<text><backrest/> 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 <file>/etc/pgbackrest.conf</file>.</text>
<text>Specifies which log levels must will be output to <id>stderr</id> rather than <id>stdout</id> (specified by <br-option>log-level-console</br-option>). The timestamp and process will not be output to <id>stderr</id>.
<text>Set maximum time, in seconds, to wait for WAL segments to reach the archive. The timeout applies to the <cmd>check</cmd> command and to the <cmd>backup</cmd> command when waiting for WAL segments required to make the backup consistent to be archived.</text>
<text>Set the buffer size used for copy, compress, and uncompress functions. A maximum of 3 buffers will be in use at a time per process. An additional maximum of 256K per process may be used for zlib buffers.</text>
<text>Sets the zlib level to be used for protocol compression when <setting>compress=n</setting> and the database cluster is not on the same host as the backup. Protocol compression is used to reduce network traffic but can be disabled by setting <setting>compress-level-network=0</setting>. When <setting>compress=y</setting> the <setting>compress-level-network</setting> setting is ignored and <setting>compress-level</setting> is used instead so that the file is only compressed once. SSH compression is always disabled.</text>
<text>Directs <backrest/> to validate all data page checksums while backing up a cluster. This option will be automatically enabled when the required C library is present and 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.</text>
<text>Sets the timeout, in seconds, for queries against the database. This includes the <code>pg_start_backup()</code> and <code>pg_stop_backup()</code> 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 <setting>startfast=y</setting> and you know that the database cluster will not generate many WAL segments during the backup).</text>
<summary>Path where lock files are stored.</summary>
<text>The lock path provides a location for <backrest/> to create lock files to prevent conflicting operations from being run concurrently.</text>
<example>/backup/db/lock</example>
</config-key>
<!-- CONFIG - GENERAL SECTION - LOG-PATH KEY -->
<config-keyid="log-path"name="Log Path">
<summary>Path where log files are stored.</summary>
<text>The log path provides a location for <backrest/> to store log files. Note that if <setting>log-level-file=none</setting> then no log path is required.</text>
<text>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 <setting>neutral-umask=n</setting> in the config file or <setting>--no-neutral-umask</setting> on the command line.</text>
<text>When asynchronous archiving is enabled <backrest/> needs a local directory to store WAL segments before they are compressed and moved to the repository. Depending on the volume of WAL generated this directory could become very large so be sure to plan accordingly.
<summary>Max processes to use for compress/transfer.</summary>
<text>Each process will perform compression and transfer to make the command run faster, but don't set <setting>process-max</setting> so high that it impacts database performance.</text>
<text>Sets the timeout, in seconds, that the master 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 <br-option>protocol-timeout</br-option> option must be greater than the <br-option>db-timeout</br-option> option.</text>
<summary>Create convenience symlinks in repository.</summary>
<text>Creates the convenience link <path>latest</path> in the stanza directory and internal tablespace symlinks in each backup directory. The internal tablespace symlinks allow clusters to be brought up manually in-place using filesystem snapshots as long as the backup is not compressed.
This option should be disabled when the repository is located on a filesystem that does not support symlinks. No <backrest/> functionality will be affected, but certain manual operations on the repository may be less convenient.</text>
If you are new to backup then it will 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.</text>
<summary>Sync directories in repository.</summary>
<text>Syncs directories when writing to the repository. Not all file systems support directory syncs (e.g., NTFS) so this option allows them to be disabled.</text>
<text>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.</text>
<text>This slightly paranoid option protects against corruption or premature expiration in the WAL segment archive by storing the WAL segments directly in the backup. PITR won't be possible without the WAL segment archive and this option also consumes more space.
