Hi Richard, This means a file systems backup. eg. tar -cvpf data_bakup.tar /var/lib/pgsql/data Here's a script I use to automate this process. It may be helpful to customize for yourself. #!/bin/bash # # PostgreSQL Weekly Backup # DATE=$(date +%G%m%d) MAILLOG="/backup/weekly_$DATE.log" WALARCH="/pgbackup" DESTINATION="X.X.X.X::rsyncshare/" EMAILDEST="" touch $MAILLOG echo -e "::::::::::::::: $DATE Pallas1 Weekly WAL Backup :::::::::::::::" >> $MAILLOG psql -U postgres -c "select pg_start_backup ('$DATE');" cd /var/lib/pgsql tar -cvpzf "pgbackup_$DATE.tar.gz" data/ >> $MAILLOG 2>&1 psql -U postgres -c "select pg_stop_backup ();" find $WALARCH -perm 600 -mmin "+360" -exec rm {} \; >> $MAILLOG 2>&1 find $WALARCH/data_dir_backup -mtime "+5" -exec rm {} \; >> $MAILLOG 2>&1 ls -la $WALARCH >> $MAILLOG 2>&1 mv /var/lib/pgsql/pgbackup_$DATE.tar.gz /$WALARCH/data_dir_backup/. rsync -a -v -v --progress --stats --delete "/$WALARCH" $DESTINATION >> $MAILLOG 2>&1 /bin/cat $MAILLOG | mail -s "Weekly WAL Backup - Successful" $EMAILDEST && rm $MAILLOG On Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:53:33 -0700, "Richard Broersma" <richard.broersma@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > From the following link: > http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.3/interactive/continuous-archiving.html#BACKUP-BASE-BACKUP > > Step 3 says to perform the back up. > > Does this mean a File System Backup of the Data directory? > OR > Does this mean performing a pg_dumpall and backing up the dump file? > > -- > Regards, > Richard Broersma Jr. > > Visit the Los Angeles PostgreSQL Users Group (LAPUG) > http://pugs.postgresql.org/lapug > >