NAME

barman - backup and recovery manager for PostgreSQL

CONFIGURATION FILE LOCATIONS

The system-level Barman configuration file is located at

/etc/barman.conf

/etc/barman/barman.conf

and is overridden on a per-user level by

$HOME/.barman.conf

CONFIGURATION FILE SYNTAX

The Barman configuration file is a plain INI file. There is a general section called [barman] and a section [servername] for each server you want to backup. Rows starting with ; are comments.

CONFIGURATION FILE DIRECTORY

Barman supports the inclusion of multiple configuration files, through the configuration_files_directory option. Included files must contain only server specifications, not global configurations. If the value of configuration_files_directory is a directory, Barman reads all files with .conf extension that exist in that folder. For example, if you set it to /etc/barman.d, you can specify your PostgreSQL servers placing each section in a separate .conf file inside the /etc/barman.d folder.

OPTIONS

active: Ignored. Server.
description: A human readable description of a server. Server.
ssh_command: Command used by Barman to login to the Postgres server via ssh. Server.
conninfo: Connection string used by Barman to connect to the Postgres server. Server.
barman_home: Main data directory for Barman. Global.
barman_lock_directory: Directory for locks. Default: %(barman_home)s. Global.
backup_directory: Directory where backup data for a server will be placed. Server.
basebackups_directory: Directory where base backups will be placed. Server.
wals_directory: Directory which contains WAL files. Server.
incoming_wals_directory: Directory where incoming WAL files are archived into. Server.
lock_file: Lock file for a backup in progress. Global/Server.
log_file: Location of Barman’s log file. Global.
log_level: Level of logging (DEBUG, INFO, WARNING, ERROR, CRITICAL). Global.
custom_compression_filter: Compression algorithm applied to WAL files. Global/Server.
custom_decompression_filter: Decompression algorithm applied to compressed WAL files; this must match the compression algorithm. Global/Server.
pre_backup_script: Hook script launched before a base backup. Global/Server.
pre_backup_retry_script: Hook script launched before a base backup, after ‘pre_backup_script’. Being this a retry hook script, Barman will retry the execution of the script until this either returns a SUCCESS (0), an ABORT_CONTINUE (62) or an ABORT_STOP (63) code. Returning ABORT_STOP will propagate the failure at a higher level and interrupt the backup operation. Global/Server.
post_backup_retry_script: Hook script launched after a base backup. Being this a retry hook script, Barman will retry the execution of the script until this either returns a SUCCESS (0), an ABORT_CONTINUE (62) or an ABORT_STOP (63) code. In a post backup scenario, ABORT_STOP has currently the same effects as ABORT_CONTINUE. Global/Server.
post_backup_script: Hook script launched after a base backup, after ‘post_backup_retry_script’. Global/Server.
pre_archive_script: Hook script launched before a WAL file is archived by maintenance. Global/Server.
pre_archive_retry_script: Hook script launched before a WAL file is archived by maintenance, after ‘pre_archive_script’. Being this a retry hook script, Barman will retry the execution of the script until this either returns a SUCCESS (0), an ABORT_CONTINUE (62) or an ABORT_STOP (63) code. Returning ABORT_STOP will propagate the failure at a higher level and interrupt the WAL archiving operation. Global/Server.
post_archive_retry_script: Hook script launched after a WAL file is archived by maintenance. Being this a retry hook script, Barman will retry the execution of the script until this either returns a SUCCESS (0), an ABORT_CONTINUE (62) or an ABORT_STOP (63) code. In a post archive scenario, ABORT_STOP has currently the same effects as ABORT_CONTINUE. Global/Server.
post_archive_script: Hook script launched after a WAL file is archived by maintenance, after ‘post_archive_retry_script’. Global/Server.
minimum_redundancy: Minimum number of backups to be retained. Default 0. Global/Server.
retention_policy: Policy for retention of periodic backups and archive logs. If left empty, retention policies are not enforced. For redundancy based retention policy use “REDUNDANCY i” (where i is an integer > 0 and defines the number of backups to retain). For recovery window retention policy use “RECOVERY WINDOW OF i DAYS” or “RECOVERY WINDOW OF i WEEKS” or “RECOVERY WINDOW OF i MONTHS” where i is a positive integer representing, specifically, the number of days, weeks or months to retain your backups. For more detailed information, refer to the official documentation. Default value is empty. Global/Server.
wal_retention_policy: Policy for retention of archive logs (WAL files). Currently only “MAIN” is available. Global/Server.
retention_policy_mode: Currently only “auto” is implemented. Global/Server.
bandwidth_limit: This option allows you to specify a maximum transfer rate in kilobytes per second. A value of zero specifies no limit (default). Global/Server.
tablespace_bandwidth_limit: This option allows you to specify a maximum transfer rate in kilobytes per second, by specifying a comma separated list of tablespaces (pairs TBNAME:BWLIMIT). A value of zero specifies no limit (default). Global/Server.
immediate_checkpoint: This option allows you to control the way PostgreSQL handles checkpoint at the start of the backup. If set to false (default), the I/O workload for the checkpoint will be limited, according to the checkpoint_completion_target setting on the PostgreSQL server. If set to true, an immediate checkpoint will be requested, meaning that PostgreSQL will complete the checkpoint as soon as possible. Global/Server.
network_compression: This option allows you to enable data compression for network transfers. If set to false (default), no compression is used. If set to true, compression is enabled, reducing network usage. Global/Server.
backup_options: This option allows you to control the way Barman interacts with PostgreSQL for backups. If set to exclusive_backup (default), barman backup executes backup operations using the standard exclusive backup approach (technically through pg_start_backup/pg_stop_backup). If set to concurrent_backup, Barman requires the pgespresso module to be installed on the PostgreSQL server (this allows you to perform a backup from a standby server). Global/Server.
last_backup_maximum_age: This option identifies a time frame that must contain the latest backup. If the latest backup is older than the time frame, barman check command will report an error to the user. If empty (default), latest backup is always considered valid. Syntax for this option is: “i (DAYS | WEEKS | MONTHS)” where i is a integer greater than zero, representing the number of days | weeks | months of the time frame. Global/Server.
basebackup_retry_times: Number of retries of base backup copy, after an error. Used during both backup and recovery operations. Positive integer, default 0. Global/Server.
basebackup_retry_sleep: Number of seconds of wait after a failed copy, before retrying Used during both backup and recovery operations. Positive integer, default 30. Global/Server.
reuse_backup: This option controls incremental backup support. Global/Server. Possible values are: * off: disabled (default); * copy: reuse the last available backup for a server and create a copy of the unchanged files (reduce backup time); * link: reuse the last available backup for a server and create a hard link of the unchanged files (reduce backup time and space). Requires operating system and file system support for hard links.
recovery_options: Options for recovery operations. Currently only supports get-wal. get-wal activates generation of a basic restore_command in the resulting recovery.conf file that uses the barman get-wal command to fetch WAL files directly from Barman’s archive of WALs. Comma separated list of values, default empty. Global/Server.