Even though WAL segments will be restored with the backup, <postgres/> will ignore them if a <file>recovery.conf</file> file exists and instead use <setting>archive_command</setting> to fetch WAL segments. Specifying <setting>type=none</setting> when restoring will not create <file>recovery.conf</file> and force <postgres/> to use the WAL segments in pg_xlog. This will get the database cluster to a consistent state.</text>
<summary><backrest/> exe path on the backup host.</summary>
<text>Required only if the path to <exe/> is different on the local and backup hosts. If not defined, the backup host exe path will be set the same as the local exe path.</text>
<text>Sets the location of the configuration file on the backup host. This is only required if the backup host configuration file is in a different location than the local configuration file.</text>
<text>Defines the user that will be used for operations on the backup server. Preferably this is not the <id>postgres</id> user but rather some other user like <id>backrest</id>. If <postgres/> runs on the backup server the <id>postgres</id> user can be placed in the <id>backrest</id> group so it has read permissions on the repository without being able to damage the contents accidentally.</text>
<config-keyid="backup-standby"name="Backup from Standby">
<summary>Backup from the standby cluster.</summary>
<text>Enable backup from standby to reduce load on the master cluster. This option requires that both the <host>master</host> and <host>standby</host> hosts be configured.</text>
<text>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. Be careful, though, because modifying files that are hard-linked can affect all the backups in the set.</text>
<text>Defines how often the manifest will be saved during a backup (in bytes). 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 <setting>manifest-save-threshold</setting>, whichever is greater.</text>
<text>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.</text>
<text>Forces a checkpoint (by passing <id>y</id> to the <id>fast</id> parameter of <code>pg_start_backup()</code>) so the backup begins immediately. Otherwise the backup will start after the next regular checkpoint.
The setting is disabled by default because it assumes that <backrest/> is the only process doing exclusive online backups. It depends on an advisory lock that only <backrest/> sets so it may abort other processes that do exclusive online backups. Note that <cmd>base_backup</cmd> and <cmd>pg_dump</cmd> are safe to use with this setting because they do not call <code>pg_start_backup()</code> so are not exclusive.</text>
<text>The <setting>archive</setting> section defines parameters when doing async archiving. This means that the archive files will be stored locally, then a background process will pick them and move them to the backup.</text>
<text>WAL segments will be copied to the local repo, then a process will be forked to compress the segment and transfer it to the remote repo if configured. Control will be returned to <postgres/> as soon as the WAL segment is copied locally.</text>
</ol>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.
The purpose of this feature is to prevent the log volume from filling up at which point Postgres will stop completely. Better to lose the backup than have <postgres/> go down.</text>
<summary>Restore only specified databases.</summary>
<text>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 <postgres/> to perform recovery. After recovery the databases that were not included will not be accessible but can be removed with the <id>drop database</id> command.
Note that built-in databases (<id>template0</id>, <id>template1</id>, and <id>postgres</id>) are always restored.
The <setting>{[dash]}-db-include</setting> option can be passed multiple times to specify more than one database to include.</text>
<text>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.</text>
<example>y</example>
</config-key>
<!-- CONFIG - RESTORE SECTION - LINK-MAP KEY -->
<config-keyid="link-map"name="Link Map">
<summary>Modify the destination of a symlink.</summary>
<text>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.</text>
<summary>Set an option in <file>recovery.conf</file>.</summary>
<text>See http://www.postgresql.org/docs/X.X/static/recovery-config.html for details on recovery.conf options (replace X.X with your <postgres/> version). This option can be used multiple times.
Note: The <setting>restore_command</setting> option will be automatically generated but can be overridden with this option. Be careful about specifying your own <setting>restore_command</setting> as <backrest/> is designed to handle this for you. Target Recovery options (recovery_target_name, recovery_target_time, etc.) are generated automatically by <backrest/> and should not be set with this option.
Since <backrest/> does not start <postgres/> after writing the <file>recovery.conf</file> file, it is always possible to edit/check <file>recovery.conf</file> before manually restarting.</text>
<text>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.
Since <postgres/> 9.2 tablespace locations are not stored in pg_tablespace so moving tablespaces can be done with impunity. However, moving a tablespace to the <setting>data_directory</setting> 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.</text>
<text>By default tablespaces are restored into their original locations and while this behavior can be modified by with the <setting>tablespace-map</setting> open it is sometime 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.
