Citus backup and restore questions

[yinan8128]

Hi team,

There is no backup and restore part in version 12.1 doc. We raised questions in Slack but didn't get needed answer

Please help provide answer, thanks:

1. Is pgBackRest supported in Citus backup please?
2. Do we need to backup coordinator node and worker nodes separately? For example 1 coordinator node and 4 worker nodes, 5 separate backups?
3. Can we restore Citus all nodes to point in time (PITR) by the separate backup of each node(coordinator node and worker node)?

Thank you

[yinan8128]

Hi Team,

Could you please help check? Thanks

[emelsimsek]

• Is pgBackRest supported in Citus backup please?

Backup tools including pgBackRest should work for individual Citus nodes. Note that each node needs to be handled as an independent Postgres instance. Those tools are not aware of Citus metadata/topology etc.

• Do we need to backup coordinator node and worker nodes separately? For example 1 coordinator node and 4 worker nodes, 5 separate backups?

Yes, the coordinator and worker nodes needs to be handled seperately as if they are seperate Postgres instances.

• Can we restore Citus all nodes to point in time (PITR) by the separate backup of each node(coordinator node and worker node)?

Yes, you can restore all the nodes to PITR, provided that you have the wal archives for all of them in addition to the backup.

One thing to be aware of during all this process is that, since the backup/restore is not Citus cluster aware, it is on you to make sure that the Citus metadata is correct after restore. For example, pg_dist_node should have the right node information.