pg_waldump
pg_waldump — display a human-readable rendering of the write-ahead log of a PostgreSQL database cluster
Synopsis
pg_waldump
[option
...] [startseg
[endseg
]]
Description
pg_waldump
displays the write-ahead log (WAL) and is mainly useful for debugging or educational purposes.
This utility can only be run by the user who installed the server, because it requires read-only access to the data directory.
Options
The following command-line options control the location and format of the output:
startseg
Start reading at the specified log segment file. This implicitly determines the path in which files will be searched for, and the timeline to use.
endseg
Stop after reading the specified log segment file.
-b
--bkp-details
Output detailed information about backup blocks.
-B
block
--block=
block
Only display records that modify the given block. The relation must also be provided with
--relation
or-R
.-e
end
--end=
end
Stop reading at the specified WAL location, instead of reading to the end of the log stream.
-f
--follow
After reaching the end of valid WAL, keep polling once per second for new WAL to appear.
-F
fork
--fork=
fork
If provided, only display records that modify blocks in the given fork. The valid values are
main
for the main fork,fsm
for the free space map,vm
for the visibility map, andinit
for the init fork.-n
limit
--limit=
limit
Display the specified number of records, then stop.
-p
path
--path=
path
Specifies a directory to search for log segment files or a directory with a
pg_wal
subdirectory that contains such files. The default is to search in the current directory, thepg_wal
subdirectory of the current directory, and thepg_wal
subdirectory ofPGDATA
.-q
--quiet
Do not print any output, except for errors. This option can be useful when you want to know whether a range of WAL records can be successfully parsed but don't care about the record contents.
-r
rmgr
--rmgr=
rmgr
Only display records generated by the specified resource manager. You can specify the option multiple times to select multiple resource managers. If
list
is passed as name, print a list of valid resource manager names, and exit.Extensions may define custom resource managers, but pg_waldump does not load the extension module and therefore does not recognize custom resource managers by name. Instead, you can specify the custom resource managers as
custom###
where "###
" is the three-digit resource manager ID. Names of this form will always be considered valid.-R
tblspc
/db
/rel
--relation=
tblspc
/db
/rel
Only display records that modify blocks in the given relation. The relation is specified with tablespace OID, database OID, and relfilenode separated by slashes, for example
1234/12345/12345
. This is the same format used for relations in the program's output.-s
start
--start=
start
WAL location at which to start reading. The default is to start reading the first valid log record found in the earliest file found.
-t
timeline
--timeline=
timeline
Timeline from which to read log records. The default is to use the value in
startseg
, if that is specified; otherwise, the default is 1.-V
--version
Print the pg_waldump version and exit.
-w
--fullpage
Only display records that include full page images.
-x
xid
--xid=
xid
Only display records marked with the given transaction ID.
-z
--stats[=record]
Display summary statistics (number and size of records and full-page images) instead of individual records. Optionally generate statistics per-record instead of per-rmgr.
If pg_waldump is terminated by signal SIGINT (Control+C), the summary of the statistics computed is displayed up to the termination point. This operation is not supported on Windows.
-?
--help
Show help about pg_waldump command line arguments, and exit.
Environment
PGDATA
Data directory; see also the
-p
option.PG_COLOR
Specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. Possible values are
always
,auto
andnever
.
Notes
Can give wrong results when the server is running.
Only the specified timeline is displayed (or the default, if none is specified). Records in other timelines are ignored.
pg_waldump cannot read WAL files with suffix .partial
. If those files need to be read, .partial
suffix needs to be removed from the file name.