<text>The <setting>expire</setting> section defines how long backups will be retained. Expiration only occurs when the number of complete backups exceeds the allowed retention. In other words, if retention-full is set to 2, then there must be 3 complete backups before the oldest will be expired. Make sure you always have enough space for retention + 1 backups.</text>
<text>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.</text>
<text>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.</text>
<text>If set to <setting>full</setting><backrest/> will keep archive logs for the number of full backups defined by <setting>retention-archive</setting>. If set to <setting>diff</setting> (differential) <backrest/> will keep archive logs for the number of full and differential backups defined by <setting>retention-archive</setting>, meaning if the last backup taken was a full backup, it will be counted as a differential for the purpose of retention. If set to <setting>incr</setting> (incremental) <backrest/> will keep archive logs for the number of full, differential, and incremental backups defined by <setting>retention-archive</setting>. It is recommended that this setting not be changed from the default which will only expire WAL in conjunction with expiring full backups.</text>
<text>Note that the 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, then the archive to expire will default to the <setting>retention-full</setting> (or <setting>retention-diff</setting>) value corresponding to the <setting>retention-archive-type</setting> if set to <setting>full</setting> (or <setting>diff</setting>). This will ensure that WAL is only expired for backups that are already expired.
This option must be set if <setting>retention-archive-type</setting> is set to <setting>incr</setting>. If disk space is at a premium, then this setting, in conjunction with <setting>retention-archive-type</setting>, 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 <b>not</b> recommended.</text>
<text>A stanza defines the backup configuration for a specific <postgres/> 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.</text>
<summary><backrest/> exe path on the database host.</summary>
<text>Required only if the path to <exe/> is different on the local and database hosts. If not defined, the database host exe path will be set the same as the local exe path.</text>
<text>Sets the location of the configuration file on the database host. This is only required if the database host configuration file is in a different location than the local configuration file.</text>
<text>This user will also own the remote <backrest/> process and will initiate connections to <postgres/>. For this to work correctly the user should be the <postgres/> database cluster owner which is generally <id>postgres</id>, the default.</text>
<text>This should be the same as the <setting>data_directory</setting> setting in <file>postgresql.conf</file>. Even though this value can be read from <file>postgresql.conf</file> or the database cluster it is prudent to set it in case those resources are not available during a restore or offline backup scenario.
The <setting>db-path</setting> option is tested against the value reported by <postgres/> on every online backup so it should always be current.</text>
<text>The unix socket directory that was specified when <postgres/> was started. <backrest/> will automatically look in the standard location for your OS so there usually no need to specify this setting unless the socket directory was explicitly modified with the <setting>unix_socket_directory</setting> setting in <file>postgressql.conf</file>.</text>
<text>Commands are used to execute the various <backrest/> 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 configured in <file>pgbackrest.conf</file>.</text>
<text>A stanza is the configuration for a <postgres/> database cluster that defines where it is located, how it will be backed up, archiving options, etc. Most db servers will only have one Postgres 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.</text>
<text>Specifying --no-online prevents <backrest/> from running <code>pg_start_backup()</code> and <code>pg_stop_backup()</code> on the database cluster. In order for this to work <postgres/> should be shut down and <backrest/> will generate an error if it is not.
