I find pgbackrest, way more “stupid” (or maybe I am “stupid) than Barman. I am sorry, but I guess I just don't get it. You have a pgbackrest executable, which checks the config file, it generates the postgresql.auto.conf file and the server STILL restores till the last WAL files when you try to do PITR. But I guess I will return to this section, when I am smarter and know how to use it. Either case, let's get into it. Unlike Barman, pgbackrest REQUIRES passwordless connection for the backup / restore to the server and unlike Barman in REQUIRES you to archive the WAL Files to a common repo or global repo. P.S. Barman doesn't require passwordless connection for backup, as we can configure “streaming” server….

Either case, so in general. My setup is. 1 central backup server, 1 NFS on that backup server, which is mounted on the data nodes and the data nodes push the WAL Files to that repo using pgbackrest. Simple as that.

After you install pgbackrest on all servers: data nodes + backup server. You can set the archive command as follows:

archive_command: "pgbackrest --stanza=cluster_backup archive-push %p"
restore_command: "pgbackrest --stanza=cluster_backup archive-get %f %p"

So in nutshell, my patroni.yml looks like this:

scope: stampede 
name: ${host} 
 
restapi: 
  listen: ${host}:8008 
  connect_address: ${host}:8008 
 
etcd: 
  hosts: etcd00:2379, etcd01:2379, etcd02:2379 
 
bootstrap:
  dcs:
    ttl: 30
    loop_wait: 10
    retry_timeout: 10
    maximum_lag_on_failover: 1048576
    maximum_lag_on_syncnode: 15000000
    synchronous_mode: true
    postgresql:
      use_pg_rewind: true
      use_slots: true

  initdb: 
  - encoding: UTF8 
  - data-checksums 

  pg_hba: 
  - host replication rep_user ${subnet}.0/24 md5 
  - host all all ${subnet}.0/24 md5 

postgresql: 
  listen: ${host}:5432 
  connect_address: ${host}:5432 
  data_dir: /db/pgdata 
  bin_dir: ${bindir}
  pgpass: /tmp/pgpass0 
  authentication: 
    replication: 
      username: rep_user 
      password: newpass 
    superuser: 
      username: postgres 
      password: newpass 
  parameters: 
    unix_socket_directories: '/var/run/postgresql' 
    external_pid_file: '/var/run/postgresql/17-main.pid' 
    logging_collector: "on" 
    log_directory: "/var/log/postgresql" 
    log_filename: "postgresql-17-main.log" 
    shared_buffers: 100MB
    work_mem: 16MB
    maintenance_work_mem: 10MB
    max_worker_processes: 16
    wal_buffers: 16MB
    max_wal_size: 200MB
    min_wal_size: 100MB
    effective_cache_size: 50MB
    fsync: on
    checkpoint_completion_target: 0.9
    log_rotation_size: 100MB
    listen_addresses: '*'
    max_connections: 2000
    temp_buffers: 4MB
    archive_mode: "on"
    wal_level: "replica"
    archive_command: "pgbackrest --stanza=cluster_backup archive-push %p"
    restore_command: "pgbackrest --stanza=cluster_backup archive-get %f %p"

After that, we need to create the Stanza (Configuration of server and a backup). That is done from the backup server.

pgbackrest --stanza=cluster_backup stanza-create

That command will create you the stanza and then the archive command from the data nodes will work. You can also manually archive a file as follows, ran from the data node.

pgbackrest --stanza=cluster_backup archive-push /db/pgdata/pg_wal/000000010000000000000001 --log-level-console=debug