported:

off
- No logging at all (not recommended)
error
- Log only errors
warn
- Log warnings and errors
info
- Log info, warnings, and errors
detail
- Log detail, info, warnings, and errors
debug
- Log debug, detail, info, warnings, and errors
trace
- Log trace (very verbose debugging), debug, info, warnings, and errors
error
Level for stderr logging.

Specifies which log levels will output to stderr rather than stdout (specified by log-level-console). The timestamp and process will not be output to stderr.

The following log levels are supported:

off
- No logging at all (not recommended)
error
- Log only errors
warn
- Log warnings and errors
info
- Log info, warnings, and errors
detail
- Log detail, info, warnings, and errors
debug
- Log debug, detail, info, warnings, and errors
trace
- Log trace (very verbose debugging), debug, info, warnings, and errors
error
Path where log files are stored.

The log path provides a location for to store log files. Note that if log-level-file=off then no log path is required.

/backup/db/log
Enable timestamp in logging.

Enables the timestamp in console and file logging. This option is disabled in special situations such as generating documentation.

n
Enable logging in subprocesses.

Enable file logging for any subprocesses created by this process using the log level specified by log-level-file.

y

The general section defines options that are common for many commands.

Allow beta features.

Allow beta features to be enabled but do not actually enable them. Beta features need to be separately enabled using related options.

2MiB
Buffer size for I/O operations.

Buffer size used for copy, compress, encrypt, and other operations. The number of buffers used depends on options and each operation may use additional memory, e.g. gz compression may use an additional 256KiB of memory.

Allowed values are 16KiB, 32KiB, 64KiB, 128KiB, 256KiB, 512KiB, 1MiB, 2MiB, 4MiB, 8MiB, and 16MiB.

2MiB
command.

may generate a command string, e.g. when the restore command generates the restore_command setting. The command used to run the process will be used in this case unless the cmd option is provided.

Wrapping the command may cause unpredictable behavior and is not recommended.
/var/lib/pgsql/bin/pgbackrest_wrapper.sh
SSH client command.

Use a specific SSH client command when an alternate is desired or the ssh command is not in $PATH.

/usr/bin/ssh
Use file compression.

Backup files are compatible with command-line compression tools.

This option is now deprecated. The compress-type option should be used instead.

n
File compression type.

The following compression types are supported:

none
- no compression
bz2
- bzip2 compression format
gz
- gzip compression format
lz4
- lz4 compression format (not available on all platforms)
zst
- Zstandard compression format (not available on all platforms)
none
File compression level.

Sets the level to be used for file compression when compress-type does not equal none or compress=y (deprecated).

The following are the defaults levels based on compress-type when compress-level is not specified:

bz2
- 9
gz
- 6
lz4
- 1
zst
- 3
0-9
9
Network compression level.

Sets the network compression level when compress-type=none and the command is not run on the same host as the repository. Compression is used to reduce network traffic but can be disabled by setting compress-level-network=0. When compress-type does not equal none the compress-level-network setting is ignored and compress-level is used instead so that the file is only compressed once.

0-9
1
Database query timeout.

Sets the timeout, in seconds, for queries against the database. This includes the backup start/stop functions which can each take a substantial amount of time. Because of this the timeout should be kept high unless you know that these functions will return quickly (i.e. if you have set start-fast=y and you know that the database cluster will not generate many WAL segments during the backup).

The db-timeout option must be less than the protocol-timeout option.
600
Restore or backup using checksums.

During a restore, by default the data and tablespace directories are expected to be present but empty. This option performs a delta restore using checksums.

During a backup, this option will use checksums instead of the timestamps to determine if files will be copied.

y
I/O timeout.

Timeout, in seconds, used for connections and read/write operations.

Note that the entire read/write operation does not need to complete within this timeout but some progress must be made, even if it is only a single byte.

120
Retry count for local jobs.

The number of retries for jobs run in the local process, e.g. file backup.

5
Retry interval after first retry.

The first retry is always performed immediately. This option specifies the interval to wait (in seconds) before performing each additional retry.

30
Path where lock files are stored.

The lock path provides a location for to create lock files to prevent conflicting operations from being run concurrently.

/backup/db/lock
Use a neutral umask.

Sets the umask to 0000 so modes in the repository are created in a sensible way. The default directory mode is 0750 and default file mode is 0640. The lock and log directories set the directory and file mode to 0770 and 0660 respectively.

To use the executing user's umask instead specify neutral-umask=n in the config file or --no-neutral-umask on the command line.

n
Path where transient data is stored.

This path is used to store data for the asynchronous archive-push and archive-get command.

The asynchronous archive-push command writes acknowledgements into the spool path when it has successfully stored WAL in the archive (and errors on failure) so the foreground process can quickly notify . Acknowledgement files are very small (zero on success and a few hundred bytes on error).

The asynchronous archive-get command queues WAL in the spool path so it can be provided very quickly when requests it. Moving files to is most efficient when the spool path is on the same filesystem as pg_xlog/pg_wal.

The data stored in the spool path is not strictly temporary since it can and should survive a reboot. However, loss of the data in the spool path is not a problem. will simply recheck each WAL segment to ensure it is safely archived for archive-push and rebuild the queue for archive-get.

The spool path is intended to be located on a local Posix-compatible filesystem, not a remote filesystem such as NFS or CIFS.

/backup/db/spool
Max processes to use for compress/transfer.

Each process will perform compression and transfer to make the command run faster, but don't set process-max so high that it impacts database performance.

4
Protocol timeout.

Sets the timeout, in seconds, that the local or remote process will wait for a new message to be received on the protocol layer. This prevents processes from waiting indefinitely for a message.

The protocol-timeout option must be greater than the db-timeout option.
630
Socket blocking enable.

Enable blocking on socket connections.

y
Keep-alive enable.

Enables keep-alive messages on socket connections.

n
Keep-alive count.

Specifies the number of TCP keep-alive messages that can be lost before the connection is considered dead.

This option is available on systems that support the `TCP_KEEPCNT` socket option.

3
Keep-alive idle time.

Specifies the amount of time (in seconds) with no network activity after which the operating system should send a TCP keep-alive message.

This option is available on systems that support the `TCP_KEEPIDLE` socket option.

60
Keep-alive interval time.

Specifies the amount of time (in seconds) after which a TCP keep-alive message that has not been acknowledged should be retransmitted.

This option is available on systems that support the `TCP_KEEPINTVL` socket option.

30

Maintainer options are intended to support forks. The proper settings should be determined by the fork maintainer and then communicated to users of the fork.

Improper use of these options may lead to unexpected behavior or data corruption.

It is the responsibility of the fork maintainer to test with the required options. does not guarantee compatibility with any fork.

Check PostgreSQL version/id in WAL headers.

Enabled by default, this option checks the WAL header against the version and system identifier to ensure that the WAL is being copied to the correct stanza. This is in addition to checking pg_control against the stanza and verifying that WAL is being copied from the same data directory where pg_control is located.

Therefore, disabling this check is fairly safe but should only be done when needed, e.g. if the WAL is encrypted.

n
Check PostgreSQL page headers.

Enabled by default, this option adds page header checks.

Disabling this option should be avoided except when necessary, e.g. if pages are encrypted.

n
Force version.

