postgres

Documentation

Overview

The `postgres` plugin for SHIELD is intended to be a generic backup/restore plugin for a postgres server. It can be used against any postgres server compatible with the `psql` and `pg_dumpall` tools installed on the system where this plugin is run.

PLUGIN FEATURES

This plugin implements functionality suitable for use with the following SHIELD Job components:

Target: yes
Store:  no

PLUGIN CONFIGURATION

The endpoint configuration passed to this plugin is used to identify what postgres instance to back up, and how to connect to it. Your endpoint JSON should look something like this:

{
    "pg_user":"username-for-postgres",
    "pg_password":"password-for-above-user",
    "pg_host":"hostname-or-ip-of-pg-server",
    "pg_port":"port-above-pg-server-listens-on", # optional
    "pg_database": "name-of-db-to-backup",       # optional
    "pg_bindir": "PostgreSQL binaries directory" # optional
}

Default Configuration

{
    "pg_port"  : "5432",
    "pg_bindir": "/var/vcap/packages/postgres/bin"
}

The `pg_port` field is optional. If specified, the plugin will connect to the given port to perform backups. If not specified plugin will connect to default postgres port 5432.

The `pg_database` field is optional. If specified, the plugin will only perform backups of the named database. If not specified (the default), all databases will be backed up.

The `pg_bindir` field is optional. It specifies where to find the PostgreSQL binaries such as pg_dump / pg_dumpall / pg_restore. If specified, the plugin will attempt to use binaries from within the given directory. If not specified the plugin will default to trying to use binaries in '/var/vcap/packages/postgres-9.4/bin', which is provided by the `agent-pgtools' package in the SHIELD BOSH release.

BACKUP DETAILS

The `postgres` plugin makes use of `pg_dumpall -c` to back up all databases on the postgres server it connects to. There is currently no filtering of individual databases to back up, unless that is done via the postgres users and roles. The dumps generated include SQL to clean up existing databses/tables, so that the restore will go smoothly.

Backing up with the `postgres` plugin will not drop any existing connections to the database, or restart the service.

RESTORE DETAILS

To restore, the `postgres` plugin connects to the postgres server using the `psql` command. It then feeds in the backup data (`pg_dumpall` output). To work around cases where the databases being restored cannot be recreated due to existing connections, the plugin disallows incoming connections for each database, and disconnects the existing connections, prior to dropping the database. Once the database is recreated, connections are once again allowed into the database.

Restoring with the `postgres` plugin will terminate existing connections to the database, but does not need to restart the postgres service.

DEPENDENCIES

This plugin relies on the `pg_dumpall` and `psql` commands. Please ensure that they are present on the system that will be running the backups + restores for postgres. If you are using shield-boshrelease to deploy SHIELD, these tools are provided, if you include the `agent-pgtools` job template along side your `shield-agent`.