Archiving is the concept of storing history in a safe location for recovery. Similarly, in database technologies, we see transaction logs (WALs in PostgreSQL) being archived to a remote backup server or cloud to allow a database to be recovered during disasters. As WAL segments get recycled after a certain threshold, it is important to archive them to safe storage before they are gone from the server. This also helps with Point In Time Recovery (PITR) and also in situations where a standby is lagging behind the primary (or master) and requires the recently removed WAL segments to get back to sync. In this recipe, we shall see the steps involved in enabling archiving in PostgreSQL.
Getting ready
In PostgreSQL, archiving is not enabled by default. To enable archiving, the PostgreSQL instance needs to be restarted. So, we need to make sure to enable archiving before going live with a production PostgreSQL server. We must also ensure that we choose a piece of...
