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.
Master and standby can both be configured on the backup server and pgBackRest will automatically determine which is the master. This means no configuration changes for backup are required after failing over from a master to standby when a separate backup server is used.
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.
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.
* Fixed an issue where keep-alives could be starved out by lots of small files during multi-threaded operation and were completely absent during single-threaded operation when resuming from a previous incomplete backup.
Reported by Janice Parkinson.
* Added the protocol-timeout option. Previously protocol-timeout was set as db-timeout + 30 seconds.
* Failure to shutdown remotes at the end of the backup no longer throws an exception. A warning is still generated that recommends a higher protocol-timeout.
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.