The purpose of this option is to allow offline backups. The <path>pg_xlog</path> directory is copied as-is and <setting>archive-check</setting> is automatically disabled for the backup.</text>
<text>When used with <br-option>--no-start-stop</br-option> a backup will be run even if <backrest/> thinks that <postgres/> is running. <b>This option should be used with extreme care as it will likely result in a bad backup.</b>
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 <file>postmaster.pid</file> 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.</text>
Run a <id>full</id> backup on the <id>db</id> stanza. <br-option>--type</br-option> can also be set to <id>incr</id> or <id>diff</id> for incremental or differential backups. However, if no <id>full</id> backup exists then a <id>full</id> backup will be forced even if <id>incr</id> or <id>diff</id> is requested.</text>
</command-example>
</command-example-list>
</command>
<!-- OPERATION - ARCHIVE-PUSH COMMAND -->
<commandid="archive-push"name="Archive Push">
<summary>Push a WAL segment to the archive.</summary>
<text>The WAL segment may be pushed immediately to the archive or stored locally depending on the value of <setting>archive-async</setting></text>
Accepts a WAL segment from <postgres/> and archives it in the repository defined by <setting>repo-path</setting>. <id>%p</id> is how <postgres/> specifies the location of the WAL segment to be archived.</text>
</command-example>
</command-example-list>
</command>
<!-- OPERATION - ARCHIVE-GET COMMAND -->
<commandid="archive-get"name="Archive Get">
<summary>Get a WAL segment from the archive.</summary>
<text>WAL segments are required for restoring a <postgres/> cluster or maintaining a replica.</text>
Retrieves a WAL segment from the repository. This command is used in <file>recovery.conf</file> to restore a backup, perform PITR, or as an alternative to streaming for keeping a replica up to date. <id>%f</id> is how <postgres/> specifies the WAL segment it needs and <id>%p</id> is the location where it should be copied.</text>
<text>The <cmd>check</cmd> command validates that <backrest/> and the <pg-setting>archive_command</pg-setting> setting are configured correctly for archiving and backups. 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 database or the backup host. The command may also be run on the standby host, however, since <code>pg_switch_xlog()</code> cannot be performed on the standby, the command will only test the repository configuration.
Note that <code>pg_create_restore_point('pgBackRest Archive Check')</code> and <code>pg_switch_xlog()</code> are called to force <postgres/> to archive a WAL segment. Restore points are only supported in <postgres/>>= 9.1 so for older versions the <cmd>check</cmd> command may fail if there has been no write activity since the last log rotation, therefore it is recommended that activity be generated by the user if there have been no writes since the last xlog switch before running the <cmd>check</cmd> command.</text>
<summary>Expire backups that exceed retention.</summary>
<text><backrest/> does backup rotation but is not concerned with when the backups were created. If two full backups are configured for retention, <backrest/> will keep two full backups no matter whether they occur two hours or two weeks apart.</text>
Expire (rotate) any backups that exceed the defined retention. Expiration is run automatically after every successful backup, so there is no need to run this command separately unless you have reduced retention, usually to free up some space.</text>
</command-example>
</command-example-list>
</command>
<!-- OPERATION - RESTORE COMMAND -->
<commandid="restore"name="Restore">
<summary>Restore a database cluster.</summary>
<text>This command is generally run manually, but there are instances where it might be automated.</text>
<option-list>
<!-- OPERATION - RESTORE COMMAND - SET OPTION -->
<optionid="set"name="Set">
<summary>Backup set to restore.</summary>
<text>The backup set to be restored. <id>latest</id> will restore the latest backup, otherwise provide the name of the backup to restore.</text>
<text>By default the <postgres/> data and tablespace directories are expected to be present but empty. This option performs a delta restore using checksums.</text>
<example>y</example>
</option>
<!-- OPERATION - RESTORE COMMAND - FORCE OPTION -->
<optionid="force"name="Force">
<summary>Force a restore.</summary>
<text>By itself this option forces the <postgres/> data and tablespace paths to be completely overwritten. In combination with <br-option>--delta</br-option> a timestamp/size delta will be performed instead of using checksums.</text>
<example>y</example>
</option>
<!-- OPERATION - RESTORE COMMAND - TYPE OPTION -->
<optionid="type"name="Type">
<summary>Recovery type.</summary>
<text>The following recovery types are supported:
<ul>
<li><id>default</id> - recover to the end of the archive stream.</li>
<li><id>name</id> - recover the restore point specified in <br-option>--target</br-option>.</li>