HOOK SCRIPTS

The script definition is passed to a shell and can return any exit code.

The shell environment will contain the following variables:

BARMAN_CONFIGURATION: configuration file used by barman
BARMAN_ERROR: error message, if any (only for the ‘post’ phase)
BARMAN_PHASE: ‘pre’ or ‘post’
BARMAN_RETRY: 1 if it is a retry script (from 1.5.0), 0 if not
BARMAN_SERVER: name of the server

Backup scripts specific variables:

BARMAN_BACKUP_DIR: backup destination directory
BARMAN_BACKUP_ID: ID of the backup
BARMAN_PREVIOUS_ID: ID of the previous backup (if present)
BARMAN_STATUS: status of the backup
BARMAN_VERSION: version of Barman

Archive scripts specific variables:

BARMAN_SEGMENT: name of the WAL file
BARMAN_FILE: full path of the WAL file
BARMAN_SIZE: size of the WAL file
BARMAN_TIMESTAMP: WAL file timestamp
BARMAN_COMPRESSION: type of compression used for the WAL file

Only in case of retry hook scripts, the exit code of the script is checked by Barman. Output of hook scripts is simply written in the log file.

EXAMPLE

Here is an example of configuration file:

[barman]
; Main directory
barman_home = /var/lib/barman

; System user
barman_user = barman

; Log location
log_file = /var/log/barman/barman.log

; Default compression level
;compression = gzip

; Incremental backup
reuse_backup = link

; 'main' PostgreSQL Server configuration
[main]
; Human readable description
description =  "Main PostgreSQL Database"

; SSH options
ssh_command = ssh postgres@pg

; PostgreSQL connection string
conninfo = host=pg user=postgres

; Minimum number of required backups (redundancy)
minimum_redundancy = 1

; Retention policy (based on redundancy)
retention_policy = REDUNDANCY 2

AUTHORS

In alphabetical order:

Gabriele Bartolini (project leader)
Stefano Bianucci (developer)
Giuseppe Broccolo (QA/testing)
Giulio Calacoci (developer)
Francesco Canovai (QA/testing)
Gianni Ciolli (QA/testing)
Marco Nenciarini (lead developer)

Past contributors:

Carlo Ascani

RESOURCES

Homepage: http://www.pgbarman.org/
Documentation: http://docs.pgbarman.org/

COPYING

Barman is the exclusive property of 2ndQuadrant Italia and its code is distributed under GNU General Public License v3.