Just to complete this thread -- I tried the method I outlined in my previous email on a test cluster where I ran the following script on the node before I ran pg_upgrade:

> 1) stop slony;
> 2) alter table sl_table alter column tab_relname type text, alter column tab_nspname type text, alter column tab_idxname type text;
>    alter table sl_sequence alter column seq_relname type text, alter column seq_nspname type text;
>    drop type vactables cascade;
>    CREATE TYPE vactables AS (
>        nspname text,
>        relname text
>   );
>   create function tablestovacuum () … leaving out function body…
> 
> 3) pg_upgrade
> 
> 4) start 9.0, do vacuuming analyze, etc…
> 
> 5) fix slony back:
> 
>  alter table sl_table alter column tab_relname type name, alter column tab_nspname type name, alter column tab_idxname type name;
>    alter table sl_sequence alter column seq_relname type name, alter column seq_nspname type name;
>    drop type vactables cascade;
>    CREATE TYPE vactables AS (
>        nspname name,
>        relname name
>   );
>   create function tablestovacuum () … leaving out function body…
> 
> 6) then start slony --

and it failed -- in an interesting way -- the node replicated one insert statement; and after that swallowed all replication events silently.

For the moment, I'm going to have to upgrade the node when I can stop all write activities to the master node. I'll drop the node out of the slony set before I run pg_upgrade; upgrade it to 9.0 and then resubscribe it to the slony set using the omit copy flag. I've tested this now on a test cluster; and this works.


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