The specified version will be used instead of the version automatically detected by reading pg_control or WAL headers. This is mainly useful for forks or development versions where those values are different from the release version. The version reported by via `server_version_num` must match the forced version.

Be cautious when using this option because pg_control and WAL headers will still be read with the expected format for the specified version, i.e. the format from the official open-source version of . If the fork or development version changes the format of the fields that depends on it will lead to unexpected behavior. In general, this option will only work as expected if the fork adds all custom struct members after the standard members.
15

The repository section defines options used to configure the repository.

Indexing: All repo- options are indexed to allow for configuring multiple repositories. For example, a single repository is configured with the repo1-path, repo1-host, etc. options. If there is more than one repository configured and the {[dash]}-repo option is not specified for a command, the repositories will be acted upon in highest priority order (e.g. repo1 then repo2).

The repo-retention-* options define how long backups will be retained. Expiration only occurs when the count of complete backups exceeds the allowed retention. In other words, if repo1-retention-full-type is set to count (default) and repo1-retention-full is set to 2, then there must be 3 complete backups before the oldest will be expired. If repo1-retention-full-type is set to time then repo1-retention-full represents days so there must be at least that many days worth of full backups before expiration can occur. Make sure you always have enough space for retention + 1 backups.

Azure repository account.

Azure account used to store the repository.

pg-backup
Azure repository container.

Azure container used to store the repository.

repositories can be stored in the container root by setting repo-path=/ but it is usually best to specify a prefix, such as /repo, so logs and other Azure-generated content can also be stored in the container.

pg-backup
Azure repository endpoint.

Endpoint used to connect to the blob service. The default is generally correct unless using Azure Government.

For custom/test configurations the repo-storage-ca-file, repo-storage-ca-path, repo-storage-host, repo-storage-port, and repo-storage-verify-tls options may be useful.

blob.core.usgovcloudapi.net
Azure repository key.

A shared key or shared access signature depending on the repo-azure-key-type option.

T+9+aov82qNhrcXSNGZCzm9mjd4d75/oxxOr6r1JVpgTLA==
Azure repository key type.

The following types are supported for authorization:

shared
- Shared key
sas
- Shared access signature
sas
Azure URI Style.

The following URI styles are supported:

host
- Connect to account.endpoint host.
path
- Connect to endpoint host and prepend account to URIs.
path
Enable block incremental backup.

Block incremental allows for more granular backups by splitting files into blocks that can be backed up independently. This saves space in the repository and can improve delta restore performance because individual blocks can be fetched without reading the entire file from the repository.

The repo-bundle option must be enabled before repo-block can be enabled.

The block size for a file is determined based on the file size and age. Generally, older/larger files will get larger block sizes. If a file is old enough, it will not be backed up using block incremental.

Block incremental is most efficient when enabled for all backup types, including full. This makes the full a bit larger but subsequent differential and incremental backups can make use of the block maps generated by the full backup to save space.

y
Block incremental age map.

Map file age (in days) to a block multiplier. Files that have not been modified recently are less likely to be modified in the future, so the block size is multiplied to reduce the map size. By default, if the file is old enough it will not be stored as a block incremental.

7=2
14=4
Block incremental checksum size map.

Map block size to checksum size. Smaller checksums save space in the map but may not be able to reliably detect changes in the block.

32KiB=7
128KiB=8
Block incremental size map.

Map file size to block size. Block size is the minimum unit that will be stored in the block incremental. Smaller sizes allow for more granular incremental backups but larger sizes mean smaller maps.

16KiB=8KiB
128KiB=16KiB
512KiB=32KiB
Block incremental super block size.

A super block contains multiple blocks to improve compression efficiency. The disadvantage is that block reads must read from the beginning of the super block.

2MiB
Block incremental full super block size.

Super block size for full backups. This is generally larger than repo-block-size-super because it is likely that many blocks will need to be restored from the full backup so the larger super block size is not a disadvantage.

8MiB
Bundle files in repository.

Bundle (combine) smaller files to reduce the total number of files written to the repository. Writing fewer files is generally more efficient, especially on object stores such as S3. In addition, zero-length files are not stored (except in the manifest), which saves time and space.

y
Target size for file bundles.

Defines the total size of files that will be added to a single bundle. Most bundles will be smaller than this size but it is possible that some will be slightly larger, so do not set this option to the maximum size that your file system allows.

In general, it is not a good idea to set this option too high because retries will need to redo the entire bundle.

10MiB
Limit for file bundles.

Size limit for files that will be included in bundles. Files larger than this size will be stored separately.

Bundled files cannot be reused when a backup is resumed, so this option controls the files that can be resumed, i.e. higher values result in fewer resumable files.

10MiB
GCS repository bucket.

GCS bucket used to store the repository.

repositories can be stored in the bucket root by setting repo-path=/ but it is usually best to specify a prefix, such as /repo, so logs and other GCS-generated content can also be stored in the bucket.

/pg-backup
GCS repository endpoint.

Endpoint used to connect to the storage service. May be updated to use a local GCS server or alternate endpoint.

localhost
GCS repository key.

A token or service key file depending on the repo-gcs-key-type option.

/etc/pgbackrest/gcs-key.json
GCS repository key type.

The following types are supported for authorization:

auto
- Authorize using the instance service account.
service
- Service account from locally stored key.
token
- For local testing, e.g. fakegcs.

When repo-gcs-key-type=service the credentials will be reloaded when the authentication token is renewed.

auto
Repository host protocol type.

The following protocol types are supported:

ssh
- Secure Shell.
tls
- TLS server.
tls
Repository host when operating remotely.

When backing up and archiving to a locally mounted filesystem this setting is not required.

repo1.domain.com
Repository host certificate authority file.

Use a CA file other than the system default for connecting to the repository host.

/etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt
Repository host certificate authority path.

Use a CA path other than the system default for connecting to the repository host.

/etc/pki/tls/certs
Repository host certificate file.

Sent to repository host to prove client identity.

/path/to/client.crt
Repository host key file.

Proves client certificate was sent by owner.

/path/to/client.key
Repository host command.

Required only if the path to the command is different on the local and repository hosts. If not defined, the repository host command will be set the same as the local command.

same as local
/usr/lib/backrest/bin/pgbackrest
repository host configuration file.

Sets the location of the configuration file on the repository host. This is only required if the repository host configuration file is in a different location than the local configuration file.

/conf/pgbackrest/pgbackrest.conf
repository host configuration include path.

Sets the location of the configuration include path on the repository host. This is only required if the repository host configuration include path is in a different location than the local configuration include path.

/conf/pgbackrest/conf.d
repository host configuration path.

Sets the location of the configuration path on the repository host. This is only required if the repository host configuration path is in a different location than the local configuration path.

/conf/pgbackrest
Repository host user when repo-host is set.

Defines the user that will be used for operations on the repository host. Preferably this is not the postgres user but rather some other user like pgbackrest. If runs on the repository host the postgres user can be placed in the pgbackrest group so it has read permissions on the repository without being able to damage the contents accidentally.

repo-user
Repository host port when repo-host is set.

Use this option to specify a non-default port for the repository host protocol.

25
Hardlink files between backups in the repository.

Enable hard-linking of files in differential and incremental backups to their full backups. This gives the appearance that each backup is a full backup at the file-system level. Be careful, though, because modifying files that are hard-linked can affect all the backups in the set.

y
Repository is local.

