BARMAN-KEEP(1)

✨ NAME ✨

okay so bestie, this is barman-keep from the BARMAN-KEEP(1) manual — it's all about Barman Sub-Commands. yep. that's the whole vibe. 💅

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

keep
    [ { -h | --help } ]
    { { -r | --release } | { -s | --status } | --target { full | standalone } }
    SERVER_NAME BACKUP_ID

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💖 DESCRIPTION 💖

So here's the tea, bestie 🫖: you use keep to mark a specific backup with a target</> and turn it into an archival backup that gets retained indefinitely, no cap. It literally overrides any active retention policies, like, "nope, this one stays, I don't make the rules (I do, actually)". 👑

You can also do two other lil' things with it: check the keep status of a backup, or release the keep mark from a backup. And yes, you can use a shortcut instead of BACKUP_ID — more on that below, iykyk. 🎀

⚠️ Note: Incremental backups are NOT eligible for the keep command. This restriction exists because incremental backups rely on their parent backups and cannot be used on their own for recovery. Keeping an incremental without its base would serve no purpose, as it is unusable independently. Like, it's giving "orphaned and useless", and not in a cute way. 💀

If you attempt to apply keep to an incremental backup, Barman will return an error indicating that incremental backups cannot be kept.

Only the full base backup — the one that starts the backup chain — can be marked with keep. that's the main character of the backup chain, periodt. 👑

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🦋 PARAMETERS 🦋

• SERVER_NAME — the name of the server in barman node. like, which server are we talking about bestie, be specific. 📍
• BACKUP_ID — the id of the backup in the barman catalog. yes, you need the actual id (or a shortcut, see below 👇).
• -h / --help — show a help message and exit. it provides information about command usage, so basically a lil' tutorial when you're confused. 🙈
• -r / --release — release the keep mark from this backup. This will remove its archival status and make it available for deletion, either directly or by retention policy. so like... you're un-protecting it. it's free now. 🕊️
• -s / --status — report the archival status of the backup. The status will be either full or standalone for archival backups, or nokeep for backups that have not been designated as archival. a lil' vibe check on your backup's archival energy. ✨
• --target — define the recovery target for the archival backup. The possible values are:
  • full — the backup can be used to recover to the most recent point in time. To support this, Barman will keep all necessary WALs to maintain the backup's consistency as well as any subsequent WALs. it's giving "keep everything, I want options". 💜
  • standalone — the backup can only be used to restore the server to its state at the time of the backup. Barman will retain only the WALs required to ensure the backup's consistency. lowkey minimalist, highkey efficient. 🧚

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🎀 SHORTCUTS 🎀

Use shortcuts instead of BACKUP_ID. okay so here's the cheat sheet, save it, screenshot it, tattoo it, whatever:

• first / oldest — Oldest available backup for the server, in chronological order. the grandparent of the lineup. 👵
• last / latest — Most recent available backup for the server, in chronological order. the freshest one, the one that just dropped. 🔥
• last-full / latest-full — Most recent full backup taken with methods rsync or postgres. yes, those exact two methods, no substitutions. ⭐
• last-failed — Most recent backup that failed, in chronological order. 😭 it tried. it did not slay.

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👑 Author 👑

EnterpriseDB

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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-KEEP(1), version 3.20, dated Sep 29, 2026 — mwah, iconic, go mark some backups, drink water, ily 💖🌸✨