Re: Upgrading rant.

Oliver Elphick <olly@lfix.co.uk> writes:
> On Sat, 2003-01-04 at 02:17, Tom Lane wrote:
>> There isn't any simple way to lock *everyone* out of the DB and still
>> allow pg_upgrade to connect via the postmaster, and even if there were,
>> the DBA could too easily forget to do it.

> I tackled this issue in the Debian upgrade scripts.

> I close the running postmaster and open a new postmaster using a
> different port, so that normal connection attempts will fail because
> there is no postmaster running on the normal port.

That's a good kluge, but still a kluge: it doesn't completely guarantee
that no one else connects while pg_upgrade is trying to do its thing.

I am also concerned about the consequences of automatic background
activities.  Even the periodic auto-CHECKPOINT done by current code
is not obviously safe to run behind pg_upgrade's back (it does make
WAL entries).  And the auto-VACUUM that we are currently thinking of
is even less obviously safe.  I think that someday, running pg_upgrade
standalone will become *necessary*, not just a good safety feature.

			regards, tom lane