Indicates that the repository for the specified index is local and any repository host settings for that index (e.g. repo1-host) should be ignored.

y
Path where backups and archive are stored.

The repository is where stores backups and archives WAL segments.

It may be difficult to estimate in advance how much space you'll need. The best thing to do is take some backups then record the size of different types of backups (full/incr/diff) and measure the amount of WAL generated per day. This will give you a general idea of how much space you'll need, though of course requirements will likely change over time as your database evolves.

/backup/db/backrest
Full backup retention count/time.

When a full backup expires, all differential and incremental backups associated with the full backup will also expire. When the option is not defined a warning will be issued. If indefinite retention is desired then set the option to the max value.

2
Retention type for full backups.

Determines whether the repo-retention-full setting represents a time period (days) or count of full backups to keep. If set to time then full backups older than repo-retention-full will be removed from the repository if there is at least one backup that is equal to or greater than the repo-retention-full setting. For example, if repo-retention-full is 30 (days) and there are 2 full backups: one 25 days old and one 35 days old, no full backups will be expired because expiring the 35 day old backup would leave only the 25 day old backup, which would violate the 30 day retention policy of having at least one backup 30 days old before an older one can be expired. Archived WAL older than the oldest full backup remaining will be automatically expired unless repo-retention-archive-type and repo-retention-archive are explicitly set.

time
Number of differential backups to retain.

When a differential backup expires, all incremental backups associated with the differential backup will also expire. When not defined all differential backups will be kept until the full backups they depend on expire.

3
Backup type for WAL retention.

If set to full will keep archive logs for the number of full backups defined by repo-retention-archive. If set to diff (differential) will keep archive logs for the number of full and differential backups defined by repo-retention-archive, meaning if the last backup taken was a full backup, it will be counted as a differential for the purpose of repo-retention. If set to incr (incremental) will keep archive logs for the number of full, differential, and incremental backups defined by repo-retention-archive. It is recommended that this setting not be changed from the default which will only expire WAL in conjunction with expiring full backups.

diff
Number of backups worth of continuous WAL to retain.
WAL segments required to make a backup consistent are always retained until the backup is expired regardless of how this option is configured.

If this value is not set and repo-retention-full-type is count (default), then the archive to expire will default to the repo-retention-full (or repo-retention-diff) value corresponding to the repo-retention-archive-type if set to full (or diff). This will ensure that WAL is only expired for backups that are already expired. If repo-retention-full-type is time, then this value will default to removing archives that are earlier than the oldest full backup retained after satisfying the repo-retention-full setting.

This option must be set if repo-retention-archive-type is set to incr. If disk space is at a premium, then this setting, in conjunction with repo-retention-archive-type, can be used to aggressively expire WAL segments. However, doing so negates the ability to perform PITR from the backups with expired WAL and is therefore not recommended.

2
Days of backup history manifests to retain.

A copy of the backup manifest is stored in the backup.history path when a backup completes. By default these files are never expired since they are useful for data mining, e.g. measuring backup and WAL growth over time.

Set repo-retention-history to define the number of days of backup history manifests to retain. Unexpired backups are always kept in the backup history. Specify repo-retention-history=0 to retain the backup history only for unexpired backups.

When a full backup history manifest is expired, all differential and incremental backup history manifests associated with the full backup also expire.

365
S3 repository access key.

AWS key used to access this bucket.

AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
S3 repository secret access key.

AWS secret key used to access this bucket.

wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY
S3 repository key type.

The following types are supported:

shared
- Shared keys
auto
- Automatically retrieve temporary credentials
web-id
- Automatically retrieve web identity credentials
auto
S3 repository security token.

AWS security token used with temporary credentials.

AQoDYXdzEPT//////////wEXAMPLEtc764bNrC9SAPBSM22 ...
S3 repository KMS key.

Setting this option enables S3 server-side encryption using the specified AWS key management service key.

bceb4f13-6939-4be3-910d-df54dee817b7
S3 repository bucket.

S3 bucket used to store the repository.

repositories can be stored in the bucket root by setting repo-path=/ but it is usually best to specify a prefix, such as /repo, so logs and other AWS generated content can also be stored in the bucket.

pg-backup
S3 repository endpoint.

The AWS endpoint should be valid for the selected region.

For custom/test configurations the repo-storage-ca-file, repo-storage-ca-path, repo-storage-host, repo-storage-port, and repo-storage-verify-tls options may be useful.

s3.amazonaws.com
S3 repository role.

The AWS role name (not the full ARN) used to retrieve temporary credentials when repo-s3-key-type=auto.

authrole
S3 repository region.

The AWS region where the bucket was created.

us-east-1
S3 URI Style.

The following URI styles are supported:

host
- Connect to bucket.endpoint host.
path
- Connect to endpoint host and prepend bucket to URIs.
path
SFTP repository host.

The SFTP host containing the repository.

sftprepo.domain
SFTP repository host fingerprint.

SFTP repository host fingerprint generation should match the repo-sftp-host-key-hash-type. Generate the fingerprint via `awk '{print $2}' ssh_host_xxx_key.pub | base64 -d | (md5sum or sha1sum) -b`. The ssh host keys are normally found in the /etc/ssh directory.

f84e172dfead7aeeeae6c1fdfb5aa8cf
SFTP host key check type.

The following SFTP host key check types are supported:

strict
- will never automatically add host keys to the ~/.ssh/known_hosts file, and refuses to connect to hosts whose host key has changed or is not found in the known hosts files. This option forces the user to manually add all new hosts.
accept-new
- will automatically add new host keys to the user's known hosts file, but will not permit connections to hosts with changed host keys.
fingerprint
- will check the host key against the fingerprint specified by the repo-sftp-host-fingerprint option.
none
- no host key checking will be performed.
yes
accept-new
SFTP repository host key hash type.

SFTP repository host key hash type. Declares the hash type to be used to compute the digest of the remote system's host key on SSH startup. Newer versions of libssh2 support sha256 in addition to md5 and sha1.

sha256
SFTP repository host port.

SFTP repository host port.

22
SFTP repository host user.

User on the host used to store the repository.

pg-backup
SFTP known hosts file.

A known hosts file to search for an SFTP host match during authentication. When unspecified, will default to searching ~/.ssh/known_hosts, ~/.ssh/known_hosts2, /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts, and /etc/ssh/ssh_known_hosts2. If configured with one or more file paths, will search those for a match. File paths must be full or leading tilde paths. The repo-sftp-known-host option can be passed multiple times to specify more than one known hosts file to search. To utilize known hosts file checking repo-sftp-host-fingerprint must not be specified. See also repo-sftp-host-check-type option.

/home/postgres/.ssh/known_hosts
SFTP private key file.

SFTP private key file used for authentication.

~/.ssh/id_ed25519
SFTP private key passphrase.

Passphrase used to access the private key. This is an optional feature when creating an SSH public/private key pair.

BeSureToGenerateAndUseASecurePassphrase
SFTP public key file.

SFTP public key file used for authentication. Optional if compiled against OpenSSL, required if compiled against a different library.

~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub
Repository storage CA file.

Use a CA file other than the system default for storage (e.g. S3, Azure) certificates.

/etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt
Repository storage CA path.

Use a CA path other than the system default for storage (e.g. S3, Azure) certificates.

/etc/pki/tls/certs
Repository storage host.

