* More optimized container suite that greatly improves build time.
* Added static Debian packages for Devel::Cover to reduce build time.
* Add deprecated state for containers. Deprecated containers may only be used to build packages.
* Remove Debian 8 from CI because it does not provide additional coverage over Ubuntu 14.04 and Ubuntu 16.04.
Refactor storage layer to allow for new repository filesystems using drivers. (Reviewed by Cynthia Shang.)
Refactor IO layer to allow for new compression formats, checksum types, and other capabilities using filters. (Reviewed by Cynthia Shang.)
* Full coverage is verified when specified.
* Modules marked with partial coverage will error if they are actually fully covered.
* Simplified test representation is DefineTest.
* Added new representation for queries in DefineTest and added API functions.
* Update modules using DefineTest to use new API.
* Automated builds of Debian packages for all supported distributions.
* Added --dev option to aggregate commonly used dev options.
* Added --no-package option to skip package builds.
* C library and packages are built by default, added -smart option to rebuild only when file changes are detected.
* The --libc-only option has been changed to --build-only now that packages builds have been added.
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.
* Make the code more modular and object-oriented.
* Multiple Docker containers can now be created for a single test to simulate more realistic environments.
* Containers now use a squid proxy for apt/yum to speed builds.
* Obsolete containers are removed by the <br-option>--vm-force</br-option> option.
* Greatly reduced the quantity of Docker containers built by default. Containers are only built for PostgreSQL versions specified in db-minimal and those required to build documentation. Additional containers can be built with --db-version=all or by specifying a version, e.g. --db-version=9.4.
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.
* 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.
