# pgBackRest 2.60.0 adds page checksum errors, GCS Workload Identity

> **Key takeaway:** pgBackRest 2.60.0 now errors on invalid page checksums during restore by default, adds GCS Workload Identity Federation, and prefetches multi-file reads from object stores.

**Published:** 2026-10-18T00:00:00+00:00 
**Source:** PostgreSQL Official News 
**Category:** databases-storage 
**Canonical URL:** https://fosswire.org/news/pgbackrest-2600-adds-page-checksum-errors-gcs-workload-ident.html 

## Summary
pgBackRest 2.60.0 tightens data integrity checks by making page checksum failures fatal during restore unless explicitly downgraded to warnings. The release also adds cloud-native authentication for Google Cloud Storage and performance improvements for object store operations. PostgreSQL 19 RC 1 compatibility was already present in v2.59.2 and continues here.

## What changes in pgBackRest 2.60.0
- **checksum-page-error option**: New default behavior causes restore to halt on invalid page checksums, leaving the cluster incomplete; set to `n` for warning-only mode
- **GCS Workload Identity Federation**: Enables credential-less authentication for Google Cloud Storage workloads
- **Prefetch multi-file/range reads**: Object store performance improvement through parallelized readahead
- **Azure batch retry**: Sub-requests missing from batch responses now automatically retried
- **Build changes**: Git checkouts now require PyYAML instead of libyaml; release tarballs remain self-contained
- **Platform support**: illumos builds now supported; OpenSSL 4 compatibility added

## Why it matters
The stricter checksum handling may force operators to review backup health before restores, but prevents silent data corruption in production clusters. GCS Workload Identity Federation removes long-lived credential management for Google Cloud users.