NAME

       pg_archivecleanup - clean up PostgreSQL WAL archive files

SYNOPSIS

       pg_archivecleanup [option...] archivelocation oldestkeptwalfile

DESCRIPTION

       pg_archivecleanup is designed to be used as an archive_cleanup_command to clean up WAL
       file archives when running as a standby server (see Section 27.2).  pg_archivecleanup can
       also be used as a standalone program to clean WAL file archives.

       To configure a standby server to use pg_archivecleanup, put this into its postgresql.conf
       configuration file:

           archive_cleanup_command = 'pg_archivecleanup archivelocation %r'

       where archivelocation is the directory from which WAL segment files should be removed.

       When used within archive_cleanup_command, all WAL files logically preceding the value of
       the %r argument will be removed from archivelocation. This minimizes the number of files
       that need to be retained, while preserving crash-restart capability. Use of this parameter
       is appropriate if the archivelocation is a transient staging area for this particular
       standby server, but not when the archivelocation is intended as a long-term WAL archive
       area, or when multiple standby servers are recovering from the same archive location.

       When used as a standalone program all WAL files logically preceding the oldestkeptwalfile
       will be removed from archivelocation. In this mode, if you specify a .partial or .backup
       file name, then only the file prefix will be used as the oldestkeptwalfile. This treatment
       of .backup file name allows you to remove all WAL files archived prior to a specific base
       backup without error. For example, the following example will remove all files older than
       WAL file name 000000010000003700000010:

           pg_archivecleanup -d archive 000000010000003700000010.00000020.backup

           pg_archivecleanup:  keep WAL file "archive/000000010000003700000010" and later
           pg_archivecleanup:  removing file "archive/00000001000000370000000F"
           pg_archivecleanup:  removing file "archive/00000001000000370000000E"

       pg_archivecleanup assumes that archivelocation is a directory readable and writable by the
       server-owning user.

OPTIONS

       pg_archivecleanup accepts the following command-line arguments:

       -d
           Print lots of debug logging output on stderr.

       -n
           Print the names of the files that would have been removed on stdout (performs a dry
           run).

       -V
       --version
           Print the pg_archivecleanup version and exit.

       -x extension
           Provide an extension that will be stripped from all file names before deciding if they
           should be deleted. This is typically useful for cleaning up archives that have been
           compressed during storage, and therefore have had an extension added by the
           compression program. For example: -x .gz.

       -?
       --help
           Show help about pg_archivecleanup command line arguments, and exit.

ENVIRONMENT

       The environment variable PG_COLOR specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages.
       Possible values are always, auto and never.

NOTES

       pg_archivecleanup is designed to work with PostgreSQL 8.0 and later when used as a
       standalone utility, or with PostgreSQL 9.0 and later when used as an archive cleanup
       command.

       pg_archivecleanup is written in C and has an easy-to-modify source code, with specifically
       designated sections to modify for your own needs

EXAMPLES

       On Linux or Unix systems, you might use:

           archive_cleanup_command = 'pg_archivecleanup -d /mnt/standby/archive %r 2>>cleanup.log'

       where the archive directory is physically located on the standby server, so that the
       archive_command is accessing it across NFS, but the files are local to the standby. This
       will:

       •   produce debugging output in cleanup.log

       •   remove no-longer-needed files from the archive directory