Re: pg_attribute growing extremely

hamann.w wrote
> Hi,
>
> on a server running 8.4 I observe that, since a while, the pg_attribute
> table is growing
> enormously.
> Soon after reloading I have one file
> ls -s 1249
> 1048580 1249
> a day later this is
> 1048580 1249
> 1048580 1249.1
> 1048580 1249.10
> 1048580 1249.11
> 1048580 1249.12
> 1048580 1249.13
> 1048580 1249.14
> 1048580 1249.15
> 682212 1249.16
> 1048580 1249.2
> 1048580 1249.3
> 1048580 1249.4
> 1048580 1249.5
> 1048580 1249.6
> 1048580 1249.7
> 1048580 1249.8
> 1048580 1249.9
> 4316 1249_fsm
> 24 1249_vm
> and 5 days later the system had arrived at 102 files
>
> The server is running since quite some time, without any major change.
> The workload is mostly reading, a little text updates and a little more
> binary updates.
> Every two weeks or so the database is recreated and reloaded
> The total size of data is growing slowly (say a rate of 10% per year)
>
> Regards
> Wolfgang Hamann

With the little info provided I'm not certain that this isn't a
mis-diagnosis. Regardless, if you think pg_attribute is the culprit then
setting log_statement to 'ddl' will provide evidence of all statements that
would affect that table.

And while 10% a year does sound small if you have a 2TB database that would
amount to a considerable absolute amount of data...

You should probably re-run, and then share, your exploratory queries and
shell commands. Also, increase logging and monitor pg_stat_activity to see
who is connecting and sending so much data to your system. Generating 100GB
of data through CREATE/ALTER table commands alone is highly unlikely.

David J.

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