BARMAN-GET-WAL(1)

✨ BARMAN-GET-WAL ✨

okay bestie, welcome to barman-get-wal — it's a Barman sub-command, and it's literally the girl who goes into the archive and pulls out your WAL files for you 💅 it lives in the Barman manual, section 1, and she's ready to serve.

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

get-wal
    [ { --bzip | -j } ]
    [ { --gzip | -z | -x } ]
    [ { -h | --help } ]
    [ --keep-compression ]
    [ { --output-directory | -o } OUTPUT_DIRECTORY ]
    [ { --peek | -p } VALUE ]
    [ { -P | --partial } ]
    [ { -t | --test } ]
    SERVER_NAME WAL_NAME

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

So here's the vibe: you grab a WAL file from the xlog archive of a server you specify. That's it, that's the job. 🫶

By default — and this is the key part, no cap — if the WAL file you asked for is actually there, it comes back to you as uncompressed content on STDOUT. Straight to your terminal. Iconic.

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🎀 PARAMETERS 🎀

• SERVER_NAME — the name of the server in barman node. Like, which server are we talking about, babe?
• WAL_NAME — the id of the backup in the barman catalog. Yeah, the manpage says "backup" here, we're just relaying the message, don't come for me 🙈
• --bzip2 / -j — output gets compressed with bzip2. ✨
• --gzip / -z / -x — output gets compressed with gzip. ✨ (yes, three whole flags for one vibe, she contains multitudes)
• -h / --help — shows a help message and dips. Gives you the tea on how to use the command. 🍓
• --keep-compression — do not decompress the file content. What you get out is the original compressed file, untouched, no notes. 💅
• --output-directory / -o — the destination directory where barman will stash the WAL file. 📁
• --peek / -p — give it an integer value greater than or equal to 1 and it'll retrieve WAL files starting from the one you specified all the way up to the value you set. When you use this option, get-wal returns a list of zero to the specified WAL segment names, one name per row. Lowkey a whole little roster. 📋
• -P / --partial — bonus round: it also collects partial WAL files (.partial). 🔥
• -t / --test — tests both the connection and the configuration of the specified Postgres server in Barman for WAL retrieval. Heads up: when you use this option, the required WAL_NAME argument is disregarded. She said "not today" to that argument. 😭

⚠️ WARNING, bestie, listen up: -z / --gzip and -j / --bzip2 options are deprecated and will be removed in the future. For WAL compression, please make sure to enable it directly on the Barman server via the compression configuration option. Don't get attached to the deprecated girls, they're leaving. 💀

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👑 AUTHOR 👑

EnterpriseDB. Periodt.

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🌈 COPYRIGHT 🌈

© Copyright EnterpriseDB UK Limited 2011-2026

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and that's the whole page, bestie 🦋 this was Barman version 3.20, dated Sep 29, 2026, and honestly? she ate. go get those WAL files, you've got this 💖✨🎀🧚💜