Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> writes:
> Tom Lane wrote:
>> What is the point of having both archive_program and archive_dest as
>> GUC variables?
> I assume archive_dest is used for both archive and recovery of archives.
You assume wrong; it's not used there. There isn't any real good
reason to suppose that the recovery process is going to fetch the files
from exactly where archiving put them, anyhow.
> I think the idea is that you would turn archiving on and off regularly
Why in the world would you do that? People who want PITR at all will
want it 24x7.
> while you might never change the archive_command value. Also, how would
> you disable it? Set it to "", and if you do, you then have not way to
> remember your command string when you want to re-enable it.
Leave the original value in a comment, if you're going to want it again
later.
I don't think any of the above arguments outweigh the risk of people
shooting themselves in the foot by enabling archive_mode without
specifying a proper command/destination.
regards, tom lane