Postgres wal archivation delay

Question

I've noticed a lag of archive_command execution. The command is configured to set a flag on arhived segment:

archive_command = 'rm pg_xlog/*.backuped ; touch %p.backuped'

If I run ls then I see that a lot of segments are not archived:

000000010000098800000029
00000001000009880000002A
00000001000009880000002B
00000001000009880000002C
00000001000009880000002D
00000001000009880000002E
00000001000009880000002F
000000010000098800000030
000000010000098800000031
000000010000098800000032
000000010000098800000032.backuped
000000010000098800000033
000000010000098800000034
000000010000098800000035
000000010000098800000036
000000010000098800000037
000000010000098800000038
000000010000098800000039
00000001000009880000003A
00000001000009880000003B
00000001000009880000003C
00000001000009880000003D
00000001000009880000003E
00000001000009880000003F
000000010000098800000040
000000010000098800000041
000000010000098800000042
000000010000098800000043

Is this correct behaviour? How do I save those last segments to not lose them on server crash?

Answer 1

The newer segments are probably old segments that have been "recycled" in preparation for future use, but not yet used (and so not needed for recovery)