On Tue, 5 Jun 2007, Marco Colombo wrote:
AFAIK, files in pg_xlog are first renamed (and only if and after the archive_command returned true) and later overwritten to. Never deleted.
No, they get deleted sometimes, too. Not often, but it can happen under heavy load if more segments get temporarily created than are normally needed. At checkpoint time, only 2*checkpoint_segments+1 xlog files are kept; if there are more than that, they are removed. Probably never happen on your system from what you've described of it, but it is a possibility.
As Simon just pointed out, the danger with the approach you're taken comes from what happens if a checkpoint occurs in the middle of your backup. You've probably never seen that happen either. As long as that continues to be true, you might be OK for now, but you really need to get to where you're following the recommended procedure rather than trying to do something a little different. There are too many edge cases here that could^H^H^H^H^Hwill bite you one day.
-- * Greg Smith gsmith@xxxxxxxxxxxxx http://www.gregsmith.com Baltimore, MD
