NAME

       pg_backupcluster - simple pg_basebackup and pg_dump front-end

SYNOPSIS

       pg_backupcluster [options] version cluster action

DESCRIPTION

       pg_backupcluster provides a simple interface to create PostgreSQL cluster backups using
       pg_basebackup(1) and pg_dump(1).

       To ease integration with systemd operation, the alternative syntax "pg_basebackup
       version-cluster action" is also supported.

ACTIONS

       createdirectory
           Create /var/backups and /var/backups/version-cluster.  This action can be run as root
           to create the directories required for backups.  All other actions will also attempt
           to create the directories when missing, but can of course only do that when running as
           root. They will switch to the cluster owner after this step.

       basebackup
           Backup using pg_basebackup(1). The resulting basebackup contains the WAL files
           required to run recovery on startup.

       dump
           Backup using pg_dump(1). Global objects (users, tablespaces) are dumped using
           pg_dumpall(1) --globals-only. Individual databases are dumped into PostgreSQL's custom
           format.

       expirebasebackups N
           Remove all but last the N basebackups.

       expiredumps N
           Remove all but last the N dumps.

       receivewal
           Launch pg_receivewal.

       compresswal
           Compress WAL files in archive.

       archivecleanup
           Remove obsolete WAL files from archive using pg_archivecleanup(1).

       list
           Show dumps, basebackups, and WAL, with size.

OPTIONS

       -k --keep-on-error
           Keep faulty backup directory on error. By default backups are delete on error.

       -v --verbose
           Verbose output, even when not running on a terminal.

FILES

       /var/backups
           Default root directory for cluster backup directories.

       /var/backups/version-cluster
           Default directory for cluster backups.

       /var/backups/version-cluster/timestamp.basebackup
           Backup from pg_backupcluster ... basebackup.

           config.tar.gz
               Tarball of cluster configuration directory (postgresql.conf, pg_hba.conf, ...)  in
               /etc/postgresql.

           tablespace.tar.gz, pg_wal.tar.gz, backup_manifest
               Tablespace and WAL tarballs and backup info written by pg_basebackup.

           status
               Completion timestamp of backup run.

       /var/backups/version-cluster/timestamp.dump
           Backup from pg_backupcluster ... dump.

           config.tar.gz
               Tarball of cluster configuration directory (postgresql.conf, pg_hba.conf, ...)  in
               /etc/postgresql.

           createcluster.opts
               Options (encoding, locale, data checksums) to be passed to pg_createcluster for
               restoring this cluster.

           globals.sql
               Global objects (roles, tablespaces) from pg_dumpall --globals-only.

           databases.sql
               SQL commands to create databases and restore database-level options.

           database.dump
               Database dumps from pg_dump --format=custom.

           status
               Completion timestamp of backup run.

       /var/backups/version-cluster/wal
           WAL files from pg_receivewal.

CAVEATS

       For dump-style backups, not all properties of the original cluster are preserved:

       • In PostgreSQL 10 and earlier, ALTER ROLE ... IN DATABASE is not supported.

       • Not all initdb options are carried over. Currently supported are --encoding,
         --lc-collate, --lc-collate, and -k --data-checksums.

       The earliest PostgreSQL version supported for dumps is 9.3.  For basebackups, the earliest
       supported version is 9.1.  receivewal (and hence archive recovery) are supported in 9.5
       and later.

SEE ALSO

       pg_restorecluster(1), pg_dump(1), pg_dumpall(1), pg_basebackup(1), pg_receivewal(1),
       pg_archivecleanup(1).

AUTHOR

       Christoph Berg <myon@debian.org>