title: Restore postgres db from folder
body: <p>i have an old copy of my postgresql db folder (/var/lib/postgresql/9.5/main/) from my server. Now I want to get the data out of the files. So i copied the main folder to my local machine and changed the postgresql config (/etc/postgresql/9.5/main/postgresql.conf) to point to that directory. Also i changed the permission of the main directory to the user postgres. After restarting the postgresql service (sudo service postgresql restart) it doesn't really work.</p>
  
  <p>What I'm doing wrong? (Yea I know, pg_dump is the preferred way, but in this way...)
  So my question, does this even work?
  Or is there a other way to get the data out of this?</p>
  
  <p>everything is done on ubuntu 16.04.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Edit:</strong></p>
  
  <p>the log file after changing the postgresql.conf file to point to the new directory.</p>
  
  <pre><code>2017-10-13 06:15:43 CEST [968-1] LOG:  database system was shut down at 2017-10-13 00:21:04 CEST
  2017-10-13 06:15:43 CEST [968-2] LOG:  MultiXact member wraparound protections are now enabled
  2017-10-13 06:15:43 CEST [959-1] LOG:  database system is ready to accept connections
  2017-10-13 06:15:43 CEST [975-1] LOG:  autovacuum launcher started
  2017-10-13 06:15:43 CEST [983-1] [unknown]@[unknown] LOG:  incomplete startup packet
  2017-10-13 06:47:55 CEST [975-2] LOG:  autovacuum launcher shutting down
  2017-10-13 06:47:55 CEST [959-2] LOG:  received smart shutdown request
  2017-10-13 06:47:55 CEST [972-1] LOG:  shutting down
  2017-10-13 06:47:55 CEST [972-2] LOG:  database system is shut down
  2017-10-13 06:47:55 CEST [4667-1] FATAL:  database files are incompatible with server
  2017-10-13 06:47:55 CEST [4667-2] DETAIL:  The database cluster was initialized without USE_FLOAT8_BYVAL but the server was compiled with USE_FLOAT8_BYVAL.
  2017-10-13 06:47:55 CEST [4667-3] HINT:  It looks like you need to recompile or initdb.
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Ok that pointed me to <a href="http://forums.devshed.com/postgresql-help-21/backup-restore-issue-814220.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">this</a>. The server is a armv7l, whereas the local machine is x86_64 (uname -m). So there is no chance to get the data out of it?</p>
  
  <p>thx, Luc</p>