14.4 If You Are Upgrading - Suggested Improvements

On Sat, 2007-01-20 at 16:48 -0600, Thomas F. O'Connell wrote:

I've done a number of upgrades of postgres from one minor release to
another, and unless I'm missing something, there's nothing anywhere in
section 14 that provides documentation on how to do this.

Just a suggestion. If this strikes others as a good idea, I'd be happy
to draft something.

Makes sense to me. Would you mind submitting a patch against the SGML
docs?

-Neil

I'll see what I can do... :)

--
Thomas F. O'Connell

optimizing modern web applications
: for search engines, for usability, and for performance :

http://o.ptimized.com/
615-260-0005

On Jan 26, 2007, at 11:42 AM, Neil Conway wrote:

Neil Conway wrote:

On Sat, 2007-01-20 at 16:48 -0600, Thomas F. O'Connell wrote:

I've done a number of upgrades of postgres from one minor release to
another, and unless I'm missing something, there's nothing anywhere in
section 14 that provides documentation on how to do this.

Just a suggestion. If this strikes others as a good idea, I'd be happy
to draft something.

Makes sense to me. Would you mind submitting a patch against the SGML
docs?

I am already working on this and will commit in one hour.

--
Bruce Momjian bruce@momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

On Jan 26, 2007, at 4:05 PM, Bruce Momjian wrote:

Neil Conway wrote:

On Sat, 2007-01-20 at 16:48 -0600, Thomas F. O'Connell wrote:

I've done a number of upgrades of postgres from one minor release to
another, and unless I'm missing something, there's nothing
anywhere in
section 14 that provides documentation on how to do this.

Just a suggestion. If this strikes others as a good idea, I'd be
happy
to draft something.

Makes sense to me. Would you mind submitting a patch against the SGML
docs?

I am already working on this and will commit in one hour.

Great. I'll just wait to see what Bruce does. My job just got
easier... ;)

--
Thomas F. O'Connell

optimizing modern web applications
: for search engines, for usability, and for performance :

http://o.ptimized.com/
615-260-0005

I have updated the installation documentation to clarify major vs. minor
releases; patch attached and applied. I always suspected we were
unclear on this. Comments welcome. I am not inclined to backpatch this
to 8.2.X because it might be too significant a change. URL of new text:

http://momjian.us/main/writings/pgsql/sgml/install-upgrading.html

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Thomas F. O'Connell wrote:

I've done a number of upgrades of postgres from one minor release to
another, and unless I'm missing something, there's nothing anywhere
in section 14 that provides documentation on how to do this.

Generally, it's as simple as:

configure
make
make install
pg_ctl stop [or equivalent, if stop scripts exist]
pg_ctl start -D <data directory> [or equivalent, if start scripts exist]

But it seems like it would be helpful for administrators to break
down 14.4 into two sections:

14.4.1 - If You Are Upgrading a Minor Release
14.4.2 - If You Are Upgrading a Major Release (or a Release Requiring
an initdb)

Just a suggestion. If this strikes others as a good idea, I'd be
happy to draft something.

--
Thomas F. O'Connell

optimizing modern web applications
: for search engines, for usability, and for performance :

http://o.ptimized.com/
615-260-0005

--
Bruce Momjian bruce@momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

Bruce Momjian wrote:

I have updated the installation documentation to clarify major vs.
minor releases; patch attached and applied. I always suspected we
were unclear on this. Comments welcome. I am not inclined to
backpatch this to 8.2.X because it might be too significant a change.
URL of new text:

I think this is too weak:

"""
If you are upgrading from the same major version, the new version can
use your current data files, so a backup and restore is optional. If
you wish to avoid the backup/restore, merely skip those steps below.
"""

You write the backup/restore for minor versions is "optional", but when
would you make use of this option and why would users "wish" or not
wish to skip the steps? The fact is, the backup and restore is not
optional, it is just unnecessary, and there is no question about
whether to skip the rest or not.
--
Peter Eisentraut
http://developer.postgresql.org/~petere/

Peter Eisentraut wrote:

Bruce Momjian wrote:

I have updated the installation documentation to clarify major vs.
minor releases; patch attached and applied. I always suspected we
were unclear on this. Comments welcome. I am not inclined to
backpatch this to 8.2.X because it might be too significant a change.
URL of new text:

I think this is too weak:

"""
If you are upgrading from the same major version, the new version can
use your current data files, so a backup and restore is optional. If
you wish to avoid the backup/restore, merely skip those steps below.
"""

You write the backup/restore for minor versions is "optional", but when
would you make use of this option and why would users "wish" or not
wish to skip the steps? The fact is, the backup and restore is not
optional, it is just unnecessary, and there is no question about
whether to skip the rest or not.

OK, I was unsure if we wanted to encourage minor release folks to still
do a backup in case there is a problem.

Updated text:

The internal data storage format typically changes in every major
release of <productname>PostgreSQL</>. Therefore, if you are upgrading
an existing installation that does not have a version number of
<quote>&majorversion;.x</quote>, you must back up and restore your
data. If you are upgrading from the same major version, the new version
can use your current data files so you should skip the backup and
restore steps below because they are unnecessary.

Thanks.

--
Bruce Momjian bruce@momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

Bruce Momjian wrote:

Updated text:

The internal data storage format typically changes in every major
release of <productname>PostgreSQL</>. Therefore, if you are upgrading
an existing installation that does not have a version number of
<quote>&majorversion;.x</quote>, you must back up and restore your
data. If you are upgrading from the same major version, the new version
can use your current data files so you should skip the backup and
restore steps below because they are unnecessary.

That's better, but I'd suggest using &majorversion;.x in the last
sentence as well, instead of "the same major version", because some
people does not yet grasp that we refer to "major" as the first two
digits, instead thinking that all "7" versions are compatible, and all
"8", etc.

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.

Done, patch attached.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Alvaro Herrera wrote:

Bruce Momjian wrote:

Updated text:

The internal data storage format typically changes in every major
release of <productname>PostgreSQL</>. Therefore, if you are upgrading
an existing installation that does not have a version number of
<quote>&majorversion;.x</quote>, you must back up and restore your
data. If you are upgrading from the same major version, the new version
can use your current data files so you should skip the backup and
restore steps below because they are unnecessary.

That's better, but I'd suggest using &majorversion;.x in the last
sentence as well, instead of "the same major version", because some
people does not yet grasp that we refer to "major" as the first two
digits, instead thinking that all "7" versions are compatible, and all
"8", etc.

--
Alvaro Herrera http://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.

--
Bruce Momjian bruce@momjian.us
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com

+ If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +