Prevent pg_rewind destroying the data - Mailing list pgsql-general

From Christopher Pereira
Subject Prevent pg_rewind destroying the data
Date
Msg-id f4fb86c6-b219-5cad-5dc3-c9c1a720fdb2@imatronix.cl
Whole thread Raw
List pgsql-general

Hi,

When pg_rewind is interrupted due to network errors, the cluster gets corrupted:

Running pg_rewind for a second time returns "pg_rewind: fatal: target server must be shut down cleanly".

Trying to fix the cluster with "/usr/pgsql-12/bin/postmaster' --single -F -D '/var/lib/pgsql/12/mydb' -c archive_mode=on -c archive_command=false" throws:

LOG:  could not read from log segment 0000003B000000000000003E, offset 0: read 0 of 8192
LOG:  invalid primary checkpoint record
PANIC:  could not locate a valid checkpoint record

When a cluster failsover because of a network problem, chances are high that another network problem may occur while we run pg_rewind.
It would be nice if pg_rewind wouldn't destroy the data and leave the cluster in a state where retrying pg_rewind can succeed.

As a workaround we are thinking in taking a LVM snapshot or do a "cp --reflink" before running pg_rewind and restore if there is a failure, but it would be nice if pg_rewind were "non destructive".

Is this possible?
Am I missing something?

We are using PG 12.

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