From 8dfd3129027969fdd2d9d294220c867d2efd84aa Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Robert Haas <rhaas@postgresql.org>
Date: Fri, 27 Sep 2024 08:40:24 -0400
Subject: pg_verifybackup: Verify tar-format backups.

This also works for compressed tar-format backups. However, -n must be
used, because we use pg_waldump to verify WAL, and it doesn't yet know
how to verify WAL that is stored inside of a tarfile.

Amul Sul, reviewed by Sravan Kumar and by me, and revised by me.
---
 doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_verifybackup.sgml | 47 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++--
 1 file changed, 45 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)

(limited to 'doc/src')

diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_verifybackup.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_verifybackup.sgml
index a3f167f9f6e..53341024cd2 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_verifybackup.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/ref/pg_verifybackup.sgml
@@ -34,8 +34,12 @@ PostgreSQL documentation
    integrity of a database cluster backup taken using
    <command>pg_basebackup</command> against a
    <literal>backup_manifest</literal> generated by the server at the time
-   of the backup.  The backup must be stored in the "plain"
-   format; a "tar" format backup can be checked after extracting it.
+   of the backup. The backup may be stored either in the "plain" or the "tar"
+   format; this includes tar-format backups compressed with any algorithm
+   supported by <application>pg_basebackup</application>. However, at present,
+   <literal>WAL</literal> verification is supported only for plain-format
+   backups. Therefore, if the backup is stored in tar-format, the
+   <literal>-n, --no-parse-wal</literal> option should be used.
   </para>
 
   <para>
@@ -168,6 +172,45 @@ PostgreSQL documentation
       </listitem>
      </varlistentry>
 
+     <varlistentry>
+      <term><option>-F <replaceable class="parameter">format</replaceable></option></term>
+      <term><option>--format=<replaceable class="parameter">format</replaceable></option></term>
+      <listitem>
+       <para>
+        Specifies the format of the backup. <replaceable>format</replaceable>
+        can be one of the following:
+
+        <variablelist>
+         <varlistentry>
+          <term><literal>p</literal></term>
+          <term><literal>plain</literal></term>
+          <listitem>
+           <para>
+            Backup consists of plain files with the same layout as the
+            source server's data directory and tablespaces.
+           </para>
+          </listitem>
+         </varlistentry>
+
+         <varlistentry>
+          <term><literal>t</literal></term>
+          <term><literal>tar</literal></term>
+          <listitem>
+           <para>
+            Backup consists of tar files, which  may be compressed.  A valid
+            backup includes the main data directory in a file named
+            <filename>base.tar</filename>, the WAL files in
+            <filename>pg_wal.tar</filename>, and separate tar files for
+            each tablespace, named after the tablespace's OID. If the backup
+            is compressed, the relevant compression extension is added to the
+            end of each file name.
+           </para>
+           </listitem>
+         </varlistentry>
+        </variablelist></para>
+      </listitem>
+     </varlistentry>
+
      <varlistentry>
       <term><option>-n</option></term>
       <term><option>--no-parse-wal</option></term>
-- 
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