Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2011-03-11 Thread Bruce Momjian
Kevin Grittner wrote:
 Tom Lane t...@sss.pgh.pa.us wrote: 
  Kevin Grittner kevin.gritt...@wicourts.gov writes:
  
  shouldn't we be getting support for the new syntax added, so
  there can be a release or two supporting both?
  
  You mean like 9.0?
  
 Yeah, just like that.
  
 If we're going to be supporting that long term, we should probably
 change the note about FREEZE being deprecated, though.
  
 So, still +1 on removing the wording about FREEZE being deprecated,
 but instead we should mention what actually *is* deprecated (the
 omission of the parentheses).

Done with the attached, applied patch.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  br...@momjian.ushttp://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

  + It's impossible for everything to be true. +
diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/ref/vacuum.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/ref/vacuum.sgml
index dee1cc3..5b5b161 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/ref/vacuum.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/ref/vacuum.sgml
@@ -70,9 +70,9 @@ VACUUM [ FULL ] [ FREEZE ] [ VERBOSE ] ANALYZE [ replaceable class=PARAMETER
When the option list is surrounded by parentheses, the options can be
written in any order.  Without parentheses, options must be specified
in exactly the order shown above.
-   Prior to productnamePostgreSQL/productname 9.0, the unparenthesized
-   syntax was the only one supported.  It is expected that all new options
-   will be supported only in the parenthesized syntax.
+   The unparenthesized syntax was added in
+   productnamePostgreSQL/productname 9.0;  the unparenthesized
+   syntax is deprecated.
   /para
  /refsect1
 
@@ -102,8 +102,7 @@ VACUUM [ FULL ] [ FREEZE ] [ VERBOSE ] ANALYZE [ replaceable class=PARAMETER
   Specifying literalFREEZE/literal is equivalent to performing
   commandVACUUM/command with the
   xref linkend=guc-vacuum-freeze-min-age parameter
-  set to zero.  The literalFREEZE/literal option is deprecated and
-  will be removed in a future release; set the parameter instead.
+  set to zero.
  /para
 /listitem
/varlistentry

-- 
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers


Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2011-01-14 Thread Bruce Momjian
Alvaro Herrera wrote:
 Excerpts from Bruce Momjian's message of jue ene 13 00:05:53 -0300 2011:
  Srini Raghavan wrote:
   Thank you very much for reviewing, appreciate the feedback.? As pointed 
   out by 
   you, it is always best to test it out with the latest version, so, I 
   tested the 
   same approach with postgres 9.0.2 on windows just now, and it works! 
   
   
   I forgot to mention earlier that in addition to setting 
   vacuum_freeze_table_age 
   to 0, vacuum_freeze_min_age must also be set to 0 to reset xmin with the 
   FrozenXid. 
  
  I wonder if you should be using VACUUM FREEZE instead of having to set
  variables.  
 
 The documentation says you shouldn't:
 
 FREEZE
 Selects aggressive freezing of tuples. Specifying FREEZE is equivalent to
 performing VACUUM with the vacuum_freeze_min_age parameter set to zero. The
 FREEZE option is deprecated and will be removed in a future release; set the
 parameter instead.
   http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/sql-vacuum.html

I didn't know that.  I added the -z(freeze) option to vacuumdb in 8.4
for use by pg_upgrade.

I think the original idea was that people should never need to freeze
anything, but it turns out pg_upgrade and this user need it so maybe
depricating is not a good idea.  I guess pg_upgrade could call vacuumdb
with a PGOPTIONS flag to force a vacuum_freeze_min_age value.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  br...@momjian.ushttp://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

  + It's impossible for everything to be true. +

-- 
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers


Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2011-01-14 Thread Robert Haas
On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 9:13 AM, Bruce Momjian br...@momjian.us wrote:
 Alvaro Herrera wrote:
 Excerpts from Bruce Momjian's message of jue ene 13 00:05:53 -0300 2011:
  Srini Raghavan wrote:
   Thank you very much for reviewing, appreciate the feedback.? As pointed 
   out by
   you, it is always best to test it out with the latest version, so, I 
   tested the
   same approach with postgres 9.0.2 on windows just now, and it works!
  
  
   I forgot to mention earlier that in addition to setting 
   vacuum_freeze_table_age
   to 0, vacuum_freeze_min_age must also be set to 0 to reset xmin with the
   FrozenXid.
 
