This option allows pgBackRest to validate page checksums in data files when checksums are enabled on PostgreSQL >= 9.3. Note that this functionality requires a C library which may not initially be available in OS packages. The option will automatically be enabled when the library is present and checksums are enabled on the cluster.
A connection to the primary cluster is still required to start/stop the backup and copy files that are not replicated, but the vast majority of files are copied from the standby in order to reduce load on the master.
These include (depending on the version where they were introduced): pgsql_tmp, pg_dynshmem, pg_notify, pg_replslot, pg_serial, pg_snapshots, pg_stat_tmp, pg_subtrans. The postgresql.auto.conf.tmp file is now excluded in addition to files that were already excluded: backup_label.old, postmaster.opts, postmaster.pid, recovery.conf, recovery.done.
* Tablespace paths that had $PGDATA as a substring would be identified as a subdirectories of $PGDATA even when they were not.
* Also hardened relative path checking a bit.
Improved handling of users/groups captured during backup that do not exist on the restore host. Also explicitly handle the case where user/group is not mapped to a name.
The pg_xlogfile_name() function is no longer used to construct WAL filenames from LSNs. While this function is convenient it is not available on a standby. Instead, the archive is searched for the LSN in order to find the timeline. If due to some misadventure the LSN appears on multiple timelines then an error will be thrown, whereas before this condition would have passed unnoticed.
Some files need to be added to the manifest after the initial build. This is currently done in only one place but usage will expand in the future so the functionality has been encapsulated in addFile().
Added database version constants and changed version identification code to use hash tables instead of if-else. Propagated the db version constants to the rest of the code and in passing fixed some path/filename constants.
Added new regression tests to check that specific files are never copied.
This feature can result in major space and time savings when only specific databases are restored. Unrestored databases will not be accessible but must be manually dropped before they will be removed from the shared catalogue.
* All files and directories linked from PGDATA are now included in the backup. By default links will be restored directly into PGDATA as files or directories. The --link-all option can be used to restore all links to their original locations. The --link-map option can be used to remap a link to a new location.
* Removed --tablespace option and replaced with --tablespace-map-all option which should more clearly indicate its function.
* Added detail log level which will output more information than info without being as verbose as debug.
* The repo-path option now always refers to the repository where backups and archive are stored, whether local or remote, so the repo-remote-path option has been removed. The new spool-path option can be used to define a location for queueing WAL segments when archiving asynchronously. Otherwise, a local repository is no longer required.
* Implemented a new config format which should be far simpler to use. See the User Guide and Configuration Reference for details but for a simple configuration all options can now be placed in the stanza section. Options that are shared between stanzas can be placed in the [global] section. More complex configurations can still make use of command sections though this should be a rare use case.
* The default configuration filename is now pgbackrest.conf instead of pg_backrest.conf. This was done for consistency with other naming changes but also to prevent old config files from being loaded accidentally.
* The default repository name was changed from /var/lib/backup to /var/lib/pgbackrest.
* Lock files are now stored in /tmp/pgbackrest by default. These days /run/pgbackrest would be the preferred location but that would require init scripts which are not part of this release. The lock-path option can be used to configure the lock directory.
* Log files are now stored in /var/log/pgbackrest by default and no longer have the date appended so they can be managed with logrotate. The log-path option can be used to configure the lock directory.
* Executable filename changed from pg_backrest to pgbackrest.
