Re: Backup history file should be replicated in Streaming Replication?

Simon Riggs wrote:
> On Wed, 2009-12-23 at 12:50 +0200, Heikki Linnakangas wrote:
> 
>> I just realized that the current history file fails to recognize this
>> scenario:
>>
>> 1. pg_start_backup()
>> 2. cp -a $PGDATA data-backup
>> 3. create data-backup/recovery.conf
>> 4. postmaster -D data-backup
>>
>> That is, starting postmaster on a data directory, without ever calling
>> pg_stop_backup(). Because pg_stop_backup() was not called, the history
>> file is not there, and recovery won't complain about not reaching the
>> safe starting point.
>>
>> That is of course a case of "don't do that!", but perhaps we should
>> refuse to start up if the backup history file is not found? At least in
>> the WAL-based approach, I think we should refuse to start up if we don't
>> see the pg_stop_backup WAL record.
> 
> The code has always been capable of starting without this, which was
> considered a feature to be able start from a hot copy.

Why is that desirable? The system is in an inconsistent state. To force
it, you can always use pg_resetxlog.

-- 
  Heikki Linnakangas
  EnterpriseDB   http://www.enterprisedb.com