Connect to a host other than the storage (e.g. S3, Azure) endpoint. This is typically used for testing.

127.0.0.1
Repository storage port.

Port to use when connecting to the storage (e.g. S3, Azure) endpoint (or host if specified).

9000
Repository storage tag(s).

Specify tags that will be added to objects when the repository is an object store (e.g. S3). The option can be repeated to add multiple tags.

There is no provision in to modify these tags so be sure to set them correctly before running stanza-create to ensure uniform tags across the entire repository.

key1=value1
Repository storage upload chunk size.

Object stores such as S3 allow files to be uploaded in chunks when the file is too large to be stored in memory. Even if the file can be stored in memory, it is more memory efficient to limit the amount of memory used for uploads.

A larger chunk size will generally lead to better performance because it will minimize upload requests and allow more files to be uploaded in a single request rather than in chunks. The disadvantage is that memory usage will be higher and because the chunk buffer must be allocated per process, larger process-max values will lead to more memory being consumed overall.

Default chunk sizes by repo type:

azure
- 4MiB
gcs
- 4MiB
s3
- 5MiB

Note that valid chunk sizes vary by storage type and by platform. For example, AWS S3 has a minimum chunk size of 5MiB but S3 clones may accept lower values. Terminology for chunk size varies by storage type, so when searching min/max values use part size for AWS S3, chunk size for GCS, and block size for Azure. No attempt is made to validate configured chunk sizes so selecting an invalid value will lead to errors from the storage service or undefined behavior.

16MiB
Repository storage certificate verify.

This option provides the ability to enable/disable verification of the storage (e.g. S3, Azure) server TLS certificate. Disabling should only be used for testing or other scenarios where a certificate has been self-signed.

n
Type of storage used for the repository.

The following repository types are supported:

azure
- Azure Blob Storage Service
cifs
- Like posix, but disables links and directory fsyncs
gcs
- Google Cloud Storage
posix
- Posix-compliant file systems
s3
- AWS Simple Storage Service
sftp
- Secure File Transfer Protocol

When an NFS mount is used as a posix repository, the same rules apply to as described in the documentation: Creating a Database Cluster - File Systems.

cifs
Cipher used to encrypt the repository.

The following cipher types are supported:

none
- The repository is not encrypted
aes-256-cbc
- Advanced Encryption Standard with 256 bit key length

Note that encryption is always performed client-side even if the repository type (e.g. S3) supports encryption.

none
aes-256-cbc
Repository cipher passphrase.

Passphrase used to encrypt/decrypt files of the repository.

zWaf6XtpjIVZC5444yXB+cgFDFl7MxGlgkZSaoPvTGirhPygu4jOKOXf9LO4vjfO

The backup section defines settings related to backup.

Annotate backup with user-defined key/value pairs.

Users can attach informative key/value pairs to the backup. This option may be used multiple times to attach multiple annotations.

Annotations are output by the info command text output when a backup is specified with --set and always appear in the JSON output.

source="Sunday backup for website database"
Check that WAL segments are in the archive before backup completes.

Checks that all WAL segments required to make the backup consistent are present in the WAL archive. It's a good idea to leave this as the default unless you are using another method for archiving.

This option must be enabled if archive-copy is enabled.

n
Copy WAL segments needed for consistency to the backup.

This slightly paranoid option protects against corruption in the WAL segment archive by storing the WAL segments required for consistency directly in the backup. WAL segments are still stored in the archive so this option will use additional space.

It is best if the archive-push and backup commands have the same compress-type (e.g. lz4) when using this option. Otherwise, the WAL segments will need to be recompressed with the compress-type used by the backup, which can be fairly expensive depending on how much WAL was generated during the backup.

On restore, the WAL segments will be present in pg_xlog/pg_wal and will use them in preference to calling the `restore_command`.

The archive-check option must be enabled if archive-copy is enabled.

y
Check the archive_mode setting.

Enabled by default, this option disallows archive_mode=always.

WAL segments pushed from a standby server might be logically the same as WAL segments pushed from the primary but have different checksums. Disabling archiving from multiple sources is recommended to avoid conflicts.

If this option is disabled then it is critical to ensure that only one archiver is writing to the repository via the archive-push command.
n
Backup from the standby cluster.

Enable backup from standby to reduce load on the primary cluster. This option requires that both the primary and standby hosts be configured.

y
Validate data page checksums.

Directs to validate all data page checksums while backing up a cluster. This option is automatically enabled when data page checksums are enabled on the cluster.

Failures in checksum validation will not abort a backup. Rather, warnings will be emitted in the log (and to the console with default settings) and the list of invalid pages will be stored in the backup manifest.

n
Exclude paths/files from the backup.

All exclusions are relative to $PGDATA. If the exclusion ends with / then only files in the specified directory will be excluded, e.g. --exclude=junk/ will exclude all files in the $PGDATA/junk directory but include the directory itself. If the exclusion does not end with / then the file may match the exclusion exactly or match with / appended to the exclusion, e.g. --exclude=junk will exclude the $PGDATA/junk directory and all the files it contains.

Be careful using this feature -- it is very easy to exclude something critical that will make the backup inconsistent. Be sure to test your restores!

All excluded files will be logged at info level along with the exclusion rule. Be sure to audit the list of excluded files to ensure nothing unexpected is being excluded.

Exclusions are not honored on delta restores. Any files/directories that were excluded by the backup will be removed on delta restore.

This option should not be used to exclude logs from a backup. Logs can be moved out of the PGDATA directory using the log_directory setting, which has the benefit of allowing logs to be preserved after a restore.

Multiple exclusions may be specified on the command-line or in a configuration file.

junk/
Manifest save threshold during backup.

Defines how often the manifest will be saved during a backup. Saving the manifest is important because it stores the checksums and allows the resume function to work efficiently. The actual threshold used is 1% of the backup size or manifest-save-threshold, whichever is greater.

8GiB
Automatically run the expire command after a successful backup.

The setting is enabled by default. Use caution when disabling this option as doing so will result in retaining all backups and archives indefinitely, which could cause your repository to run out of space. The expire command will need to be run regularly to prevent this from happening.

y
Allow resume of failed backup.

Defines whether the resume feature is enabled. Resume can greatly reduce the amount of time required to run a backup after a previous backup of the same type has failed. It adds complexity, however, so it may be desirable to disable in environments that do not require the feature.

n
Force a checkpoint to start backup quickly.

Forces a checkpoint (by passing y to the fast parameter of the backup start function) so the backup begins immediately. Otherwise the backup will start after the next regular checkpoint.

y
Stop prior failed backup on new backup.

This will only be done if an exclusive advisory lock can be acquired to demonstrate that the prior failed backup process has really stopped.

This feature is not supported for >= 9.6 since backups are run in non-exclusive mode.

The setting is disabled by default because it assumes that is the only process doing exclusive online backups. It depends on an advisory lock that only sets so it may abort other processes that do exclusive online backups. Note that base_backup and pg_dump are safe to use with this setting because they do not call `pg_start_backup()` so are not exclusive.

y

The archive section defines options for the archive-push and archive-get commands.

Push/get WAL segments asynchronously.

Enables asynchronous operation for the archive-push and archive-get commands.

Asynchronous operation is more efficient because it can reuse connections and take advantage of parallelism. See the spool-path, archive-get-queue-max, and archive-push-queue-max options for more information.

y
Maximum size of the archive-get queue.

