I re-installed my machine and "forgot" to dump my database(s). I
naturally still have the whole database folders. For the moment I
installed the "old" postgres version (8.1) to be able to read my
data.
But how can I read them? It seems that it doesn't work that I just
overwrite the new database folder with the old one... Would be too
simple, I guess...
Should work, if you've got the whole $PGDATA directory tree. Maybe
you forgot to stop the postmaster while copying the backup into
place?
Thanks a lot for this. Still trying. But although the postmaster
did run at one time, now, after copying back and forth, it doesn't
want to do anything anymore... Gush, getting really frustrated...
Stop. Deep breath. Cup of coffee / tea, optional biscuit.
Stop the server (if it's running)
Check the version-number of the installed postgresql packages.
Check you still have your backups somewhere safe.
Re-run initdb to re-create your "data" directory.
Make sure plenty of logging is turned on in postgresql.conf
Start the server.
Verify that everything is fine, particularly that select version()
displays what you expect.
Stop the server.
Do the logs contain everything you'd expect? If not, update
postgresql.conf and re-start the server until they do.
Rename the data directory to "data.old" (or similar).
Try starting the server - check that it fails complaining "you need
to run initdb" (or similar).
Restore your backup to "data".
Make sure plenty of logging is turned on in postgresql.conf
Compare ownership + permissions on "data" vs "data.old", correct if
necessary.
Start the server.
With this setup you can compare both versions of your data directory
and see what's different. If the version of your backup and the
version of the software are the same then it will work.
Ok, thanks for these steps. Coffee and chocolate helped... :-))
Ok, did what you said: stopping server, deleting "newly" created
"data" directory, re-running initdb, starting the server, stopping the
server.
Renamed "empty" data directory.
Restarting server: NOT COMPLAINING "you need to run initdb" or
something else.... Although it's saying that it starts, nothing
appears in the process list (ps -ef).
and renamed "old, backuped" data directory to "data_postgres"
Can't see any differences in permissions... Looks like this:
drwx------ 14 schwarzer schwarzer 476 Jan 14 13:33 data_postgres
Restarted the server.
/opt/local/lib/postgresql81/bin/psql postgres
\l
List of databases
Name | Owner | Encoding
-----------+-----------+----------
postgres | schwarzer | UTF8
template0 | schwarzer | UTF8
template1 | schwarzer | UTF8
I should have a couple of databases appearing here...
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