On October 31, 2011 03:01:19 PM Stephen Denne wrote:
> I'm wondering whether it's worth doing anyway, simply to check that it
> doesn't do something completely unexpected, which would presumably alert
> us to something we hadn't considered.
>
Testing is always worthwhile, if only to ensure that PostgreSQL will actually
run with your configuration on the new machine (sufficient shared memory, IP
addresses specified in postgresql.conf, etc).
However, assuming the PostgreSQL binary packages you're using are identical,
and assuming that you aren't changing tablespace pointers around, the rsync /
restart is pretty fool-proof in terms of reliably copying PostgreSQL itself.
PostgreSQL is good about updating time stamps on modified files, you don't have
to worry about needing the full compare options on rsync or anything "-avr --
delete" is generally sufficient .
You might disable WAL archiving during a test startup to avoid sending
duplicates to your backup server.