Specifies the maximum size of the archive-get queue when archive-async is enabled. The queue is stored in the spool-path and is used to speed providing WAL to .

1GiB
Retry missing WAL segment

Retry a WAL segment that was previously reported as missing by the archive-get command when in asynchronous mode. This prevents notifications in the spool path from a prior restore from being used and possibly causing a recovery failure if consistency has not been reached.

Disabling this option allows to more reliably recognize when the end of the WAL in the archive has been reached, which permits it to switch over to streaming from the primary. With retries enabled, a steady stream of WAL being archived will cause to continue getting WAL from the archive rather than switch to streaming.

When disabling this option it is important to ensure that the spool path for the stanza is empty. The restore command does this automatically if the spool path is configured at restore time. Otherwise, it is up to the user to ensure the spool path is empty.

n
Maximum size of the archive queue.

After the limit is reached, the following will happen:

will notify that the WAL was successfully archived, then DROP IT.
A warning will be output to the log.

If this occurs then the archive log stream will be interrupted and PITR will not be possible past that point. A new backup will be required to regain full restore capability.

In asynchronous mode the entire queue will be dropped to prevent spurts of WAL getting through before the queue limit is exceeded again.

The purpose of this feature is to prevent the log volume from filling up at which point will stop completely. Better to lose the backup than have go down.

1TiB
Archive timeout.

Set maximum time, in seconds, to wait for each WAL segment to reach the archive repository. The timeout applies to the check and backup commands when waiting for WAL segments required for backup consistency to be archived.

30

The restore section defines settings used for restoring backups.

Preserve or disable archiving on restored cluster.

This option allows archiving to be preserved or disabled on a restored cluster. This is useful when the cluster must be promoted to do some work but is not intended to become the new primary. In this case it is not a good idea to push WAL from the cluster into the repository.

The following modes are supported:

off
- disable archiving by setting archive_mode=off.
preserve
- preserve current archive_mode setting.

NOTE: This option is not available on &lt; 12.

off
Restore excluding the specified databases.

Databases excluded will be restored as sparse, zeroed files to save space but still allow to perform recovery. After recovery, those databases will not be accessible but can be removed with the drop database command. The {[dash]}-db-exclude option can be passed multiple times to specify more than one database to exclude.

When used in combination with the {[dash]}-db-include option, {[dash]}-db-exclude will only apply to standard system databases (template0, template1, and postgres).

db_main
Restore only specified databases.

This feature allows only selected databases to be restored. Databases not specifically included will be restored as sparse, zeroed files to save space but still allow to perform recovery. After recovery, the databases that were not included will not be accessible but can be removed with the drop database command.

built-in databases (template0, template1, and postgres) are always restored unless specifically excluded.

The {[dash]}-db-include option can be passed multiple times to specify more than one database to include.

See Restore Selected Databases for additional information and caveats.

db_main
Restore all symlinks.

By default symlinked directories and files are restored as normal directories and files in $PGDATA. This is because it may not be safe to restore symlinks to their original destinations on a system other than where the original backup was performed. This option restores all the symlinks just as they were on the original system where the backup was performed.

y
Modify the destination of a symlink.

Allows the destination file or path of a symlink to be changed on restore. This is useful for restoring to systems that have a different storage layout than the original system where the backup was generated.

pg_xlog=/data/xlog
Set an option in postgresql.auto.conf or recovery.conf.

See Server Configuration for details on postgresql.auto.conf or recovery.conf options (be sure to select your version). This option can be used multiple times.

For >= 12, options will be written into postgresql.auto.conf. For all other versions, options will be written into recovery.conf.

The restore_command option will be automatically generated but can be overridden with this option. Be careful about specifying your own restore_command as is designed to handle this for you. Target Recovery options (recovery_target_name, recovery_target_time, etc.) are generated automatically by and should not be set with this option.

Since does not start after writing the postgresql.auto.conf or recovery.conf file, it is always possible to edit/check postgresql.auto.conf or recovery.conf before manually restarting.

primary_conninfo=db.mydomain.com
Restore a tablespace into the specified directory.

Moves a tablespace to a new location during the restore. This is useful when tablespace locations are not the same on a replica, or an upgraded system has different mount points.

Tablespace locations are not stored in pg_tablespace so moving tablespaces can be done with impunity. However, moving a tablespace to the data_directory is not recommended and may cause problems. For more information on moving tablespaces http://www.databasesoup.com/2013/11/moving-tablespaces.html is a good resource.

ts_01=/db/ts_01
Restore all tablespaces into the specified directory.

Tablespaces are restored into their original locations by default. This behavior can be modified for each tablespace with the tablespace-map option, but it is sometimes preferable to remap all tablespaces to a new directory all at once. This is particularly useful for development or staging systems that may not have the same storage layout as the original system where the backup was generated.

The path specified will be the parent path used to create all the tablespaces in the backup.

/data/tablespace

The server section defines options used for configuring the TLS server.

TLS server authorized clients.

Clients are authorized on the server by verifying their certificate and checking their certificate CN (Common Name) against a list on the server configured with the tls-server-auth option.

A client CN can be authorized for as many stanzas as needed by repeating the tls-server-auth option, or for all stanzas by specifying tls-server-auth=client-cn=*. Wildcards may not be specified for the client CN.

client-cn=stanza1
TLS server certificate authorities.

Checks that client certificates are signed by a trusted certificate authority.

/path/to/server.ca
TLS server certificate file.

Sent to the client to show the server identity.

/path/to/server.crt
TLS server key file.

Proves server certificate was sent by the owner.

/path/to/server.key
TLS server address.

IP address the server will listen on for client requests.

*
TLS server port.

Port the server will listen on for client requests.

8000

A stanza defines the backup configuration for a specific database cluster. The stanza section must define the database cluster path and host/user if the database cluster is remote. Also, any global configuration sections can be overridden to define stanza-specific settings.

Indexing: All pg- options are indexed to allow for configuring multiple hosts. For example, a single primary is configured with the pg1-path, pg1-port, etc. options. If a standby is configured then index the pg- options on the repository host as pg2- (e.g. pg2-host, pg2-path, etc).

host command.

Required only if the path to the command is different on the local and hosts. If not defined, the host command will be set the same as the local command.

same as local
/usr/lib/backrest/bin/pgbackrest
database host configuration file.

Sets the location of the configuration file on the host. This is only required if the host configuration file is in a different location than the local configuration file.

/conf/pgbackrest/pgbackrest.conf
database host configuration include path.

Sets the location of the configuration include path on the host. This is only required if the host configuration include path is in a different location than the local configuration include path.

/conf/pgbackrest/conf.d
database host configuration path.

Sets the location of the configuration path on the host. This is only required if the host configuration path is in a different location than the local configuration path.

/conf/pgbackrest
host for operating remotely.

Used for backups where the host is different from the repository host.

db.domain.com
host certificate authority file.

Use a CA file other than the system default for connecting to the host.

/etc/pki/tls/certs/ca-bundle.crt
host certificate authority path.

Use a CA path other than the system default for connecting to the host.

/etc/pki/tls/certs
host certificate file.

Sent to host to prove client identity.

/path/to/client.crt
host key file.

Proves client certificate was sent by owner.

/path/to/client.key
host protocol type.

