Comments on: Expecting a more complete backup

By: How much aren’t you backing up? « NetWorker Blog

How much aren’t you backing up? « NetWorker Blog — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 03:18:24 +0000

[...] a datacentre – PABXs, switch configurations, etc. (Though in a well run backup environment, there’s no reason why you can’t configure scripts that, as part of the backup process, logs onto such devices and retrieves the configuration, [...]

By: Preston

Preston — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 07:30:49 +0000

Unfortunately PostgreSQL administration isn’t my strong point – I know enough to allow for what I need to do, but past that unless I actually need to solve a particular problem myself I tend not to have a lot of exposure to the administration side of it. My guess would be that you still need to configure the user for encrypted access as well, as per the “alter user” command:

template1=# \help alter user;
Command: ALTER USER
Description: change a database role
Syntax:
ALTER USER name [ [ WITH ] option [ ... ] ]

where option can be:

After that though if that doesn’t work I’d suggest you touch base with members of the PostgreSQL administration community…

By: SathiyaMoorthy

SathiyaMoorthy — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 07:17:40 +0000

Thanks for the answer. But after doing the specified change too i don’t get the correct result.

I changed the access method as ‘md5′ and restarted the postgresql service. And now executed the expect script, again in the postgresql log, the same error ‘ Authentication failure ‘.

Misc:
1. I can login to the psql prompt by providing the normal password only !
2. If so, How does the pg_dump knows whether the user is giving normal password or an encrypted password.
3. What is the identification does the pg_dump has to identify whether the password is being supplied is md5 or normal …

By: Preston

Preston — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 11:36:46 +0000

That would seem to me to indicate that either the account you’re using is configured with an unencrypted password, or the database itself that you’re trying to backup doesn’t have md5sum authentication enabled. For instance, you might want to check the pg_hba.conf file to make sure that the access method is ‘md5′, though that will obviously affect how other user accounts can then access the database, without additional tweaking. (E.g., if all users currently access via the ‘password’ method, you might set the backup user to instead access via the ‘md5′ method.)

By: SathiyaMoorthy

SathiyaMoorthy — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 09:29:46 +0000

I tried executing the pg_dump using expect.

When i give the password in “send” as plain text it dumps the given database correctly. But when i give the encrypted password, it does not dumps the database. And in log “Password authentication failure” error is there. I encrypted the password using the md5sum command.

So how to send the encrypted password correctly to the pg_dump command ?

By: Preston

Preston — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 19:21:03 +0000

That’s a good example of where the ‘adhoc’ nature of such backup decisions often fail; or if you want to be more generalised you could equally say that as soon as a person has to act to make the backup go ahead, you should assume a high failure rate – i.e., failure to automate means failure to backup.

By: Daniel King

Daniel King — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 13:15:13 +0000

On the network/FC switch backup. They tend to be a “set and forget” config. We all hope that everyone has a change control process that will ensure the current config is saved (backed up) and then then new config is also saved. The later however always seems to get missed, since the change always seems to take place at 4am and that is the LAST thing on your mind at the time. Snuggles with your SO seem like a better choice ;)If they are awake.