  I wonder if you should be using VACUUM FREEZE instead of having to set
  variables.

 The documentation says you shouldn't:

 FREEZE
 Selects aggressive freezing of tuples. Specifying FREEZE is equivalent to
 performing VACUUM with the vacuum_freeze_min_age parameter set to zero. The
 FREEZE option is deprecated and will be removed in a future release; set the
 parameter instead.
       http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/sql-vacuum.html

 I didn't know that.  I added the -z(freeze) option to vacuumdb in 8.4
 for use by pg_upgrade.

 I think the original idea was that people should never need to freeze
 anything, but it turns out pg_upgrade and this user need it so maybe
 depricating is not a good idea.  I guess pg_upgrade could call vacuumdb
 with a PGOPTIONS flag to force a vacuum_freeze_min_age value.

I'd rather remove the deprecating warning.

-- 
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

-- 
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers


Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2011-01-14 Thread Alvaro Herrera
Excerpts from Robert Haas's message of vie ene 14 11:18:16 -0300 2011:

 I'd rather remove the deprecating warning.

+1

-- 
Álvaro Herrera alvhe...@commandprompt.com
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support

-- 
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers


Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2011-01-14 Thread Kevin Grittner
Alvaro Herrera alvhe...@commandprompt.com wrote:
 Excerpts from Robert Haas's message:
 
 I'd rather remove the deprecating warning.
 
 +1
 
+1
 
-Kevin

-- 
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers


Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2011-01-14 Thread Tom Lane
Kevin Grittner kevin.gritt...@wicourts.gov writes:
 Alvaro Herrera alvhe...@commandprompt.com wrote:
 I'd rather remove the deprecating warning.

 +1
 
 +1

The reason for wanting to deprecate and ultimately remove that syntax is
so we can get rid of FREEZE as a reserved word.

We could probably still allow the new-style syntax VACUUM (FREEZE) ...
but VACUUM FREEZE really needs to be killed.  pg_upgrade is NOT a
good reason to have a nonstandard reserved word in the grammar.

regards, tom lane

-- 
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers


Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2011-01-14 Thread Kevin Grittner
Tom Lane t...@sss.pgh.pa.us wrote:
 
 The reason for wanting to deprecate and ultimately remove that
 syntax is so we can get rid of FREEZE as a reserved word.
 
 We could probably still allow the new-style syntax VACUUM (FREEZE)
 
Oh, OK.  I can go along with that.  If we're going that route,
though, shouldn't we be getting support for the new syntax added, so
there can be a release or two supporting both?
 
-Kevin

-- 
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers


Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2011-01-14 Thread Tom Lane
Kevin Grittner kevin.gritt...@wicourts.gov writes:
 Tom Lane t...@sss.pgh.pa.us wrote:
 The reason for wanting to deprecate and ultimately remove that
 syntax is so we can get rid of FREEZE as a reserved word.

 Oh, OK.  I can go along with that.  If we're going that route,
 though, shouldn't we be getting support for the new syntax added, so
 there can be a release or two supporting both?

You mean like 9.0?

regards, tom lane

-- 
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers


Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2011-01-14 Thread Kevin Grittner
Tom Lane t...@sss.pgh.pa.us wrote: 
 Kevin Grittner kevin.gritt...@wicourts.gov writes:
 
 shouldn't we be getting support for the new syntax added, so
 there can be a release or two supporting both?
 
 You mean like 9.0?
 
Yeah, just like that.
 
If we're going to be supporting that long term, we should probably
change the note about FREEZE being deprecated, though.
 
So, still +1 on removing the wording about FREEZE being deprecated,
but instead we should mention what actually *is* deprecated (the
omission of the parentheses).
 
-Kevin

-- 
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers


Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2011-01-14 Thread Tom Lane
Kevin Grittner kevin.gritt...@wicourts.gov writes:
 If we're going to be supporting that long term, we should probably
 change the note about FREEZE being deprecated, though.
 
 So, still +1 on removing the wording about FREEZE being deprecated,
 but instead we should mention what actually *is* deprecated (the
 omission of the parentheses).

If we're going to do that, we should deprecate the unparenthesized
syntax altogether, with an eye to de-reserving VERBOSE and ANALYZE
as well.

regards, tom lane

-- 
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers


Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2011-01-14 Thread Kevin Grittner
Tom Lane t...@sss.pgh.pa.us wrote: 
 Kevin Grittner kevin.gritt...@wicourts.gov writes:
 
 So, still +1 on removing the wording about FREEZE being
 deprecated, but instead we should mention what actually *is*
 deprecated (the omission of the parentheses).
 
