Barman

Features

- This is the last release of Barman which will support Python 2 and
new features will henceforth require Python 3.6 or later.

- A new `backup_method` named `snapshot` is added. This will create
backups by taking snapshots of cloud storage volumes. Currently
only Google Cloud Platform is supported however support for AWS
and Azure will follow in future Barman releases. Note that this
feature requires a minimum Python version of 3.7. Please see the
Barman manual for more information.

- Support for snapshot backups is also added to `barman-cloud-backup`,
with minimal support for restoring a snapshot backup added to
`barman-cloud-restore`.

- A new command `barman-cloud-backup-show` is added which displays
backup metadata stored in cloud object storage and is analogous to
`barman show-backup`. This is provided so that snapshot metadata
can be easily retrieved at restore time however it is also a
convenient way of inspecting metadata for any backup made with
`barman-cloud-backup`.

Bug fixes

- The instructions for installing Barman from RPMs in the docs are
updated.

- The formatting of NFS requirements in the docs is fixed.

- Supported PostgreSQL versions are updated in the docs (this is a
documentation fix only - the minimum supported major version is
still 10).

Features

- A backup can now be given a name at backup time using the new `--name`
option supported by the `barman backup` and `barman-cloud-backup`
commands. The backup name can then be used in place of the backup ID
when running commands to interact with backups. Additionally, the
commands to list and show backups have been been updated to include
the backup name in the plain text and JSON output formats.

- Stricter checking of PostgreSQL version to verify that Barman is
running against a supported version of PostgreSQL.

Bug fixes

- Fix inconsistencies between the barman cloud command docs and the help
output for those commands.

- Use a new PostgreSQL connection when switching WALs on the primary
during the backup of a standby to avoid undefined behaviour such as
`SSL error` messages and failed connections.

- Reduce log volume by changing the default log level of stdout for
commands executed in child processes to `DEBUG` (with the exception
of `pg_basebackup` which is deliberately logged at `INFO` level due
to it being a long-running process where it is frequently useful to
see the output during the execution of the command).

Features

- `barman-cloud-backup-delete` now accepts a `--batch-size` option
which determines the maximum number of objects deleted in a single
request.
- All `barman-cloud-*` commands now accept a `--read-timeout` option
which, when used with the `aws-s3` cloud provider, determines the
read timeout used by the boto3 library when making requests to S3.

Bug fixes

- Fix the failure of `barman recover` in cases where
`backup_compression` is set in the Barman configuration but the
PostgreSQL server is unavailable.

Features

- Backups taken with `backup_method = postgres` can now be compressed
using lz4 and zstd compression by setting `backup_compression = lz4`
or `backup_compression = zstd` respectively. These options are only
supported with PostgreSQL 15 (beta) or later.
- A new option `backup_compression_workers` is available which sets
the number of threads used for parallel compression. This is
currently only available with `backup_method = postgres` and
`backup_compression = zstd`.
- A new option `primary_conninfo` can be set to avoid the need for
backups of standbys to wait for a WAL switch to occur on the primary
when finalizing the backup. Barman will use the connection string
in `primary_conninfo` to perform WAL switches on the primary when
stopping the backup.
- Support for certain Rsync versions patched for CVE-2022-29154 which
require a trailing newline in the `--files-from` argument.
- Allow `barman receive-wal` maintenance options (`--stop`, `--reset`,
`--drop-slot` and `--create-slot`) to run against inactive servers.
- Add `--port` option to `barman-wal-archive` and `barman-wal-restore`
commands so that a custom SSH port can be used without requiring any
SSH configuration.

- Various documentation improvements.

- Python 3.5 is no longer supported.

Bug fixes

- Ensure PostgreSQL connections are closed cleanly during the
execution of `barman cron`.
- `barman generate-manifest` now treats pre-existing
backup_manifest files as an error condition.
- backup_manifest files are renamed by appending the backup ID
during recovery operations to prevent future backups including
an old backup_manifest file.
- Fix epoch timestamps in json output which were not
timezone-aware.
- The output of `pg_basebackup` is now written to the Barman
log file while the backup is in progress.

Acknowledgements

We thank the following who contributed to this release:
- barthisrael
- elhananjair
- kraynopp
- lucianobotti
- mxey

Bug fixes

- Fix package signing issue in PyPI (same sources as 3.0.0)

Features

- BREAKING CHANGE: PostgreSQL versions 9.6 and earlier are no longer
supported. If you are using one of these versions you will need to
use an earlier version of Barman.

- BREAKING CHANGE: The default backup mode for Rsync backups is now
concurrent rather than exclusive. Exclusive backups have been
deprecated since PostgreSQL 9.6 and have been removed in PostgreSQL
15. If you are running Barman against PostgreSQL versions earlier
than 15 and want to use exclusive backups you will now need to set
`exclusive_backup` in `backup_options`.

- BREAKING CHANGE: The backup metadata stored in the `backup.info` file
for each backup has an extra field. This means that earlier versions
of Barman will not work in the presence of any backups taken with
3.0.0. Additionally, users of pg-backup-api will need to upgrade it
to version 0.2.0 so that pg-backup-api can work with the updated
metadata.

- Backups taken with `backup_method = postgres` can now be compressed
by pg_basebackup by setting the `backup_compression` config option.
Additional options are provided to control the compression level,
the backup format and whether the pg_basebackup client or the
PostgreSQL server applies the compression. NOTE: Recovery of these
backups requires Barman to stage the compressed files on the recovery
server in a location specified by the `recovery_staging_path` option.

- Add support for PostgreSQL 15. Exclusive backups are not supported
by PostgreSQL 15 therefore Barman configurations for PostgreSQL 15
servers are not allowed to specify `exclusive_backup` in
`backup_options`.

- Various documentation improvements.

- Use custom_compression_magic, if set, when identifying compressed
WAL files. This allows Barman to correctly identify uncompressed
WALs (such as `*.partial` files in the `streaming` directory) and
return them instead of attempting to decompress them.

Bug fixes

- Fix an ordering bug which caused Barman to log the message
"Backup failed issuing start backup command." while handling a
failure in the stop backup command.

- Fix a bug which prevented recovery using `--target-tli` when
timelines greater than 9 were present, due to hexadecimal values
from WAL segment names being parsed as base 10 integers.

- Fix an import error which occurs when using barman cloud with
certain python2 installations due to issues with the enum34
dependency.

- Fix a bug where Barman would not read more than three bytes from
a compressed WAL when attempting to identify the magic bytes. This
means that any custom compressed WALs using magic longer than three
bytes are now decompressed correctly.

- Fix a bug which caused the `--immediate-checkpoint` flag to be
ignored during backups with `backup_method = rsync`.