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- <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>26.4. Alternative Method for Log Shipping</title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheet.css" /><link rev="made" href="pgsql-docs@lists.postgresql.org" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.79.1" /><link rel="prev" href="warm-standby-failover.html" title="26.3. Failover" /><link rel="next" href="hot-standby.html" title="26.5. Hot Standby" /></head><body><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/transitional" class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="5" align="center">26.4. Alternative Method for Log Shipping</th></tr><tr><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="warm-standby-failover.html" title="26.3. Failover">Prev</a> </td><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="u" href="high-availability.html" title="Chapter 26. High Availability, Load Balancing, and Replication">Up</a></td><th width="60%" align="center">Chapter 26. High Availability, Load Balancing, and Replication</th><td width="10%" align="right"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html" title="PostgreSQL 12.4 Documentation">Home</a></td><td width="10%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="hot-standby.html" title="26.5. Hot Standby">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr></hr></div><div class="sect1" id="LOG-SHIPPING-ALTERNATIVE"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title" style="clear: both">26.4. Alternative Method for Log Shipping</h2></div></div></div><div class="toc"><dl class="toc"><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="log-shipping-alternative.html#WARM-STANDBY-CONFIG">26.4.1. Implementation</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="log-shipping-alternative.html#WARM-STANDBY-RECORD">26.4.2. Record-Based Log Shipping</a></span></dt></dl></div><p>
- An alternative to the built-in standby mode described in the previous
- sections is to use a <code class="varname">restore_command</code> that polls the archive location.
- This was the only option available in versions 8.4 and below. See the
- <a class="xref" href="pgstandby.html" title="pg_standby"><span class="refentrytitle"><span class="application">pg_standby</span></span></a> module for a reference implementation of this.
- </p><p>
- Note that in this mode, the server will apply WAL one file at a
- time, so if you use the standby server for queries (see Hot Standby),
- there is a delay between an action in the master and when the
- action becomes visible in the standby, corresponding the time it takes
- to fill up the WAL file. <code class="varname">archive_timeout</code> can be used to make that delay
- shorter. Also note that you can't combine streaming replication with
- this method.
- </p><p>
- The operations that occur on both primary and standby servers are
- normal continuous archiving and recovery tasks. The only point of
- contact between the two database servers is the archive of WAL files
- that both share: primary writing to the archive, standby reading from
- the archive. Care must be taken to ensure that WAL archives from separate
- primary servers do not become mixed together or confused. The archive
- need not be large if it is only required for standby operation.
- </p><p>
- The magic that makes the two loosely coupled servers work together is
- simply a <code class="varname">restore_command</code> used on the standby that,
- when asked for the next WAL file, waits for it to become available from
- the primary. Normal recovery
- processing would request a file from the WAL archive, reporting failure
- if the file was unavailable. For standby processing it is normal for
- the next WAL file to be unavailable, so the standby must wait for
- it to appear. For files ending in
- <code class="literal">.history</code> there is no need to wait, and a non-zero return
- code must be returned. A waiting <code class="varname">restore_command</code> can be
- written as a custom script that loops after polling for the existence of
- the next WAL file. There must also be some way to trigger failover, which
- should interrupt the <code class="varname">restore_command</code>, break the loop and
- return a file-not-found error to the standby server. This ends recovery
- and the standby will then come up as a normal server.
- </p><p>
- Pseudocode for a suitable <code class="varname">restore_command</code> is:
- </p><pre class="programlisting">
- triggered = false;
- while (!NextWALFileReady() && !triggered)
- {
- sleep(100000L); /* wait for ~0.1 sec */
- if (CheckForExternalTrigger())
- triggered = true;
- }
- if (!triggered)
- CopyWALFileForRecovery();
- </pre><p>
- </p><p>
- A working example of a waiting <code class="varname">restore_command</code> is provided
- in the <a class="xref" href="pgstandby.html" title="pg_standby"><span class="refentrytitle"><span class="application">pg_standby</span></span></a> module. It
- should be used as a reference on how to correctly implement the logic
- described above. It can also be extended as needed to support specific
- configurations and environments.
- </p><p>
- The method for triggering failover is an important part of planning
- and design. One potential option is the <code class="varname">restore_command</code>
- command. It is executed once for each WAL file, but the process
- running the <code class="varname">restore_command</code> is created and dies for
- each file, so there is no daemon or server process, and
- signals or a signal handler cannot be used. Therefore, the
- <code class="varname">restore_command</code> is not suitable to trigger failover.
