Version 2.1.1

New features:

• Remote backup and restore using SSH. It uses an operation model when backup catalog is located on local machine, while PostgreSQL is located on remote machine, the only exceptions are archive-push and archive-get commands which are always launched from database server side. For remote mode to work a local ssh binary is used. All --remote-* and --ssh-* options can be used with add-instance, set-config, backup, restore, archive-push and archive-get commands. Currently remote operations are not supported on Windows.

  • Option --remote-proto allows to specify a protocol to use for remote operations. Currently only ssh and none values are supported. If option --remote-host is specified then default value for --remote-proto is ssh.
  • Option --remote-host allows to specify remote host IP address or hostname to connect in remote mode.
  • Option --remote-port allows to specify remote host port to connect in remote mode. Default value: 22.
  • Option --remote-user allows to specify remote host user to connect in remote mode. Default value: current user.
  • Option --remote-path allows to specify a directory path with pg_probackup binary on remote machine.
  • Option --ssh-options allows to specify a string of options for ssh. Default: none.

• Merge partially-expired incremental chains during backups retention purge. This is the analog of Oracle Incrementally Updated Backups feature.

  • Flag --merge-expired allows to merge partially-expired incremental backup chains. Can be used only if retention-window policy is set. Can be safely used with --delete-expired flag. Can be used only with backup and delete commands.
  • Flag --dry-run allows to perform a trial retention run without any changes. Can be used only with backup and delete commands.

• Support of external directories. It can be used for adding to backup any files and directories located outside of PGDATA, e.g. configs, logs or scripts.

  • Option --external-dirs allows to specify multiple directories separated by colon that should be copied during backup. Default value: 'none'. Can be used only with set-config and backup commands. Example: --external-dirs=/etc/postgresql/9.6:/opt/scripts.
  • Option --external-mapping similarly to option --tablespace-mapping allows to relocate specified external directory to a new location during restore.Can be specified multiple times. Can be used only with restore command. Example: --external-mapping=/etc/postgresql/9.6=/tmp/configs --external-mapping=/opt/scripts=/tmp/scripts
  • Flag --skip-external-dirs allows to skip restoring of external directories during restore. Can be used only with restore command.

• New command checkdb provides additional facilities to check your PostgreSQL instance. It allows to validate all data files located in PGDATA via block checksums matching and page header sanity checks. Optionally all indexes in all databases in PostgreSQL instance can be logically verified using extensions amcheck or amcheck_next.

  • Flag --amcheck allows logical verification of all indexes in specified PostgreSQL instance if no corruption was found during data files checking. It requires either amcheck or amcheck_next extension to be available. Uses bt_index_check() function from said extensions.
  • Flag --skip-block-validation, which already exists in validate command, completely disables data files validation. Can be used only with --amcheck flag.
  • Flag --heapallindexed allows to check that all heap tuples that should be indexed are actually indexed. Can be used for PG11 or, if amcheck_next extension is installed, for any PG version. Can be used only with --amcheck flag.

• Flag --temp-slot allows user to use temporary replication slot for STREAM backups. Default temp slot name is pg_probackup_slot which can be changed via --slot option.

Improvements:

• Windows support is now considered stable.
• Additional support of threads by validate command. Now it use multiple threads defined by -j option for checking WAL files.
• Flag --no-validate can now be used with backup command. It allows not to force validation after successful backup.
• Now invalid backups will be deleted during retention purge, if they are not guarded by retention.
• Show merge time after backup merging by show command.
• Options --master-* and --replica-timeout are deprecated. Deprecated options are still usable for the purpose of backward compatibility.
• Now an absolute path to pg_probackup binary is used in restore_command option of recovery.conf file generated by restore command.
• Options --time, --xid, --lsn, --timeline and flags --inclusive, --immediate are deprecated. Use --recovery-target-time, --recovery-target-xid, --recovery-target-lsn, --recovery-target-inclusive, --recovery-target-timeline and --recovery-target options instead. Deprecated options and flags are still usable for the purpose of backward compatibility.
• Option --recovery-target has two allowed values: immediate which is identical to deprecated flag --immediate and latest which stands for default recovery behavior - recover to the end of the all available WAL log.
• Usage of parent_link in merge, restore and backup commands instead of time sorting makes incremental chains more robust to time lapses and other anomalies.

Bugfixes:

• Update program_version of the target backup, recalculate CRC of a unchanged file after merge command.
• Changing backup metadata is now atomic.
• During merge command destination backup now inherit WAL mode from parent.
• Allow to delete backups with missing or emtpy .control files.
• More lenient handling of .rotation file been empty or containing garbage, WARNING is issued now instead of ERROR.