clarification for pg_basebackup and major versions

On Monday, December 29, 2025, PG Doc comments form <noreply@postgresql.org>
wrote:

- to clarify how pg_basebackup works with servers of the same or older
major
version

There is no “how”, it just does. The documentation is versioned and “it”
means the binary produced by that version.

- to clearly specify pg_basebackup cannot be used for PostgreSQL major
version upgrade

The page clearly states what a backup can be used for and upgrade is not
listed.

David J.

Hi, Team !

Some more clarification about pg_basebackup which should be available in
the documentation:

- if pg_basebackup works between different versions of the same OS (ex.
RHEL8 and RHEL9)
- if pg_basebackup works between different types of OS Linux (ex. RHEL10
and Debian13) or OS Windows (ex. Windows 2016 and Windows 2019)
- if pg_basebackup works between different types of OS (ex. Ubuntu 24.04
and Windows 2022)
- if pg_basebackup works between different platforms (ex. Linux on amd64
and Linux on arm64)
- if pg_basebackup works between 32-bit OS and 64-bit OS

best regards,

Alexey Shishkin

[image: image.png]

*Alexey Shishkin*

Technical Account Manager

EDB Software GmbH

alexey.shishkin@enterprisedb.com

www.enterprisedb.com <https://enterprisedb.com/&gt;

On Wed, Dec 31, 2025 at 2:34 PM David G. Johnston <
david.g.johnston@gmail.com> wrote:

On Monday, January 19, 2026, Alexey Shishkin <
alexey.shishkin@enterprisedb.com> wrote:

Hi, Team !

Some more clarification about pg_basebackup which should be available in
the documentation:

- if pg_basebackup works between different versions of the same OS (ex.
RHEL8 and RHEL9)
- if pg_basebackup works between different types of OS Linux (ex. RHEL10
and Debian13) or OS Windows (ex. Windows 2016 and Windows 2019)
- if pg_basebackup works between different types of OS (ex. Ubuntu 24.04
and Windows 2022)
- if pg_basebackup works between different platforms (ex. Linux on amd64
and Linux on arm64)
- if pg_basebackup works between 32-bit OS and 64-bit OS

Please don’t top-post.

I agree this these dynamics aren’t readily exposed in the documentation. I
disagree that pg_basebackup should be considered as an authoritative
location for covering the material. It would simply link to such a
location in notes or “see also”.

In short, though, it like pretty much any client program will function
correctly regardless of differences with the server. But a physical backup
is only truly promised to work if the environment that is processing the
data matches the environment that produced the data.

David J.

Hi, Team !

Thanks for your reply !

What I see in the fields is the lack of such simple
supported/recommended/prerequisites notes/links in the official PostgreSQL
documentation (pg_backup is just an example).
That might lead to further confusion for PostgreSQL users.
As an example pls. let me share the logical replication documentation
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/logical-replication.html which says:
'
...
- Replicating between different major versions of PostgreSQL.
- Replicating between PostgreSQL instances on different platforms (for
example Linux to Windows)
...
'
I do believe something similar about pg_basebackup would be very welcome by
PostgreSQL users.

best regards,

Alexey Shishkin

[image: image.png]

*Alexey Shishkin*

Technical Account Manager

EDB Software GmbH

alexey.shishkin@enterprisedb.com

www.enterprisedb.com <https://enterprisedb.com/&gt;

On Mon, Jan 19, 2026 at 7:23 PM David G. Johnston <
david.g.johnston@gmail.com> wrote: