On Jan 11, 2008 7:32 PM, Christopher Browne <cbbrowne at ca.afilias.info> wrote:
> Tim Goodaire <tgoodair at ca.afilias.info> writes:
> > You could take your backup from the origin instead of the subscriber.
>
> You can do considerably better than that...
>
> You need to take the *SCHEMA DUMP* from the origin, which isn't hugely
> expensive.
>
> You can then take a data-only dump from a subscriber.
>
> You can then meld them together, to give you a Proper Schema, and a
> dump that *didn't* have to open a 4-hour-long transaction against the
> origin node.

OK. So just to summarize:

On the master:
$ pg_dump -Fc -s -f database_schema.sql my_replicated_database

On the slave:
$ pg_dump -Fc -a -f database_data.sql my_replicated_database

To restore the backup:
$ createdb my_restored_database
$ pg_restore -d my_restored_database database_schema.sql
$ pg_restore -d my_restored_database database_data.sql

And that's it? Any option/switch I'm missing?

What usage could I give to this restored database? May I use it as a
master in case the master died? In that case I think a failover to the
running slave would be faster.
What should I do to use it in a non-replicated environment? A staging
environment, for example for testing purposes where I need
production-like data.

Thank you.
-- 
Diego Algorta Casamayou
http://www.oboxodo.com - http://diego.algorta.net