 If we're going to do that, we should deprecate the unparenthesized
 syntax altogether, with an eye to de-reserving VERBOSE and ANALYZE
 as well.
 
+1
 
-Kevin

-- 
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers


Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2011-01-14 Thread Bruce Momjian
Tom Lane wrote:
 Kevin Grittner kevin.gritt...@wicourts.gov writes:
  Tom Lane t...@sss.pgh.pa.us wrote:
  The reason for wanting to deprecate and ultimately remove that
  syntax is so we can get rid of FREEZE as a reserved word.
 
  Oh, OK.  I can go along with that.  If we're going that route,
  though, shouldn't we be getting support for the new syntax added, so
  there can be a release or two supporting both?
 
 You mean like 9.0?

FYI, I just checked and pg_upgrade does not run the VACUUM command at
all, but vacuumdb, and vacuumdb knows to use parentheses when connecting
to a = 9.0 server.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  br...@momjian.ushttp://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

  + It's impossible for everything to be true. +

-- 
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers


Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2011-01-14 Thread Robert Haas
On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 2:15 PM, Tom Lane t...@sss.pgh.pa.us wrote:
 Kevin Grittner kevin.gritt...@wicourts.gov writes:
 If we're going to be supporting that long term, we should probably
 change the note about FREEZE being deprecated, though.

 So, still +1 on removing the wording about FREEZE being deprecated,
 but instead we should mention what actually *is* deprecated (the
 omission of the parentheses).

 If we're going to do that, we should deprecate the unparenthesized
 syntax altogether, with an eye to de-reserving VERBOSE and ANALYZE
 as well.

I'm not wildly enthusiastic about breaking this with only one
intervening release.  We normally support deprecated syntax for quite
a bit longer than that.

-- 
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

-- 
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers


Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2011-01-14 Thread Kevin Grittner
Robert Haas robertmh...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 I'm not wildly enthusiastic about breaking this with only one
 intervening release.  We normally support deprecated syntax for
 quite a bit longer than that.
 
one intervening release?  Where did you see that?
 
I thought we were just talking about deprecating the old syntax, not
breaking it.  If history is any guide, getting the deprecation
mentioned in the docs now would lead to actual removal somewhere
around 10.0.
 
-Kevin

-- 
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers


Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2011-01-14 Thread Robert Haas
On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 3:41 PM, Kevin Grittner
kevin.gritt...@wicourts.gov wrote:
 Robert Haas robertmh...@gmail.com wrote:

 I'm not wildly enthusiastic about breaking this with only one
 intervening release.  We normally support deprecated syntax for
 quite a bit longer than that.

 one intervening release?  Where did you see that?

 I thought we were just talking about deprecating the old syntax, not
 breaking it.  If history is any guide, getting the deprecation
 mentioned in the docs now would lead to actual removal somewhere
 around 10.0.

Oh, I guess I'm confused then...

-- 
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

-- 
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers


Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2011-01-14 Thread Srini Raghavan
Thanks for considering our special scenario. I did not use the vacuum freeze 
option because the documentation said it is going to be deprecrated. Based on 
the positive votes so far, I gather that a vacuum (freeze) syntax will be 
supported in some version in the future, until then, I can continue to use the 
existing vacuum freeze syntax? I did try it and it works.

Thank you,

Srini

 





From: Robert Haas robertmh...@gmail.com
To: Tom Lane t...@sss.pgh.pa.us
Cc: Kevin Grittner kevin.gritt...@wicourts.gov; Alvaro Herrera 
alvhe...@commandprompt.com; Bruce Momjian br...@momjian.us; pgsql-hackers 
pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org; Srini Raghavan sixersr...@yahoo.com
Sent: Fri, January 14, 2011 3:36:02 PM
Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

On Fri, Jan 14, 2011 at 2:15 PM, Tom Lane t...@sss.pgh.pa.us wrote:
 Kevin Grittner kevin.gritt...@wicourts.gov writes:
 If we're going to be supporting that long term, we should probably
 change the note about FREEZE being deprecated, though.

 So, still +1 on removing the wording about FREEZE being deprecated,
 but instead we should mention what actually *is* deprecated (the
 omission of the parentheses).

