Re: [GENERAL] How to recover a postgres installation from files - Mailing list pgsql-admin

From Craig Ringer
Subject Re: [GENERAL] How to recover a postgres installation from files
Date
Msg-id 4CF7520A.3030808@postnewspapers.com.au
Whole thread Raw
In response to How to recover a postgres installation from files  ("Anibal David Acosta" <aa@devshock.com>)
Responses Re: [GENERAL] How to recover a postgres installation from files  (Radosław Smogura <rsmogura@softperience.eu>)
List pgsql-admin
On 02/12/10 01:11, Anibal David Acosta wrote:

> So, I only have the postgres directory on my hands. I decide to install the
> same database version in another computer and replace DATA directory, but I
> notice that 8.1 (windows binary) is not available for download.
>
> So, I don't know how to recover the database from the data directory of a
> windows postgres 8.1 installation.

First and most important: only work on a COPY of the recovered files.
Keep an original, untouched copy somewhere read-only and safe.

My other mail should provide you with some info on how to get 8.1 .
Hopefully Magnus or someone else will provide a better source of 8.1
installer binaries, but if not then the ones I linked to may be a viable
option.


BTW, 8.1 was EOL'd in 2007:

    http://www.postgresql.org/about/news.865

Once you get your data accessible, do a full dump IMMEDIATELY; you need
to upgrade to a supported version of PostgreSQL before resuming using
the database. 8.1 is not only old, but pretty unsafe on Windows. If your
organization has had it around this long after EOL, you need to look at
your software management policies.


Not that I can throw stones - I have:

  Windows NT 4 [1996, final eol in 2004]
  Sybase SQL Anywhere 5.5 [1995, eol 2002]
  SCO OpenServer 5.0.5 [1995, eol 2004, company no longer exists*]
  Plain English 4GL [?, eol 1983, company gone by 1985**]
  Microsoft Office Word 2000
  Mac OS 9.2.2 (PowerPC G4) with an Apple Desktop Bus hardware dongle
  Windows 98 (running in a VM; runs a win16 app with 16-bit ODBC)

here among other scary dinosaurs I can't yet get rid of for one reason
or another.

* There's someone wearing their name and their skin, but it's not really
SCO (the Santa Cruz Operation). The SCO Group are peddling the old
versions of the OS with minimal engineering support and knowledge. About
the only interesting thing they've done is repacked OpenServer 6 into a
canned VM image with a couple of drivers, because it was a bit
tempramental to install on many VM systems.

** This runs in the Microsoft Xenix kernel personality on the SCO
OpenServer box. SCO 5.0.5 is the *newest* OS it'll run on. And no, I
don't have source code or I would've ported it to something civilized
long ago. The app it runs relies too much on freaky bugs and quirks in
the interpreter for a reimplementation to be viable; I know, I tried. A
rewrite of the app Plain English runs is in progress...

--
System & Network Administrator
POST Newspapers

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