'\" t
.\"     Title: pg_receivewal
.\"    Author: The PostgreSQL Global Development Group
.\" Generator: DocBook XSL Stylesheets vsnapshot <http://docbook.sf.net/>
.\"      Date: 2026
.\"    Manual: PostgreSQL 17.10 Documentation
.\"    Source: PostgreSQL 17.10
.\"  Language: English
.\"
.TH "PG_RECEIVEWAL" "1" "2026" "PostgreSQL 17.10" "PostgreSQL 17.10 Documentation"
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.SH "NAME"
pg_receivewal \- stream write\-ahead logs from a PostgreSQL server
.SH "SYNOPSIS"
.HP \w'\fBpg_receivewal\fR\ 'u
\fBpg_receivewal\fR [\fIoption\fR...]
.SH "DESCRIPTION"
.PP
pg_receivewal
is used to stream the write\-ahead log from a running
PostgreSQL
cluster\&. The write\-ahead log is streamed using the streaming replication protocol, and is written to a local directory of files\&. This directory can be used as the archive location for doing a restore using point\-in\-time recovery (see
Section\ \&25.3)\&.
.PP
pg_receivewal
streams the write\-ahead log in real time as it\*(Aqs being generated on the server, and does not wait for segments to complete like
archive_command
and
archive_library
do\&. For this reason, it is not necessary to set
archive_timeout
when using
pg_receivewal\&.
.PP
Unlike the WAL receiver of a PostgreSQL standby server,
pg_receivewal
by default flushes WAL data only when a WAL file is closed\&. The option
\fB\-\-synchronous\fR
must be specified to flush WAL data in real time\&. Since
pg_receivewal
does not apply WAL, you should not allow it to become a synchronous standby when
synchronous_commit
equals
remote_apply\&. If it does, it will appear to be a standby that never catches up, and will cause transaction commits to block\&. To avoid this, you should either configure an appropriate value for
synchronous_standby_names, or specify
\fIapplication_name\fR
for
pg_receivewal
that does not match it, or change the value of
\fIsynchronous_commit\fR
to something other than
remote_apply\&.
.PP
The write\-ahead log is streamed over a regular
PostgreSQL
connection and uses the replication protocol\&. The connection must be made with a user having
REPLICATION
permissions (see
Section\ \&21.2) or a superuser, and
pg_hba\&.conf
must permit the replication connection\&. The server must also be configured with
max_wal_senders
set high enough to leave at least one session available for the stream\&.
.PP
The starting point of the write\-ahead log streaming is calculated when
pg_receivewal
starts:
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04' 1.\h'+01'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP "  1." 4.2
.\}
First, scan the directory where the WAL segment files are written and find the newest completed segment file, using as the starting point the beginning of the next WAL segment file\&.
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04' 2.\h'+01'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP "  2." 4.2
.\}
If a starting point cannot be calculated with the previous method, and if a replication slot is used, an extra
\fBREAD_REPLICATION_SLOT\fR
command is issued to retrieve the slot\*(Aqs
restart_lsn
to use as the starting point\&. This option is only available when streaming write\-ahead logs from
PostgreSQL
15 and up\&.
.RE
.sp
.RS 4
.ie n \{\
\h'-04' 3.\h'+01'\c
.\}
.el \{\
.sp -1
.IP "  3." 4.2
.\}
If a starting point cannot be calculated with the previous method, the latest WAL flush location is used as reported by the server from an
IDENTIFY_SYSTEM
command\&.
.RE
.PP
If the connection is lost, or if it cannot be initially established, with a non\-fatal error,
pg_receivewal
will retry the connection indefinitely, and reestablish streaming as soon as possible\&. To avoid this behavior, use the
\-n
parameter\&.
.PP
In the absence of fatal errors,
pg_receivewal
will run until terminated by the
SIGINT
(Control+C) or
SIGTERM
signal\&.
.SH "OPTIONS"
.PP
\fB\-D \fR\fB\fIdirectory\fR\fR
.br
\fB\-\-directory=\fR\fB\fIdirectory\fR\fR
.RS 4
Directory to write the output to\&.
.sp
This parameter is required\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-E \fR\fB\fIlsn\fR\fR
.br
\fB\-\-endpos=\fR\fB\fIlsn\fR\fR
.RS 4
Automatically stop replication and exit with normal exit status 0 when receiving reaches the specified LSN\&.
