We use PostgreSQL to store logs.
A disk crashed and some files in the file system were corrupt.
I read this: https://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/Corruption
But this page does not solve my needs.
I don't care if some transactions got lost.
I care for availability.
Above page suggests "Consider contacting a professional support service provider".
That's not an option.
I see two ways to solve this:
Solution 1: If PostgreSQL does not start, then rename the data directory. Init postgres, create required DB and tables.
Solution 2: Use a tool which can start a corrupted DB. It does not matter if some transactions got lost.
Is there such a tool which can start a corrupted DB?
Given my current context (DB exists to be store logs), what other solutions could be used to ensure the DB is up again soon after a corruption?
Best Answer
Among the options you give, the first is the only feasible one. But neither one of them is very good.
The only good solutions is to prevent it from happening. If your disks randomly eat your data, maybe next time it will be the postgres binaries that get eaten, or the kernel itself, or the init script you wrote to re-init the database when it gets corrupted, or the dump files which contains the schema you want to use to reload.
If your disks are honest and true but your database got corrupted anyway because you were running with
fsync=off, then don't do that. Run withsynchronous_commit=offinstead, if you must. That risks losing some transactions, but doesn't corrupt your database.