Tony..... > I need to create a exact duplicate for a disaster recovery server, the > disaster recovery server would not be in use until the production one > went down for some reason. While it's not what you asked about, copying the database files, what I do is pg_dump nightly with a cronjob, then use rsync to copy it to my backup machine and load it into the backup server with a cronjob there. That way if the main server crashes or is down the backup server is never more than a day out of date. Obviously this is a server with relatively small databases that can stand the chance of some loss of data (it's a website server). I could make it better by doing this every hour or so. brew ========================================================================== Strange Brew (brew@xxxxxxxxxxx) Check out my Stock Option Covered Call website http://www.callpix.com and my Musician's Online Database Exchange http://www.TheMode.com ========================================================================== ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 5: don't forget to increase your free space map settings