point-in-time-recovery · shipping · also PITR

Point-in-time recovery

Point-in-time recovery restores a database to a selected historical state by applying retained transaction-log history to a suitable backup.

Related Observatory article: Point-in-time recovery on hesela.com

In PostgreSQL 18 this uses a physical base backup, not a logical pg_dump export; replay restores the whole cluster, not one table. [1]

Relations

related

wal-archiving, recovery-target, write-ahead-log, backup-verification, restore-test, recovery-point-objective

Advantages

• Can stop replay before an unwanted later transaction. [2]

Limitations

• Recovery requires an uninterrupted WAL sequence from the backup start through the target. [1]

Citations

1. PostgreSQL 18: Continuous Archiving and Point-in-Time Recovery (accessed 2026-10-14)
2. PostgreSQL 18: Recovery Target (accessed 2026-10-14)
3. Hesela: Backup verification is not a restore test (accessed 2026-10-14)

JSON: /data/terms/point-in-time-recovery.json