Pg_rman: Backup/Restore Tool for PostgreSQL | Hacker News Reader

Pg_rman: Backup/Restore Tool for PostgreSQL

github.com

Perhaps someone in this thread will know…if I have a set of pg_dump files, is there any way to read them in memory without an instance of PG running somewhere? It’s an actual problem of mine atm.

Why should I use this over pg_basebackup ?

Even more basic question, why either of these over pg_dump or pg_backrest?

From the README, pg_rman provides point in time recovery (PITR) and maintains a backup catalog:

> The goal of the pg_rman project is to provide a method for online backup and PITR that is as easy as pg_dump. Also, it maintains a backup catalog per database cluster. Users can maintain old backups including archive logs with one command.

pg_dump is a completely different category as it’s a machine portable logical backup. You can restore an older version backup to a newer version installation as an upgrade mechanism.

Just about every other backup program concerns itself with binary backups which generally facilitate point in time recovery as well.

Both have their place and it’s common to have both done on different schedules. Though purely logical backups get interesting at scale as it literally has to run a SELECT * on every table from scratch each time.

Having used pgBackRest in production, I find it to be painful to setup and manage.

If you have a centralized backup repo, you have to install pgbackrest both on DB server and the backup repository.

The package version has to be exactly the same minor version between the DB and the repo, else backup fails. If you install a new DB, and the PG common repo no longer has the old version (and no one kept a copy of the rpm locally), you then have to update backrest on all the existing servers.

Use crunchydata postgres operator or cloudnativepg or something if you are using kubernetes.

It's an engine vs. a car comparison: while pg_basebackup is useful as a stand alone binary, a database deployment need multiple backups. To manage multiple backups you need a catalog. You also may want optimize the backup process, so instead of multiple pg_basebackup, you want some logic to copy only changed files.

Also, when restoring, it's important choose a restore point, and a tool to help on that is valuable.

This is the first time that I heard of this tool, I need to check all features. I know both barman and pgbackrest, so if someone wants to compare with other tools, those 2 worth a look.

Seems similar to wal-g

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