.sp
If there is a record with LSN exactly equal to
\fIlsn\fR, the record will be processed\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-\-if\-not\-exists\fR
.RS 4
Do not error out when
\fB\-\-create\-slot\fR
is specified and a slot with the specified name already exists\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-n\fR
.br
\fB\-\-no\-loop\fR
.RS 4
Don\*(Aqt loop on connection errors\&. Instead, exit right away with an error\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-\-no\-sync\fR
.RS 4
This option causes
\fBpg_receivewal\fR
to not force WAL data to be flushed to disk\&. This is faster, but means that a subsequent operating system crash can leave the WAL segments corrupt\&. Generally, this option is useful for testing but should not be used when doing WAL archiving on a production deployment\&.
.sp
This option is incompatible with
\-\-synchronous\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-s \fR\fB\fIinterval\fR\fR
.br
\fB\-\-status\-interval=\fR\fB\fIinterval\fR\fR
.RS 4
Specifies the number of seconds between status packets sent back to the server\&. This allows for easier monitoring of the progress from server\&. A value of zero disables the periodic status updates completely, although an update will still be sent when requested by the server, to avoid timeout disconnect\&. The default value is 10 seconds\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-S \fR\fB\fIslotname\fR\fR
.br
\fB\-\-slot=\fR\fB\fIslotname\fR\fR
.RS 4
Require
pg_receivewal
to use an existing replication slot (see
Section\ \&26.2.6)\&. When this option is used,
pg_receivewal
will report a flush position to the server, indicating when each segment has been synchronized to disk so that the server can remove that segment if it is not otherwise needed\&.
.sp
When the replication client of
pg_receivewal
is configured on the server as a synchronous standby, then using a replication slot will report the flush position to the server, but only when a WAL file is closed\&. Therefore, that configuration will cause transactions on the primary to wait for a long time and effectively not work satisfactorily\&. The option
\-\-synchronous
(see below) must be specified in addition to make this work correctly\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-\-synchronous\fR
.RS 4
Flush the WAL data to disk immediately after it has been received\&. Also send a status packet back to the server immediately after flushing, regardless of
\-\-status\-interval\&.
.sp
This option should be specified if the replication client of
pg_receivewal
is configured on the server as a synchronous standby, to ensure that timely feedback is sent to the server\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-v\fR
.br
\fB\-\-verbose\fR
.RS 4
Enables verbose mode\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-Z \fR\fB\fIlevel\fR\fR
.br
\fB\-Z \fR\fB\fImethod\fR\fR\fB[:\fR\fB\fIdetail\fR\fR\fB]\fR
.br
\fB\-\-compress=\fR\fB\fIlevel\fR\fR
.br
\fB\-\-compress=\fR\fB\fImethod\fR\fR\fB[:\fR\fB\fIdetail\fR\fR\fB]\fR
.RS 4
Enables compression of write\-ahead logs\&.
.sp
The compression method can be set to
gzip,
lz4
(if
PostgreSQL
was compiled with
\fB\-\-with\-lz4\fR) or
none
for no compression\&. A compression detail string can optionally be specified\&. If the detail string is an integer, it specifies the compression level\&. Otherwise, it should be a comma\-separated list of items, each of the form
\fIkeyword\fR
or
\fIkeyword=value\fR\&. Currently, the only supported keyword is
level\&.
.sp
If no compression level is specified, the default compression level will be used\&. If only a level is specified without mentioning an algorithm,
gzip
compression will be used if the level is greater than 0, and no compression will be used if the level is 0\&.
.sp
The suffix
\&.gz
will automatically be added to all filenames when using
gzip, and the suffix
\&.lz4
is added when using
lz4\&.
.RE
.PP
The following command\-line options control the database connection parameters\&.
.PP
\fB\-d \fR\fB\fIconnstr\fR\fR
.br
\fB\-\-dbname=\fR\fB\fIconnstr\fR\fR
.RS 4
Specifies parameters used to connect to the server, as a
connection string; these will override any conflicting command line options\&.
