Installing and configuring OmniPITR

Up until now, we've been managing WAL files with tools such as cp or rsync. Our end goal was to transmit these to a backup server so that the WAL files were safe long term in case we needed them for PITR recovery. As a bonus, the backup server is a central location that can be committed to tape regularly so that our PostgreSQL databases are preserved so long as we retain the tapes.

While this is a valid and functional approach, logging options, debugging, and flexibility are somewhat limited. Regular operating-system tools are not designed specifically to process PostgreSQL WAL files. Though we can use them for that purpose, there are better utilities available. OmniPITR is a powerful toolkit developed by OmniTI to manage PostgreSQL backup, restore, and WAL files.

This recipe will focus on installing OmniPITR so that we can use it later.

Getting ready

At the time of writing this book, the most recent version of OmniPITR is 1.3.2. In order to install it, we...