<li><id>xid</id> - recover to the transaction id specified in <br-option>--target</br-option>.</li>
<li><id>time</id> - recover to the time specified in <br-option>--target</br-option>.</li>
<li><id>preserve</id> - preserve the existing <file>recovery.conf</file> file.</li>
<li><id>none</id> - no <file>recovery.conf</file> file is written so <postgres/> will attempt to achieve consistency using WAL segments present in <path>pg_xlog</path>. Provide the required WAL segments or use the <setting>archive-copy</setting> setting to include them with the backup.</li>
<summary>Stop just before the recovery target is reached.</summary>
<text>Defines whether recovery to the target would be exclusive (the default is inclusive) and is only valid when <br-option>--type</br-option> is <id>time</id> or <id>xid</id>. For example, using <br-option>--target-exclusive</br-option> would exclude the contents of transaction <id>1007</id> when <br-option>--type=xid</br-option> and <br-option>--target=1007</br-option>. See the <setting>recovery_target_inclusive</setting> option in the <postgres/> docs for more information.</text>
Restores the latest database cluster backup and then recovers to the <id>release</id> restore point.</text>
</command-example>
</command-example-list>
</command>
<!-- OPERATION - INFO COMMAND -->
<commandid="info"name="Info">
<summary>Retrieve information about backups.</summary>
<text>The <cmd>info</cmd> 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 <setting>--output=json</setting>. The JSON output contains far more information than the text output, however <b>this feature is currently experimental so the format may change between versions</b>.</text>
<option-list>
<!-- OPERATION - INFO COMMAND - OUTPUT OPTION -->
<optionid="output"name="Output">
<summary>Output format.</summary>
<text>The following output types are supported:
<ul>
<li><id>text</id> - Human-readable summary of backup information.</li>
<li><id>json</id> - Exhaustive machine-readable backup information in JSON format.</li>
</ul></text>
<example>json</example>
</option>
</option-list>
<command-example-list>
<command-exampletitle="Information for a single stanza">
Get information about backups for all stanzas in the repository.</text>
</command-example>
</command-example-list>
</command>
<!-- OPERATION - HELP COMMAND -->
<commandid="help"name="Help">
<summary>Get help.</summary>
<text>Three levels of help are provided. If no command is specified then general help will be displayed. If a command is specified 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 then the a full description of the option as it applies to the command will be displayed.</text>
<command-example-list>
<command-exampletitle="Help for the backup command">
Get help for the force option of the backup command.</text>
</command-example>
</command-example-list>
</command>
<!-- OPERATION - START COMMAND -->
<commandid="start"name="Start">
<summary>Allow <backrest/> processes to run.</summary>
<text>If the <backrest/> processes were previously stopped using the <cmd>stop</cmd> command then they can be started again using the <cmd>start</cmd> command. Note that this will not immediately start up any <backrest/> processes but they are allowed to run.</text>
<command-example-list>
<command-exampletitle="Start processes for stanza main">
Allows <backrest/> processes to run for the <id>main</id> stanza.</text>
</command-example>
</command-example-list>
</command>
<!-- OPERATION - STOP COMMAND -->
<commandid="stop"name="Stop">
<summary>Stop <backrest/> processes from running.</summary>
<text>Does not allow any new <backrest/> processes to run. By default running processes will be allowed to complete successfully. Use the <setting>--force</setting> option to terminate running processes.
<backrest/> processes will return an error if they are run after the stop command completes.</text>
<option-list>
<!-- OPERATION - STOP COMMAND - FORCE OPTION -->
<optionid="force"name="Force">
<summary>Force all <backrest/> processes to stop.</summary>
<text>This option will send TERM signals to all running <backrest/> 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 <cmd>stop --force</cmd> on the database server will shutdown the backup process on the backup server.</text>
<example>y</example>
</option>
</option-list>
<command-example-list>
<command-exampletitle="Stop processes for all stanzas">
<text>The <cmd>stanza-create</cmd> command must be run on the host where the repository is located after the stanza has been configured in <file>pgbackrest.conf</file>.</text>
<option-list>
<!-- OPERATION - STANZA-CREATE COMMAND - FORCE OPTION -->
<optionid="force"name="Force">
<summary>Force stanza creation.</summary>
<text>If the required stanza information does not exist in the repository but backups or WAL segments do exist, then this option can be used to force the stanza to be created from the existing data in the repository. This is most likely to be useful after corruption or an incomplete restore of the repository from elsewhere.</text>
