I got the question the other day from a friend: “does pgBackRest work on SUSE?”. Having to admit I never really used SUSE, and not knowing what to answer, I decided to give it a try. Let’s see in this short post how far we can go.
Vagrant box
The openSUSE project provides several vagrant boxes including Leap 15.2:
$ vagrant init opensuse/Leap-15.2.x86_64
$ vagrant up
$ vagrant ssh
vagrant@localhost:~> cat /etc/os-release
NAME="openSUSE Leap"
VERSION="15.2"
PostgreSQL
Thanks to the packaging team, we can use the zypper package manager to install PostgreSQL and/or other components.
In case you’d use SLES (aka. SUSE Linux Enterprise Server), some package dependencies requiring access to specific repositories not hosted at postgresql.org might be needed.
Let’s now install PostgreSQL 13 on the vagrant box:
root# zypper addrepo https://download.postgresql.org/pub/repos/zypp/repo/pgdg-sles-15-pg13.repo
root# zypper refresh
root# zypper install postgresql13-server
root# export PGSETUP_INITDB_OPTIONS="--data-checksums"
root# /usr/pgsql-13/bin/postgresql-13-setup initdb
root# systemctl enable postgresql-13
root# systemctl start postgresql-13
Check if the cluster is running:
postgres$ ps -o pid,cmd fx
PID CMD
5359 ps -o pid,cmd fx
5194 /usr/pgsql-13/bin/postmaster -D /var/lib/pgsql/13/data/
5195 \_ postgres: logger
5197 \_ postgres: checkpointer
5198 \_ postgres: background writer
5199 \_ postgres: walwriter
5200 \_ postgres: autovacuum launcher
5201 \_ postgres: stats collector
5202 \_ postgres: logical replication launcher
pgBackRest packages
The currently latest pgBackRest release is available in the PostgreSQL community repository:
root# zypper install pgbackrest
postgres$ pgbackrest version
pgBackRest 2.33
Configuration
We’ll now prepare the configuration for our demo stanza:
# /etc/pgbackrest.conf
[global]
repo1-path=/var/lib/pgbackrest
repo1-retention-full=1
process-max=2
log-level-console=info
log-level-file=debug
start-fast=y
repo1-cipher-type=aes-256-cbc
repo1-cipher-pass=7jYdsTY9m2rweLMw3VydfsNPY25R7g0q
[demo]
pg1-path=/var/lib/pgsql/13/data
The base64 cipher-pass has been randomly generated with:
$ openssl rand -base64 24
7jYdsTY9m2rweLMw3VydfsNPY25R7g0q
In production environment, it is recommended to store the backups on a remote storage (cifs, nfs, S3, Azure, GCS,…). As per simplicity for this demo, I located the backup repository locally.
Configure archiving in the postgresql.conf file:
listen_addresses = '*'
archive_mode = on
archive_command = 'pgbackrest --stanza=demo archive-push %p'
The PostgreSQL cluster must be restarted after making these changes and before performing a backup.
root# systemctl restart postgresql-13.service
Let’s finally create the stanza and check the configuration:
postgres$ pgbackrest --stanza=demo stanza-create
...
P00 INFO: stanza-create for stanza 'demo' on repo1
P00 INFO: stanza-create command end: completed successfully
postgres$ pgbackrest --stanza=demo check
...
P00 INFO: check repo1 configuration (primary)
P00 INFO: check repo1 archive for WAL (primary)
P00 INFO: WAL segment 000000010000000000000001 successfully archived to '...' on repo1
P00 INFO: check command end: completed successfully
Using pgbench, let’s create some test data:
postgres$ createdb test
postgres$ /usr/pgsql-13/bin/pgbench -i -s 100 test
Perform a backup
Let’s take the first backup :
postgres$ pgbackrest --stanza=demo --type=full backup
P00 INFO: backup command begin 2.33: ...