The following protocol types are supported:

ssh
- Secure Shell.
tls
- TLS server.
tls
host logon user when pg-host is set.

This user will also own the remote process and will initiate connections to . For this to work correctly the user should be the database cluster owner which is generally postgres, the default.

db_owner
database.

The database name used when connecting to . The default is usually best but some installations may not contain this database.

Note that for legacy reasons the setting of the PGDATABASE environment variable will be ignored.

backupdb
is local.

Indicates that for the specified index is local and any host settings for that index (e.g. pg1-host) should be ignored.

y
data directory.

This should be the same as the data_directory setting in postgresql.conf. Even though this value can be read from postgresql.conf or it is prudent to set it in case those resources are not available during a restore or offline backup scenario.

The pg-path option is tested against the value reported by on every online backup so it should always be current.

/data/db
port.

Port that is running on. This usually does not need to be specified as most clusters run on the default port.

6543
unix socket path.

The unix socket directory that was specified when was started. will automatically look in the standard location for your OS so there is usually no need to specify this setting unless the socket directory was explicitly modified with the unix_socket_directory setting in postgresql.conf.

/var/run/postgresql
database user.

The database user name used when connecting to . If not specified will connect with the local OS user or PGUSER.

backupuser
host port when pg-host is set.

Use this option to specify a non-default port for the host protocol.

25

Command Reference

The {[project]} Command Reference details all commands and options.

Commands are used to execute the various functions. Here the command options are listed exhaustively, that is, each option applicable to a command is listed with that command even if it applies to one or more other commands. This includes all the options that may also be configured in pgbackrest.conf.

Non-boolean options configured in pgbackrest.conf can be reset to default on the command-line by using the reset- prefix. This feature may be used to restore a backup directly on a repository host. Normally, will error because it can see that the database host is remote and restores cannot be done remotely. By adding --reset-pg1-host on the command-line, will ignore the remote database host and restore locally. It may be necessary to pass a new --pg1-path to force the restore to happen in a specific path, i.e. not the path used on the database host.

The no- prefix may be used to set a boolean option to false on the command-line.

Any option may be set in an environment variable using the PGBACKREST_ prefix and the option name in all caps replacing - with _, e.g. pg1-path becomes PGBACKREST_PG1_PATH and stanza becomes PGBACKREST_STANZA. Boolean options are represented as they would be in a configuration file, e.g. PGBACKREST_COMPRESS="n", and reset-* variants are not allowed. Options that can be specified multiple times on the command-line or in a config file can be represented by separating the values with colons, e.g. PGBACKREST_DB_INCLUDE="db1:db2".

Command-line options override environment options which override config file options.

See Configuration Introduction for information on option types

General Options

Cipher passphrase for current command.

Specify an ad hoc cipher passphrase for the current command.

zWaf6XtpjIVZC5444yXB+cgFDFl7MxGlgkZSaoPvTGirhPygu4jOKOXf9LO4vjfO
configuration file.

Use this option to specify a different configuration file than the default.

/conf/pgbackrest/pgbackrest.conf
Path to additional configuration files.

Configuration files existing in the specified location with extension .conf will be concatenated with the configuration file, resulting in one configuration file.

/conf/pgbackrest/conf.d
Base path of configuration files.

This setting is used to override the default base path setting for the --config and --config-include-path options unless they are explicitly set on the command-line.

For example, passing only `--config-path=/conf/pgbackrest` results in the --config default being set to `/conf/pgbackrest/pgbackrest.conf` and the --config-include-path default being set to `/conf/pgbackrest/conf.d`.

/conf/pgbackrest
Execute a dry-run for the command.

The {[dash]}-dry-run option is a command-line only option and can be passed when it is desirable to determine what modifications will be made by the command without the command actually making any modifications.

y
Unique identifier for the process.

A locally unique identifier used to identify a process when resolving locks on a remote host.

The exec-id option is generated automatically when needed but it is possible to set it explicitly, which saves a bit of time at startup but introduces the problem of selecting a unique value.

y
Do not transform data.

Do not transform (i.e, encrypt, decompress, etc.) data for the current command.

y
Set repository.

Set the repository for a command to operate on.

For example, this option may be used to perform a restore from a specific repository, rather than letting choose.

1
Defines the stanza.

A stanza is the configuration for a database cluster that defines where it is located, how it will be backed up, archiving options, etc. Most db servers will only have one database cluster and therefore one stanza, whereas backup servers will have a stanza for every database cluster that needs to be backed up.

It is tempting to name the stanza after the primary cluster but a better name describes the databases contained in the cluster. Because the stanza name will be used for the primary and all replicas it is more appropriate to choose a name that describes the actual function of the cluster, such as app or dw, rather than the local cluster name, such as main or prod.

main

Commands

Add or modify backup annotation.

Annotations included with the backup command can be added, modified, or removed afterwards using the annotate command.

Backup set to annotate.

The backup set to annotate.

20150131-153358F_20150131-153401I
Backup a database cluster.

When multiple repositories are configured, will backup to the highest priority repository (e.g. repo1) unless the {[dash]}-repo option is specified.

does not have a built-in scheduler so it's best to run it from cron or some other scheduling mechanism.

See Perform a Backup for more details and examples.

Backup type.

The following backup types are supported:

full
- all database cluster files will be copied and there will be no dependencies on previous backups.
incr
- incremental from the last successful backup.
diff
- like an incremental backup but always based on the last full backup.
full
Force an offline backup.

When used with --no-start-stop a backup will be run even if thinks that is running. This option should be used with extreme care as it will likely result in a bad backup.

There are some scenarios where a backup might still be desirable under these conditions. For example, if a server crashes and the database cluster volume can only be mounted read-only, it would be a good idea to take a backup even if postmaster.pid is present. In this case it would be better to revert to the prior backup and replay WAL, but possibly there is a very important transaction in a WAL segment that did not get archived.

y
Perform an online backup.

Specifying --no-online prevents from running the backup start/stop functions on the database cluster. In order for this to work should be shut down and will generate an error if it is not.

The purpose of this option is to allow offline backups. The pg_xlog/pg_wal directory is copied as-is and archive-check is automatically disabled for the backup.

n
Push a WAL segment to the archive.

Accepts a WAL segment from and archives it in each repository defined by the indexed repo-path option (see the Repository section for information on configuring repositories). The WAL segment may be pushed immediately to the archive or stored locally depending on the value of archive-async. With multiple repositories configured, archive-push will attempt to push to as many repositories as possible.

The archive-push is intended to be configured and called by . See Configure Archiving for an example.

Get a WAL segment from the archive.

This command is used by to restore a backup, perform PITR, or as an alternative to streaming for keeping a replica up to date. WAL segments are required for recovery or to maintain a replica.

When multiple repositories are configured, WAL will be fetched from the repositories in priority order (e.g. repo1, repo2, etc.). In general it is better if faster/cheaper storage has higher priority. If a repository is specified with the {[dash]}-repo option then only that repository will be searched.

The archive-get command is configured and generated by during a restore for use by . See Point-in-Time Recovery for an example.

Check the configuration.

