Barman 2.1 and the new –archive option

Barman 2.1

Version 2.1 of Barman, backup and recovery manager for PostgreSQL, was released Thursday, Jan. 5.

The new release, along with several bugfixes, introduces preliminary support for the upcoming PostgreSQL 10, and adds the –archive option to the switch-xlog command.

switch-xlog –archive

The new –archive option is especially useful when setting up a new server.

Until now, the switch-xlog command used to force the PostgreSQL server to switch to a different transaction log file. Now, Barman also gives the –archive option, which triggers WAL archiving after the xlog switch, and forces Barman to wait for the archival of the closed WAL file.

By default Barman expects to receive the WAL in 30 seconds, the amount of seconds to wait can be changed using the –archive-timeout option.
If the switch-xlog command returns an error, it means no WAL file has been archived, and the Barman server is not able to receive WALs from PostgreSQL.

This option allows the users to test the entire WAL archiving process, identifying configuration issues.

Conclusions

The Barman dev team is very happy about this small release. Containing primarily bug fixes, it increases the robustness of Barman thanks to the feedback received through the Barman mailing list and the GitHub issue tracker.

If you are interested in helping us by sponsoring the development, even partially, drop us a line ([email protected]).

Links

Website
Download
Online Documentation
Man page, section 1
Man page, section 5
Support