 If we're going to do that, we should deprecate the unparenthesized
 syntax altogether, with an eye to de-reserving VERBOSE and ANALYZE
 as well.

I'm not wildly enthusiastic about breaking this with only one
intervening release.  We normally support deprecated syntax for quite
a bit longer than that.

-- 
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company



  

Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2011-01-13 Thread Alvaro Herrera
Excerpts from Bruce Momjian's message of jue ene 13 00:05:53 -0300 2011:
 Srini Raghavan wrote:
  Thank you very much for reviewing, appreciate the feedback.? As pointed out 
  by 
  you, it is always best to test it out with the latest version, so, I tested 
  the 
  same approach with postgres 9.0.2 on windows just now, and it works! 
  
  
  I forgot to mention earlier that in addition to setting 
  vacuum_freeze_table_age 
  to 0, vacuum_freeze_min_age must also be set to 0 to reset xmin with the 
  FrozenXid. 
 
 I wonder if you should be using VACUUM FREEZE instead of having to set
 variables.  

The documentation says you shouldn't:

FREEZE
Selects aggressive freezing of tuples. Specifying FREEZE is equivalent to
performing VACUUM with the vacuum_freeze_min_age parameter set to zero. The
FREEZE option is deprecated and will be removed in a future release; set the
parameter instead.
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.0/static/sql-vacuum.html

-- 
Álvaro Herrera alvhe...@commandprompt.com
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support

-- 
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers


Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2011-01-12 Thread Bruce Momjian
Srini Raghavan wrote:
 Thank you very much for reviewing, appreciate the feedback.? As pointed out 
 by 
 you, it is always best to test it out with the latest version, so, I tested 
 the 
 same approach with postgres 9.0.2 on windows just now, and it works! 
 
 
 I forgot to mention earlier that in addition to setting 
 vacuum_freeze_table_age 
 to 0, vacuum_freeze_min_age must also be set to 0 to reset xmin with the 
 FrozenXid. 

I wonder if you should be using VACUUM FREEZE instead of having to set
variables.  

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  br...@momjian.ushttp://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com

  + It's impossible for everything to be true. +

-- 
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers


Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2010-12-23 Thread Robert Haas
On Wed, Dec 22, 2010 at 7:35 PM, Srini Raghavan sixersr...@yahoo.com wrote:
 I have tested this and it works, and I am continuing to test it more. I
 would like for validation of this idea from the experts and the community to
 make sure I haven't overlooked something obvious that might cause issues.

Interesting idea.  It seems like it might be possible to make this
work.  One obvious thing to watch out for is object ownership
information.  Roles are stored in pg_authid, which is a shared
catalog, so if you're unlucky you could manage to create a database
containing one or more objects that owned by a role ID that doesn't
exist in pg_authid, which will probably break things all over the
place.  There could be other pitfalls as well but that's the only one
that's obvious to me off the top of my head...

I would strongly recommend basing this on the latest minor release of
PostgreSQL 9.0 rather than an outdated minor release of PostgreSQL
8.4.

-- 
Robert Haas
EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

-- 
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers


Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2010-12-23 Thread Srini Raghavan
Thank you very much for reviewing, appreciate the feedback.  As pointed out by 
you, it is always best to test it out with the latest version, so, I tested the 
same approach with postgres 9.0.2 on windows just now, and it works! 


I forgot to mention earlier that in addition to setting vacuum_freeze_table_age 
to 0, vacuum_freeze_min_age must also be set to 0 to reset xmin with the 
FrozenXid. 


And you were spot on with regards to permission issues with roles. I had been 
testing with the postgres account, which is a superuser and it always works.  
After the database files are copied over in the deploy instance, any object 
that 
had ownership set to a custom role gets messed up, and logging in as that user 
gives permission denined error. But, there is a easy fix to this. As the 
postgres user, I ran the 


alter table objectname owner to rolename 

command for every object, followed by 

grant all on objecttype objectname to rolename 

command for every object, which resolved the permission denied issue. Thanks 
for 
pointing this out. 


Please let me know if you or anyone think of any other potential issues. Thanks 
again for reviewing.

Srini



  

Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2010-12-23 Thread Alvaro Herrera
Excerpts from Srini Raghavan's message of jue dic 23 18:55:20 -0300 2010:

 Please let me know if you or anyone think of any other potential issues. 
 Thanks 
 again for reviewing.

