Backup and restore PostgreSQL with pg-rman [LWN.net]

By Forrest Cook
December 16, 2009

The initial relase of pg-rman, an online backup and restore tool for the PostgreSQL DBMS, has been announced. The project developers include Itagaki Takahiro and Katsumata Tomonari and the code has been released under the BSD License. Currently, the software is only tested under Red Hat Enterprise Linux version 5.3.

The project description states:

The goal of the pg_rman project is providing a method for online backup and PITR as easy as pg_dump. Also, it maintains a backup catalog per database cluster. Users can maintain old backups including archive logs with one command.

The software features one-line backup and restore operations, online backup, incremental backup and archive backup. Backups are compressed with gzip and the system can automatically delete its older backup archives. Backups are validated with CRC checks and the system includes the ability to restore to a specified point in time. Pg-rman supports two DBMS system configurations, standalone server and backup server.

Pg-rman is designed as a standard Unix style command line program; the user manual lists the following command line options: init, backup, restore, show, validate and delete. A variety of command line options are available and the software can output error codes, making it suitable for running from a scripted environment.

If you need an enhanced backup solution for your PostgreSQL database, pg-rman looks like the tool to use.

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