I'm in agreement. That is a recipe for a failed recovery. If you must use some file system / volume trickery to get an initial backup then I would suggest looking into LVM or some similar volume manager. For beginners, take a look at the link below.
http://tldp.org/HOWTO/LVM-HOWTO/snapshots_backup.html The technique does work however if you're using the PostgreSQL PITR backup method, which is what I am guessing at, then you're only adding overhead and complexity to the process. Greg On Tue, Jul 14, 2009 at 3:03 PM, Chander Ganesan <chan...@otg-nc.com> wrote: > Kevin, > > Kevin Grittner wrote: > >> As a follow-up to this: >> http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-admin/2009-03/msg00233.php >> >> > I just read this post. What exactly does doing the hard link buy you here? > Since it's just another inode pointer to the same file, I fail to see what > the purpose of it is... For example, take a look at the code below : > > chan...@bender:~$ echo "apple" > a > chan...@bender:~$ cat a > apple > chan...@bender:~$ cp -l a b > chan...@bender:~$ cat b > apple > chan...@bender:~$ echo "pear" > a > chan...@bender:~$ cat b > pear > > Just curious... It seems that the method described in your email (creating > a backup using 'cp -l' and then using rsync) would "break" your old backup > (the hard link copy) since some of the files in it would be modified, but it > would be missing the "new" files that were added to the backup. Essentially > making your "old" backup an incomplete backup of your new cluster. > > In essence, a "hard link" isn't a copy of any sort, it's just a pointer to > the same inode, which is the exact same data... > > Perhaps there is something that I am missing here? > > Thanks > > -- > Chander Ganesan > Open Technology Group, Inc. > One Copley Parkway, Suite 210 > Morrisville, NC 27560 > 919-463-0999/877-258-8987 > http://www.otg-nc.com > Expert PostgreSQL, PostGIS, and other Open Source training delivered > world-wide. > > > -- > Sent via pgsql-admin mailing list (pgsql-admin@postgresql.org) > To make changes to your subscription: > http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-admin >
