Incremental Backup (backup_method=postgres)

[Geraldine Oo]

Hello All,

I'm testing with incremental backups using barman 3.12. 

I see the doc that we backup_compression is not supported with incremental backups. 

ERROR: failed to start backup: Incremental backups cannot be taken with 'backup_compression' set in the configuration options

But how about the full backups - can we have backup_compression=zstd for full backups and remove the compression for incr backups? I've tried digging around, but I don't think there's any option on command line to set this. Unless I update the /etc/barman.d/db.conf file each time ? 

Has anyone found a good way implement the incr backups ? 

Thanks

[Israel Barth]

Hello Geraldine,

That's a limitation still present in the latest Barman version (3.13.0).

While you are allowed to take full backups with compression, Barman doesn't allow that any backup in the chain of incrementals up to the full backup is compressed.
In other words, you are able to take full backups with compression, as long as you don't intend to use them as the source of incremental backups.

Barman doesn't allow any backup in the chain to be compressed because it doesn't yet have a recovery executor that is able to deal with combining compressed backups.
That's a limitation which we intend to remove in the (soon) future, so users will be able to take compressed backups, even if these backups are going to be used with the incremental feature.

Best regards,
Israel.