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12.1 Archive recovery settings

restore_command (string)

The shell command to execute to retrieve an archived segment of the WAL file series. This parameter is required for archive recovery, but optional for streaming replication. Any %f in the string is replaced by the name of the file to retrieve from the archive, and any %p is replaced by the copy destination path name on the server. (The path name is relative to the current working directory, i.e., the cluster's data directory.) Any %r is replaced by the name of the file containing the last valid restart point. That is the earliest file that must be kept to allow a restore to be restartable, so this information can be used to truncate the archive to just the minimum required to support restarting from the current restore. %r is typically only used by warm-standby configurations (see section 11.2 Log-Shipping Standby Servers). Write %% to embed an actual % character. It is important for the command to return a zero exit status only if it succeeds. The command will be asked for file names that are not present in the archive; it must return nonzero when so asked. Examples:

restore_command = 'cp /mnt/server/archivedir/%f "%p"'
restore_command = 'copy "C:\\server\\archivedir\\%f" 
  "%p"'  # Windows

archive_cleanup_command (string)

This parameter specifies a shell command that will be executed at every restartpoint. This parameter is optional. The purpose of the archive_cleanup_command is to provide a mechanism for cleaning up old archived WAL files that are no longer needed by the standby server. Any %r is replaced by the name of the file containing the last valid restart point. That is the earliest file that must be kept to allow a restore to be restartable, so this information can be used to truncate the archive to just the minimum required to support restart from the current restore. %r would typically be used in a warm-standby configuration (see section 11.2 Log-Shipping Standby Servers). Write %% to embed an actual % character in the command. If the command returns a non-zero exit status then a WARNING log message will be written.

recovery_end_command (string)

This parameter specifies a shell command that will be executed once only at the end of recovery. This parameter is optional. The purpose of the recovery_end_command is to provide a mechanism for cleanup following replication or recovery. Any %r is replaced by the name of the file containing the last valid restart point, like in archive_cleanup_command. If the command returns a non-zero exit status then a WARNING log message will be written and the database will proceed to start up anyway. An exception is that if the command was terminated by a signal, the database will not proceed with startup.