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restore_command

A configuration parameter defining the command to retrieve an archived WAL file

restore_command is a configuration parameter defining the command to retrieve an archived WAL file.

restore_command was added in PostgreSQL 8.0.

In PostgreSQL 11 and earlier, restore_command was a replication configuration command which could only be set in recovery.conf.

Default value

The default value for restore_command is: '' (empty string).

Change history

Examples

Using the following restore_command as an example:

scp backupuser@backup:/var/lib/backup/wal-archive/%f "%p"

In normal operation, the PostgreSQL log file will contain entries like the following when retrieving archived WAL:

[2021-06-20 10:14:16 UTC]    LOG:  00000: restored log file "000000010000000000000004" from archive
[2021-06-20 10:14:17 UTC]    LOG:  00000: restored log file "000000010000000000000005" from archive
[2021-06-20 10:14:17 UTC]    LOG:  00000: restored log file "000000010000000000000006" from archive

The log file will also contain entries like the following:

scp: /var/lib/backup/wal-archive/000000010000000000000007: No such file or directory
scp: /var/lib/backup/wal-archive/00000002.history: No such file or directory

These are not errors. PostgreSQL will continuously attempt to retrieve the next expected WAL file, and the next history file in case the upstream has been promoted to a new timeline. If the files are not (yet) present, the configured command (here scp) will report a file-not-found error, which is expected and normal.

Categories

GUC configuration item, Replication

See also

archive_command