Thread: Upgrade questions - backup OIDs? Upgrade pg_dumpall first? Tips?

Upgrade questions - backup OIDs? Upgrade pg_dumpall first? Tips?

From
"Jeff Harr"
Date:
Hi all, I'm about to upgrade from 7.1.3 to 7.3.2, and I'm going through the upgrade document right now.  Since I'm not a DBA - I'm just a sys-admin - I'm not really sure what to make of the following option during the backup part of the upgrade:
"If you need to preserve OIDs (such as when using them as foreign keys)k then use the -o option when running pg_dumpall.  pg_dumpall does not save large objects."
 
I have no idea whether I'm using OIDs - I do know I made two dumps of the database, and one was 84 megs, the other 94 (with/without -o, respectively).  The database is used in conjunction with Lyris ListManager, and to my knowledge no custom SQL work has been done on it.
 
Thanks for any help, and any additional tips on pitfalls to avoid during my upgrade!

Jeff

 

Re: Upgrade questions - backup OIDs? Upgrade pg_dumpall

From
Oliver Elphick
Date:
On Wed, 2003-10-08 at 16:25, Jeff Harr wrote:
> Hi all, I'm about to upgrade from 7.1.3 to 7.3.2, and I'm going
> through the upgrade document right now.  Since I'm not a DBA - I'm
> just a sys-admin - I'm not really sure what to make of the following
> option during the backup part of the upgrade:
> "If you need to preserve OIDs (such as when using them as foreign
> keys)k then use the -o option when running pg_dumpall.  pg_dumpall
> does not save large objects."
>
> I have no idea whether I'm using OIDs - I do know I made two dumps of
> the database, and one was 84 megs, the other 94 (with/without -o,
> respectively).  The database is used in conjunction with Lyris
> ListManager, and to my knowledge no custom SQL work has been done on
> it.

In that case I'm pretty sure you won't be using large objects and you
don't need to preserve oids.  If the contrary is true, it ought to be
highlighted in the application's documentation.

> Thanks for any help, and any additional tips on pitfalls to avoid
> during my upgrade!

Upgrade to 7.3.4, not 7.3.2 - there are more bug fixes.

Once you have taken the final dump with pg_dumpall and shut down the
postmaster, move the whole $PGDATA directory aside.  You should also
make sure you have the old PostgreSQL software available to reinstall in
case of disaster; the new software won't be able to read the old
database.  Once the dump is loaded into the new database and working OK,
the old directory and software can be deleted.

--
Oliver Elphick                                Oliver.Elphick@lfix.co.uk
Isle of Wight, UK                             http://www.lfix.co.uk/oliver
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