The check command validates that and the archive_command setting are configured correctly for archiving and backups for the specified stanza. It will attempt to check all repositories and databases that are configured for the host on which the command is run. It detects misconfigurations, particularly in archiving, that result in incomplete backups because required WAL segments did not reach the archive. The command can be run on the or repository host. The command may also be run on the standby host, however, since `pg_switch_xlog()`/`pg_switch_wal()` cannot be performed on the standby, the command will only test the repository configuration.

Note that `pg_create_restore_point('pgBackRest Archive Check')` and `pg_switch_xlog()`/`pg_switch_wal()` are called to force to archive a WAL segment.

Generate a check report.

Generate a report based on the results of the check command.

y
Expire backups that exceed retention.

does full backup rotation based on the retention type which can be a count or a time period. When a count is specified, then expiration is not concerned with when the backups were created but with how many must be retained. Differential and Incremental backups are count-based but will always be expired when the backup they depend on is expired. See sections Full Backup Retention and Differential Backup Retention for details and examples. Archived WAL is retained by default for backups that have not expired, however, although not recommended, this schedule can be modified per repository with the retention-archive options. See section Archive Retention for details and examples.

The expire command is run automatically after each successful backup and can also be run by the user. When run by the user, expiration will occur as defined by the retention settings for each configured repository. If the {[dash]}-repo option is provided, expiration will occur only on the specified repository. Expiration can also be limited by the user to a specific backup set with the --set option and, unless the {[dash]}-repo option is specified, all repositories will be searched and any matching the set criteria will be expired. It should be noted that the archive retention schedule will be checked and performed any time the expire command is run.

Backup set to expire.

The specified backup set (i.e. the backup label provided and all of its dependent backups, if any) will be expired regardless of backup retention rules except that at least one full backup must remain in the repository.

Use this option with extreme caution &mdash; it will permanently remove all backups and archives not required to make a backup consistent from the repository for the specified backup set. This process may negate the ability to perform PITR. If --repo-retention-full and/or --repo-retention-archive options are configured, then it is recommended that you override these options by setting their values to the maximum while performing ad hoc expiration in order to prevent an unintended expiration of archives.
20150131-153358F_20150131-153401I
Query manifest.

Get information from a manifest including the restore strategy.

Filter files in output.

The filter currently only applies to files and must be specified relative to PGDATA.

base/13398/16397
Output format.

The following output types are supported:

text
json
json
PostgreSQL Cluster

Specify the PostgreSQL cluster to compare the manifest against.

1
Filter on reference.

Show only files with the specified reference. Use latest for files that were updated in the backup specified by --set.

20150131-153358F_20150131-153401I
Manifest to query.

When not specified the latest manifest will be queried.

20150131-153358F_20150131-153401I
Create the repository.

Create the repository (path, bucket, etc.) on the default repository. If more than one repository is configured, the command will default to the highest priority repository (e.g. repo1) unless the {[dash]}-repo option is specified. If repo-type=s3 the bucket will be created.

Get a file from a repository.

Similar to the unix cat command but works on any supported repository type. This command requires a fully qualified file name and is primarily for administration, investigation, and testing. It is not a required part of a normal setup.

If the repository is encrypted then repo-get will automatically decrypt the file. Files are not automatically decompressed but the output can be piped through the appropriate decompression command, e.g. gzip -d.

If more than one repository is configured, the command will default to the highest priority repository (e.g. repo1) unless the {[dash]}-repo option is specified.

Ignore missing source file.

Exit with 1 if the source file is missing but don't throw an error.

y
List files in a repository.

Similar to the unix ls command but works on any supported repository type. This command accepts a path, absolute or relative to the repository path defined by the {[dash]}-repo-path option, and is primarily for administration, investigation, and testing. It is not a required part of a normal setup.

The default text output prints one file name per line. JSON output is available by specifying --output=json.

If more than one repository is configured, the command will default to the highest priority repository (e.g. repo1) unless the {[dash]}-repo option is specified.

Filter output with a regular expression.

The filter is applied against the file/path names before they are output.

"(F|D|I)$"
Output format.

The following output types are supported:

text
- Simple list with one file/link/path name on each line.
json
- Detailed file/link/path information in JSON format.

In JSON format the available fields are:

name
- file/link/path name (and partial path when recursing).
type
- file, path, or link.
size
- size in bytes (files only).
time
- time last modified (files only).
destination
- link destination (links only).
json
Include all subpaths in output.

All subpaths and their files will be included in the output.

y
Sort output ascending, descending, or none.

The following sort types are supported:

asc
- sort ascending.
desc
- sort descending.
none
- no sorting.
desc
Put a file in the repository.

Similar to the unix tee command by copying from stdin to a file but options and behavior are different. This command requires a fully qualified file name and is primarily for administration, investigation, and testing. It is not a required part of a normal setup.

If more than one repository is configured, the command will default to the highest priority repository (e.g. repo1) unless the {[dash]}-repo option is specified.

Remove paths/files in the repository.

Similar to the unix rm command but options are different. This command accepts a path, absolute or relative to the repository path defined by the {[dash]}-repo-path option, and is primarily for administration, investigation, and testing. It is not a required part of a normal setup.

If more than one repository is configured, the command will default to the highest priority repository (e.g. repo1) unless the {[dash]}-repo option is specified.

Remove all sub file/paths.

All subpaths and their files will be removed.

y
Restore a database cluster.

The restore command automatically defaults to selecting the latest backup from the first repository where backups exist (see Quick Start - Restore a Backup). The order in which the repositories are checked is dictated by the pgbackrest.conf (e.g. repo1 will be checked before repo2). To select from a specific repository, the {[dash]}-repo option can be passed (e.g. {[dash]}-repo=1). The {[dash]}-set option can be passed if a backup other than the latest is desired.

When PITR of {[dash]}-type=time or {[dash]}-type=lsn is specified, then the target time or target lsn must be specified with the {[dash]}-target option. If a backup is not specified via the {[dash]}-set option, then the configured repositories will be checked, in order, for a backup that contains the requested time or lsn. If no matching backup is found, the latest backup from the first repository containing backups will be used for {[dash]}-type=time while no backup will be selected for {[dash]}-type=lsn. For other types of PITR, e.g. xid, the {[dash]}-set option must be provided if the target is prior to the latest backup. See Point-in-Time Recovery for more details and examples.

Replication slots are not included per recommendation of . See Backing Up The Data Directory in the documentation for more information.

Backup set to restore.

The backup set to be restored. latest will restore the latest backup, otherwise provide the name of the backup to restore.

20150131-153358F_20150131-153401I
Force a restore.

By itself this option forces the data and tablespace paths to be completely overwritten. In combination with --delta a timestamp/size delta will be performed instead of using checksums.

y
Recovery type.

The following recovery types are supported:

default
- recover to the end of the archive stream.
immediate
- recover only until the database becomes consistent. This option is only supported on >= 9.4.
lsn
- recover to the LSN (Log Sequence Number) specified in --target. This option is only supported on >= 10.
name
- recover the restore point specified in --target.
xid
- recover to the transaction id specified in --target.
time
- recover to the time specified in --target.
preserve
- preserve the existing postgresql.auto.conf or recovery.conf file.
standby
- add standby_mode=on to the postgresql.auto.conf or recovery.conf file so cluster will start in standby mode.
none
- no postgresql.auto.conf or recovery.conf file is written so will attempt to achieve consistency using WAL segments present in pg_xlog/pg_wal. Provide the required WAL segments or use the archive-copy setting to include them with the backup.
Recovery type=none should be avoided because the timeline will not be incremented at the end of recovery. This can lead to, for example, attempting to archive duplicate WAL, which will be rejected, and may cause the disk to fill up and result in a panic. In addition, tools like pg_rewind may not work correctly or may cause corruption.