.sp
This option is called
\-\-dbname
for consistency with other client applications, but because
pg_receivewal
doesn\*(Aqt connect to any particular database in the cluster, any database name included in the connection string will be ignored by the server\&. However, a database name supplied that way overrides the default database name (replication) for purposes of looking up the replication connection\*(Aqs password in
~/\&.pgpass\&. Similarly, middleware or proxies used in connecting to
PostgreSQL
might utilize the name for purposes such as connection routing\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-h \fR\fB\fIhost\fR\fR
.br
\fB\-\-host=\fR\fB\fIhost\fR\fR
.RS 4
Specifies the host name of the machine on which the server is running\&. If the value begins with a slash, it is used as the directory for the Unix domain socket\&. The default is taken from the
\fBPGHOST\fR
environment variable, if set, else a Unix domain socket connection is attempted\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-p \fR\fB\fIport\fR\fR
.br
\fB\-\-port=\fR\fB\fIport\fR\fR
.RS 4
Specifies the TCP port or local Unix domain socket file extension on which the server is listening for connections\&. Defaults to the
\fBPGPORT\fR
environment variable, if set, or a compiled\-in default\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-U \fR\fB\fIusername\fR\fR
.br
\fB\-\-username=\fR\fB\fIusername\fR\fR
.RS 4
User name to connect as\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-w\fR
.br
\fB\-\-no\-password\fR
.RS 4
Never issue a password prompt\&. If the server requires password authentication and a password is not available by other means such as a
\&.pgpass
file, the connection attempt will fail\&. This option can be useful in batch jobs and scripts where no user is present to enter a password\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-W\fR
.br
\fB\-\-password\fR
.RS 4
Force
pg_receivewal
to prompt for a password before connecting to a database\&.
.sp
This option is never essential, since
pg_receivewal
will automatically prompt for a password if the server demands password authentication\&. However,
pg_receivewal
will waste a connection attempt finding out that the server wants a password\&. In some cases it is worth typing
\fB\-W\fR
to avoid the extra connection attempt\&.
.RE
.PP
pg_receivewal
can perform one of the two following actions in order to control physical replication slots:
.PP
\fB\-\-create\-slot\fR
.RS 4
Create a new physical replication slot with the name specified in
\fB\-\-slot\fR, then exit\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-\-drop\-slot\fR
.RS 4
Drop the replication slot with the name specified in
\fB\-\-slot\fR, then exit\&.
.RE
.PP
Other options are also available:
.PP
\fB\-V\fR
.br
\fB\-\-version\fR
.RS 4
Print the
pg_receivewal
version and exit\&.
.RE
.PP
\fB\-?\fR
.br
\fB\-\-help\fR
.RS 4
Show help about
pg_receivewal
command line arguments, and exit\&.
.RE
.SH "EXIT STATUS"
.PP
pg_receivewal
will exit with status 0 when terminated by the
SIGINT
or
SIGTERM
signal\&. (That is the normal way to end it\&. Hence it is not an error\&.) For fatal errors or other signals, the exit status will be nonzero\&.
.SH "ENVIRONMENT"
.PP
This utility, like most other
PostgreSQL
utilities, uses the environment variables supported by
libpq
(see
Section\ \&32.15)\&.
.PP
The environment variable
\fBPG_COLOR\fR
specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages\&. Possible values are
always,
auto
and
never\&.
.SH "NOTES"
.PP
When using
pg_receivewal
instead of
archive_command
or
archive_library
as the main WAL backup method, it is strongly recommended to use replication slots\&. Otherwise, the server is free to recycle or remove write\-ahead log files before they are backed up, because it does not have any information, either from
archive_command
or
archive_library
or the replication slots, about how far the WAL stream has been archived\&. Note, however, that a replication slot will fill up the server\*(Aqs disk space if the receiver does not keep up with fetching the WAL data\&.
.PP
pg_receivewal
will preserve group permissions on the received WAL files if group permissions are enabled on the source cluster\&.
.SH "EXAMPLES"
.PP
To stream the write\-ahead log from the server at
mydbserver
and store it in the local directory
/usr/local/pgsql/archive:
.sp
.if n \{\
.RS 4
.\}
.nf
$ \fBpg_receivewal \-h mydbserver \-D /usr/local/pgsql/archive\fR
.fi
.if n \{\
.RE
.\}
.SH "SEE ALSO"
\fBpg_basebackup\fR(1)