- It is possible to use a simple timeout facility, especially if
- used in conjunction with a known <code class="varname">archive_timeout</code>
- setting on the primary. However, this is somewhat error prone
- since a network problem or busy primary server might be sufficient
- to initiate failover. A notification mechanism such as the explicit
- creation of a trigger file is ideal, if this can be arranged.
- </p><div class="sect2" id="WARM-STANDBY-CONFIG"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">26.4.1. Implementation</h3></div></div></div><p>
- The short procedure for configuring a standby server using this alternative
- method is as follows. For
- full details of each step, refer to previous sections as noted.
- </p><div class="orderedlist"><ol class="orderedlist" type="1"><li class="listitem"><p>
- Set up primary and standby systems as nearly identical as
- possible, including two identical copies of
- <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> at the same release level.
- </p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
- Set up continuous archiving from the primary to a WAL archive
- directory on the standby server. Ensure that
- <a class="xref" href="runtime-config-wal.html#GUC-ARCHIVE-MODE">archive_mode</a>,
- <a class="xref" href="runtime-config-wal.html#GUC-ARCHIVE-COMMAND">archive_command</a> and
- <a class="xref" href="runtime-config-wal.html#GUC-ARCHIVE-TIMEOUT">archive_timeout</a>
- are set appropriately on the primary
- (see <a class="xref" href="continuous-archiving.html#BACKUP-ARCHIVING-WAL" title="25.3.1. Setting Up WAL Archiving">Section 25.3.1</a>).
- </p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
- Make a base backup of the primary server (see <a class="xref" href="continuous-archiving.html#BACKUP-BASE-BACKUP" title="25.3.2. Making a Base Backup">Section 25.3.2</a>), and load this data onto the standby.
- </p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
- Begin recovery on the standby server from the local WAL
- archive, using <code class="varname">restore_command</code> that waits
- as described previously (see <a class="xref" href="continuous-archiving.html#BACKUP-PITR-RECOVERY" title="25.3.4. Recovering Using a Continuous Archive Backup">Section 25.3.4</a>).
- </p></li></ol></div><p>
- </p><p>
- Recovery treats the WAL archive as read-only, so once a WAL file has
- been copied to the standby system it can be copied to tape at the same
- time as it is being read by the standby database server.
- Thus, running a standby server for high availability can be performed at
- the same time as files are stored for longer term disaster recovery
- purposes.
- </p><p>
- For testing purposes, it is possible to run both primary and standby
- servers on the same system. This does not provide any worthwhile
- improvement in server robustness, nor would it be described as HA.
- </p></div><div class="sect2" id="WARM-STANDBY-RECORD"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h3 class="title">26.4.2. Record-Based Log Shipping</h3></div></div></div><p>
- It is also possible to implement record-based log shipping using this
- alternative method, though this requires custom development, and changes
- will still only become visible to hot standby queries after a full WAL
- file has been shipped.
- </p><p>
- An external program can call the <code class="function">pg_walfile_name_offset()</code>
- function (see <a class="xref" href="functions-admin.html" title="9.26. System Administration Functions">Section 9.26</a>)
- to find out the file name and the exact byte offset within it of
- the current end of WAL. It can then access the WAL file directly
- and copy the data from the last known end of WAL through the current end
- over to the standby servers. With this approach, the window for data
- loss is the polling cycle time of the copying program, which can be very
- small, and there is no wasted bandwidth from forcing partially-used
- segment files to be archived. Note that the standby servers'
- <code class="varname">restore_command</code> scripts can only deal with whole WAL files,
- so the incrementally copied data is not ordinarily made available to
- the standby servers. It is of use only when the primary dies —
- then the last partial WAL file is fed to the standby before allowing
- it to come up. The correct implementation of this process requires
- cooperation of the <code class="varname">restore_command</code> script with the data
- copying program.
- </p><p>
- Starting with <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> version 9.0, you can use
- streaming replication (see <a class="xref" href="warm-standby.html#STREAMING-REPLICATION" title="26.2.5. Streaming Replication">Section 26.2.5</a>) to
- achieve the same benefits with less effort.
- </p></div></div><div class="navfooter"><hr /><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="warm-standby-failover.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="high-availability.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="hot-standby.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">26.3. Failover </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> 26.5. Hot Standby</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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