P00 INFO: execute non-exclusive pg_start_backup(): backup begins after the requested immediate checkpoint completes
P00 INFO: backup start archive = 00000001000000000000009F, lsn = 0/9F000028
P00 INFO: full backup size = 1.5GB
P00 INFO: execute non-exclusive pg_stop_backup() and wait for all WAL segments to archive
P00 INFO: backup stop archive = 00000001000000000000009F, lsn = 0/9F000CA8
P00 INFO: check archive for segment(s) 00000001000000000000009F:00000001000000000000009F
P00 INFO: new backup label = 20210603-065339F
P00 INFO: backup command end: completed successfully
P00 INFO: expire command begin 2.33: ...
P00 INFO: expire command end: completed successfully
The info command will give you some information about the backups and archives:
postgres$ pgbackrest --stanza=demo info
stanza: demo
status: ok
cipher: aes-256-cbc
db (current)
wal archive min/max (13): 00000001000000000000009F/00000001000000000000009F
full backup: 20210603-065339F
timestamp start/stop: 2021-06-03 06:53:39 / 2021-06-03 06:54:30
wal start/stop: 00000001000000000000009F / 00000001000000000000009F
database size: 1.5GB, database backup size: 1.5GB
repo1: backup set size: 85MB, backup size: 85MB
Everything is working as expected so far.
pgBackRest build from sources
In case you’d wish to build the latest sources, install prerequisites and adjust compilation flags if needed:
root# zypper install unzip make gcc openssl-devel libxml2-devel libbz2-devel
root# zypper install postgresql13-devel
root# curl -LJO https://github.com/pgbackrest/pgbackrest/archive/refs/heads/master.zip
root# export CPPFLAGS='-I /usr/pgsql-13/include'
root# export LDFLAGS='-L/usr/pgsql-13/lib'
root# cd pgbackrest-master/src
root# ./configure
root# make
root# mv pgbackrest /usr/bin/pgbackrest_build
root# pgbackrest_build version
pgBackRest 2.34dev
Finally, let’s take a backup using the built package:
postgres$ pgbackrest_build --stanza=demo --type=incr backup
P00 INFO: backup command begin 2.34dev: ...
P00 INFO: last backup label = 20210603-065339F, version = 2.33
P00 INFO: execute non-exclusive pg_start_backup(): backup begins after the requested immediate checkpoint completes
P00 INFO: backup start archive = 0000000100000000000000A3, lsn = 0/A3000028
P00 INFO: incr backup size = 198.1KB
P00 INFO: execute non-exclusive pg_stop_backup() and wait for all WAL segments to archive
P00 INFO: backup stop archive = 0000000100000000000000A3, lsn = 0/A3000100
P00 INFO: check archive for segment(s) 0000000100000000000000A3:0000000100000000000000A3
P00 INFO: new backup label = 20210603-065339F_20210603-071650I
P00 INFO: backup command end: completed successfully
P00 INFO: expire command begin 2.34dev: ...
P00 INFO: repo1: 13-1 no archive to remove
P00 INFO: expire command end: completed successfully
postgres$ pgbackrest_build --stanza=demo info
stanza: demo
status: ok
cipher: aes-256-cbc
db (current)
wal archive min/max (13): 00000001000000000000009F/0000000100000000000000A3
full backup: 20210603-065339F
timestamp start/stop: 2021-06-03 06:53:39 / 2021-06-03 06:54:30
wal start/stop: 00000001000000000000009F / 00000001000000000000009F
database size: 1.5GB, database backup size: 1.5GB
repo1: backup set size: 85MB, backup size: 85MB
incr backup: 20210603-065339F_20210603-071650I
timestamp start/stop: 2021-06-03 07:16:50 / 2021-06-03 07:16:52
wal start/stop: 0000000100000000000000A3 / 0000000100000000000000A3
database size: 1.5GB, database backup size: 198.4KB
repo1: backup set size: 85MB, backup size: 19.7KB
backup reference list: 20210603-065339F
Conclusion
Given this quick test, at least on openSUSE 15, pgBackRest seems to be working just fine. Thanks again to the packaging team allowing us to install the tools we love so easily!
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