Note that the default restore type for offline backups is none since Point-in-Time-Recovery is not possible if wal_level=minimal. If type is set explicitly then it will be honored since Point-in-Time-Recovery is possible from offline backups as long as wal_level > minimal.

xid
Recovery target.

Defines the recovery target when --type is lsn, name, xid, or time. If the target is prior to the latest backup and --type is not time or lsn, then use the --set option to specify the backup set.

2015-01-30 14:15:11 EST
Stop just before the recovery target is reached.

Defines whether recovery to the target would be exclusive (the default is inclusive) and is only valid when --type is lsn, time or xid. For example, using --target-exclusive would exclude the contents of transaction 1007 when --type=xid and --target=1007. See the recovery_target_inclusive option in the docs for more information.

n
Action to take when recovery target is reached.

When hot_standby=on, the default since 10, this option consistently controls what the cluster does when the target is reached or there is no more WAL in the archive.

When hot_standby=off in >= 12, pause acts like shutdown. When hot_standby=off in < 12, pause acts like promote.

The following actions are supported:

pause
- pause when recovery target is reached.
promote
- promote and switch timeline when recovery target is reached.
shutdown
- shutdown server when recovery target is reached. ( >= 9.5)
promote
Recover along a timeline.

See recovery_target_timeline in the docs for more information.

3
Retrieve information about backups.

The info command operates on a single stanza or all stanzas. Text output is the default and gives a human-readable summary of backups for the stanza(s) requested. This format is subject to change with any release.

For machine-readable output use --output=json. The JSON output contains far more information than the text output and is kept stable unless a bug is found.

Each stanza has a separate section and it is possible to limit output to a single stanza with the --stanza option. The stanza 'status' gives a brief indication of the stanza's health. If this is 'ok' then is functioning normally. If there are multiple repositories, then a status of 'mixed' indicates that the stanza is not in a healthy state on one or more of the repositories; in this case the state of the stanza will be detailed per repository. For cases in which an error on a repository occurred that is not one of the known error codes, then an error code of 'other' will be used and the full error details will be provided. The 'wal archive min/max' shows the minimum and maximum WAL currently stored in the archive and, in the case of multiple repositories, will be reported across all repositories unless the {[dash]}-repo option is set. Note that there may be gaps due to archive retention policies or other reasons.

The 'backup/expire running' message will appear beside the 'status' information if one of those commands is currently running on the host.

The backups are displayed oldest to newest. The oldest backup will always be a full backup (indicated by an F at the end of the label) but the newest backup can be full, differential (ends with D), or incremental (ends with I).

The 'timestamp start/stop' defines the time period when the backup ran. The 'timestamp stop' can be used to determine the backup to use when performing Point-In-Time Recovery. More information about Point-In-Time Recovery can be found in the Point-In-Time Recovery section.

The 'wal start/stop' defines the WAL range that is required to make the database consistent when restoring. The backup command will ensure that this WAL range is in the archive before completing.

The 'database size' is the full uncompressed size of the database while 'database backup size' is the amount of data in the database to actually back up (these will be the same for full backups).

The 'repo' indicates in which repository this backup resides. The 'backup set size' includes all the files from this backup and any referenced backups in the repository that are required to restore the database from this backup while 'backup size' includes only the files in this backup (these will also be the same for full backups). Repository sizes reflect compressed file sizes if compression is enabled in .

The 'backup reference list' contains the additional backups that are required to restore this backup.

Output format.

The following output types are supported:

text
- Human-readable summary of backup information.
json
- Exhaustive machine-readable backup information in JSON format.
json
Backup set to detail.

Details include a list of databases (with OIDs) in the backup set (excluding template databases), tablespaces (with OIDs) with the destination where they will be restored by default, and symlinks with the destination where they will be restored when --link-all is specified.

20150131-153358F_20150131-153401I
Filter on backup type.

Filter the output using one of the following backup types: full, incr, diff.

full
Get help.

Three levels of help are provided. If no command is specified then general help will be displayed. If a command is specified (e.g. pgbackrest help backup) then a full description of the command will be displayed along with a list of valid options. If an option is specified in addition to a command (e.g. pgbackrest help backup type) then a full description of the option as it applies to the command will be displayed.

server.

The server allows access to remote hosts without using the SSH protocol.

Ping server.

Ping a TLS server to ensure it is accepting connections. This serves as an aliveness check only since no authentication is attempted.

If no host is specified on the command-line then the tls-server-host option will be used.

Allow processes to run.

If the processes were previously stopped using the stop command then they can be started again using the start command. Note that this will not immediately start up any processes but they are allowed to run. See Starting and Stopping for more information and examples.

Stop processes from running.

Does not allow any new processes to run. By default running processes will be allowed to complete successfully. Use the --force option to terminate running processes.

processes will return an error if they are run after the stop command completes. See Starting and Stopping for more information and examples.

Force all processes to stop.

This option will send TERM signals to all running processes to effect a graceful but immediate shutdown. Note that this will also shutdown processes that were initiated on another system but have remotes running on the current system. For instance, if a backup was started on the backup server then running stop --force on the database server will shutdown the backup process on the backup server.

y
Verify contents of the repository.

Verify determines if the backups and archives in the repository are valid.

Backup set to verify.

Verify all database and archive files associated with the specified backup set.

20150131-153358F_20150131-153401I
Output type.

Output may be none (default) or text. Requesting text generates output to stdout.

text
Verbose output.

Verbose defaults to false, providing a minimal response with important information about errors in the repository. Specifying true provides more information about what was successfully verified.

y
Get version.

Displays installed version.

Create the required stanza data.

The stanza-create command must be run after the stanza has been configured in pgbackrest.conf. If there is more than one repository configured, the stanza will be created on each. Stanzas that have already been created will be skipped so it is always safe to run stanza-create, even when a new repository has been configured.

See Create the Stanza for more information and an example.

Force stanza creation.

This option is no longer supported.

n
Create on an online cluster.

Specifying --no-online prevents from connecting to when creating the stanza.

n
Upgrade a stanza.

Immediately after upgrading to a newer major version, the pg-path for all configurations must be set to the new database location and the stanza-upgrade command run. If there is more than one repository configured on the host, the stanza will be upgraded on each. If the database is offline use the --no-online option.

Update an online cluster.

Specifying --no-online prevents from connecting to when upgrading the stanza.

n
Delete a stanza.

The stanza-delete command removes data in the repository associated with a stanza.

Use this command with caution &mdash; it will permanently remove all backups and archives from the repository for the specified stanza.

To delete a stanza:

Shut down the cluster associated with the stanza (or use --force to override).
Run the stop command on the host where the stanza-delete command will be run.
Run the stanza-delete command.

Once the command successfully completes, it is the responsibility of the user to remove the stanza from all configuration files and/or environment variables.

A stanza may only be deleted from one repository at a time. To delete the stanza from multiple repositories, repeat the stanza-delete command for each repository while specifying the {[dash]}-repo option.

Force stanza delete.

If is still running for the stanza, then this option can be used to force the stanza to be deleted from the repository.

n