I think anything in the shared catalogs could be an issue (look for
tables with pg_class.relisshared=true).  I think you'll need to do
something about shared dependencies as well; not sure what.

-- 
Álvaro Herrera alvhe...@commandprompt.com
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support

-- 
Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org)
To make changes to your subscription:
http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers


Re: [HACKERS] Database file copy

2010-12-23 Thread Srini Raghavan
Thank you, that is a great point. 
 
Based on your suggesstion, I wrote the following query:
 
select * from pg_class where relisshared=true order by relname
 
The above query returns 27 rows. I evaluated the impact on the following:
 
pg_auth_members - We create roles and memberships on each deploy instance, so 
this shouldn't be an issue.
 
pg_authid - As noted in my previous post, issuing alter and grant commands 
after 
file copy updates pg_authid with the correct information.
 
pg_database - not an issue, as we are creating the database on the deploy 
instance, we don't copy the database oid over from the master instance.
 
pg_db_role_setting - We don't have any database specific role settings. Even if 
we have a need in the future, we will set this up on the deploy instance, so, 
this shouldn't be an issue.
 
pg_pltemplate - We use plpgsql functions, and it works without any issues after 
file copy.
 
pg_shdepend - There is one SHARED_DEPENDENCY_PIN(p) entry in this system 
catalog, and the remaining are SHARED_DEPENDENCY_OWNER (o) entries. Since I am 
issuing an alter command to change the ownership after file copy to the 
appropriate role, this system catalog gets populated correctly. I wrote this 
query select oid,relname from pg_class where oid in (select objid from 
pg_shdepend) on the copied database, and it returns valid results, so this 
doens't seem to be an issue. As the documentation states, currently, postgres 
tracks the object to role dependencies, and it may track more types of 
dependencies in the future. Role dependencies has a fix as stated above, and 
when new dependencies come about, we will need to evaluate them.
 
pg_shdescription - stores optional comments, which we don't use.
 
pg_tablespace - we are looking to use the default tablespace at this time, 
which 
works. Need to evaluate the impact if we need to use custom tablespace.
 
The remaining entries or toast and index entries, which again should not be an 
impact.
 
Anything else? I am feeling confident about this after each review post. And, 
whereever I have said this shouldn't be an issue above, if you see any 
discrepancies, kindly highlight.
 
Thanks
 
Srini


  

[HACKERS] Database file copy

2010-12-22 Thread Srini Raghavan
Hello,

[Tried the general forum, didn't hear from anyone so far, trying this forum 
now, 
please review, thanks]


We are looking to distribute postgres databases to our customers along with our 
application. We are currently evaluating postgres version 8.4.4. The database 
can be of size 25 gb (compressed files fits in few dvds, the product is 
distributed on dvds). The pg_restore of this database takes several hours on 
the 
low end machines running windows os. The pg_restore is run during our product 
install, and the current install time projection is not acceptable. Our 
customers can purchase different databases over a period of time, and the 
application makes transactional updates to the databases after installation. 
Hence, copying the entire data folder instead of using the pg_restore is not an 
option, as the transactional updates will be lost.

I have read the documentation and the few posts available that discourages file 
copy based restore of individual databases, but, I have found a way to do this. 
I would appreciate if the experts can read and advise if the approach will 
work, 
given our environment and usage boundaries.

Master Postgres instance (this is where we create the data, we have complete 
control of this environment):
1. Create the database and populate data.
2. Set vacuum_freeze_table_age to 0 in the postgresql.conf
3. Run vacuum full - this will reset the row xid to the FrozenXid
4. Shutdown postgres and take a copy of the files for the given database.

In the deploy instance at the customer site:
1. Create the new database.
2. Shutdown postgres instance and copy the database files created in the master 
instance to the database specific folder.
3. Start postgres instance.

We don't use table row oids. If the cluster wide oid collides with the oid in 
the copied database files during subsequent ddl operations, postgres resolves 
this by skipping to the next available oid. There will be a delay to find the 
next available oid, which is acceptable in our case, as the ddl operations at 
the customer site are rare.  And, the vacuum full with vacuum_freeze_table_age 
set to 0 on the master instance takes care of the xmin, allowing transactions 
to 
be visible, and for further transactions at the customer site to continue 
without colliding. 


I have tested this and it works, and I am continuing to test it more. I would 
like for validation of this idea from the experts and the community to make 
sure 
I haven't overlooked something obvious that might cause issues.

Thank you,
Srini