pg_archivecleanup - Man Page

• Clean an archive directory up to a given WAL file: pg_archivecleanup path/to/archive path/to/walfile
• Simulate removing files without actually doing it: pg_archivecleanup [-n|--dry-run] path/to/archive path/to/walfile
• Strip a file extension before deciding deletion: pg_archivecleanup [-x|--strip-extension] extension path/to/archive path/to/walfile
• Remove backup history files too: pg_archivecleanup [-b|--clean-backup-history] path/to/archive path/to/walfile
• Enable debug logging output: pg_archivecleanup [-d|--debug] path/to/archive path/to/walfile

tldr.sh

pg_archivecleanup [option...] archivelocation oldestkeptwalfile

pg_archivecleanup is designed to be used as an archive_cleanup_command to clean up WAL file archives when running as a standby server (see Section ​27.2)​. pg_archivecleanup can also be used as a standalone program to clean WAL file archives​.

To configure a standby server to use pg_archivecleanup, put this into its postgresql​.conf configuration file:

archive_cleanup_command = 'pg_archivecleanup archivelocation %r'

where archivelocation is the directory from which WAL segment files should be removed​.

When used within archive_cleanup_command, all WAL files logically preceding the value of the %r argument will be removed from archivelocation​. This minimizes the number of files that need to be retained, while preserving crash-restart capability​. Use of this parameter is appropriate if the archivelocation is a transient staging area for this particular standby server, but not when the archivelocation is intended as a long-term WAL archive area, or when multiple standby servers are recovering from the same archive location​.

When used as a standalone program all WAL files logically preceding the oldestkeptwalfile will be removed from archivelocation​. In this mode, if you specify a ​.partial or ​.backup file name, then only the file prefix will be used as the oldestkeptwalfile​. This treatment of ​.backup file name allows you to remove all WAL files archived prior to a specific base backup without error​. For example, the following example will remove all files older than WAL file name 000000010000003700000010:

pg_archivecleanup -d archive 000000010000003700000010​.00000020​.backup

pg_archivecleanup:  keep WAL file "archive/000000010000003700000010" and later
pg_archivecleanup:  removing file "archive/00000001000000370000000F"
pg_archivecleanup:  removing file "archive/00000001000000370000000E"

pg_archivecleanup assumes that archivelocation is a directory readable and writable by the server-owning user​.

pg_archivecleanup accepts the following command-line arguments:

-d

Print lots of debug logging output on stderr​.

-n

Print the names of the files that would have been removed on stdout (performs a dry run)​.

-V

--version

Print the pg_archivecleanup version and exit​.

-x extension

Provide an extension that will be stripped from all file names before deciding if they should be deleted​. This is typically useful for cleaning up archives that have been compressed during storage, and therefore have had an extension added by the compression program​. For example: -x ​.gz​.

-?

--help

Show help about pg_archivecleanup command line arguments, and exit​.

The environment variable PG_COLOR specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages​. Possible values are always, auto and never​.

pg_archivecleanup is designed to work with PostgreSQL 8​.0 and later when used as a standalone utility, or with PostgreSQL 9​.0 and later when used as an archive cleanup command​.

pg_archivecleanup is written in C and has an easy-to-modify source code, with specifically designated sections to modify for your own needs

On Linux or Unix systems, you might use:

archive_cleanup_command = 'pg_archivecleanup -d /mnt/standby/archive %r 2>>cleanup​.log'

where the archive directory is physically located on the standby server, so that the archive_command is accessing it across NFS, but the files are local to the standby​. This will:

• produce debugging output in cleanup​.log
• remove no-longer-needed files from the archive directory