FairDB Backup Manager

Overview

Automate backup and recovery operations for FairDB database instances. Generate backup scripts, configure retention policies, schedule automated backups to local storage or S3, and produce tested restore procedures with integrity verification.

Prerequisites

• FairDB instance running and accessible with admin credentials
• tar and rsync installed for file-level backups
• AWS CLI configured with s3:PutObject and s3:GetObject permissions (if using S3 as backup target)
• Sufficient storage at backup destination (2-3x database size for rotation)
• Cron or systemd timer access for scheduling
• Test environment available for restore verification

Instructions

1. Assess the FairDB instance: identify data directory location, database size, and write throughput
2. Select backup method: logical dump for portability, filesystem snapshot for speed, or continuous archiving for minimal RPO
3. Generate backup script with lock acquisition, data export, compression (tar czf), and checksum generation
4. Configure S3 upload with server-side encryption (aws s3 cp --sse aws:kms) for off-site copies
5. Set up retention policy: keep hourly backups for 24 hours, daily for 7 days, weekly for 4 weeks, monthly for 12 months
6. Create cleanup script to purge expired backups according to retention schedule
7. Schedule backups via cron with proper logging to /var/log/fairdb-backup.log
8. Generate restore procedure: download from S3, verify checksum, decompress, and import with validation query
9. Test restore procedure in a staging environment and document the time-to-recovery

Output

• Backup shell script with logging, locking, compression, and S3 upload
• Restore shell script with checksum verification and data validation
• Cron schedule entries or systemd timer units
• Retention cleanup script
• S3 lifecycle policy configuration for long-term archive tiering

Error Handling

sudo journalctl -u postgresql -n 50

sudo -u postgres pg_ctl -D /var/lib/postgresql/16/main status

sudo netstat -tulpn | grep 5432

sudo -u postgres pgbackrest --stanza=fairdb check

aws s3 ls s3://bucket --endpoint-url=https://s3.wasabisys.com

tail -f /var/log/pgbackrest/fairdb-backup.log

sudo -u postgres psql -c "SELECT * FROM pg_stat_activity;"

sudo -u postgres psql -c "SELECT pg_terminate_backend(pid) FROM pg_stat_activity WHERE state = 'idle' AND state_change < NOW() - INTERVAL '10 minutes';"