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magnusandClaude Opus 4.6 448e31c01b Add PostgreSQL with automated hot backup setup

Weekly full backups via pg_basebackup and continuous WAL archiving
for point-in-time recovery, running as Docker Compose services.

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>

2026-03-06 15:01:39 +01:00

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PostgreSQL with Hot Backup

PostgreSQL 18 with automated weekly full backups and continuous WAL archiving for point-in-time recovery.

Services

Service	Description
`postgres-db`	PostgreSQL 18 with WAL archiving enabled
`postgres-backup`	Sidecar that runs weekly full backups via `pg_basebackup`

Quick Start

cp .env.example .env  # edit with your credentials
docker compose up -d

Configuration

Environment variables in .env:

Variable	Description	Default
`POSTGRES_USER`	Database user	`postgres`
`POSTGRES_PASSWORD`	Database password	—
`POSTGRES_DB`	Default database name	`postgres`
`PGPORT`	Host port for PostgreSQL	`5432`

Backup Strategy

Full Backups (Weekly)

pg_basebackup runs on startup, then every 7 days
Stored in /data/backup/postgres/full/full_<timestamp>/
Hot backup — no downtime required

Incremental via WAL Archiving (Continuous)

PostgreSQL archives Write-Ahead Log segments as they complete (~16MB each)
Stored in /data/backup/postgres/wal/
Captures every transaction between full backups

Backup Location

/data/backup/postgres/
├── full/
│   └── full_2026-03-06_12-00-00/   # weekly full snapshots
└── wal/
    ├── 000000010000000000000001      # archived WAL segments
    └── ...

Restore

To perform point-in-time recovery:

Stop PostgreSQL

Replace the data directory with a full backup:

cp -r /data/backup/postgres/full/full_<timestamp>/ /path/to/pgdata/

Create a recovery.signal file in the data directory

Configure restore_command in postgresql.conf:

restore_command = 'cp /data/backup/postgres/wal/%f %p'

Optionally set recovery_target_time for a specific point in time:
```
recovery_target_time = '2026-03-06 14:30:00'
```
Start PostgreSQL — it will replay WAL files and recover

Monitoring

# Check backup service logs
docker compose logs postgres-backup

# Check WAL archiving activity
docker compose logs postgres-db | grep archive

# List full backups
ls /data/backup/postgres/full/

# List archived WAL files
ls /data/backup/postgres/wal/

Volumes

Volume/Mount	Purpose
`postgres_data` (Docker volume)	PostgreSQL data directory
`/data/backup/postgres/wal`	Archived WAL segments
`/data/backup/postgres`	All backups (full + WAL)

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