Hi Don,
On 7/3/20 2:02 PM, Don Seiler wrote:
TL;DR: Is it OK to delete .history files from WAL archive (wal-g/S3)
that are older than the oldest full backup?
Today we had restores fail complaining that they can't find timeline 21
when they should only be on timeline 1. The logs show them recovering
12+ .history files from the WAL archives. Looking at the archives, these
history files are all timestamped between last July and October. The
restore is from a full backup taken last night.
This happens to be the first restore after adding
"recovery_target_timeline='latest'" to our recovery.conf template. So
I'm guessing that PG just didn't bother with those old .history files
before.
I believe these old .history files were just not properly cleaned up
from some exercises done last year on previous/other incarnations and
are now just polluting the WAL archive. I don't see why I would need
.history files that are nearly a year older than the backup I'm
restoring from, but just want to confirm it is safe to blow them all away.
It should be fine to remove the history files as they do not refer to
any valid history in the WAL.
Of course, it would be best to keep a copy of them until you test your
restore again. Just in case.
Regards,
--
-David
david@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
