ALTER TABLE speed (adding foreign keys)

I have a table, contacts, with two fields, id (int), contactid (int).
I have another table, users, with a bunch of fields, but one important
one, id (SERIAL), which is the table key.

I needed to test my database setup (and software) with 1.5 million users,
each of whom will have (on average), 10 contacts. So for each user in
the users table, I'll need ten records in the contacts table.

I wrote a little script to spew some sample data into a file for
COPY into the tables. Since 1.5 million * 10 contacts is 15 million
rows, I created my tables without foreign keys (both id and contactid
will eventually be foreign keys into users, since I often select on both
of them) and constraints (CHECK id <> contactid).

The COPY goes much, much faster with these constraints absent from my tables.
So I go to ALTER TABLE contacts, to add these foreign keys. One backend
fires up, allocates a few MB of RAM, and takes a long, long time to check
all the existing (15 million) rows. At least, that's what I think it's doing.

postgres 394 98.1 1.6 7752 4300 pts/0 R< Feb14 632:41 /usr/lib/postgresql/bin/postgres localhost sterwill im ALTER

The process has taken approximately 10 hours of CPU time so far.
I understand placing a foreign key constraint on an existing table can be
a very expensive operation, but I just wanted to make sure I won't be
"waiting forever" on this process. I've got more tables to ALTER, and if
they all take this long, I'll just wipe the database, load the schema
again (_with_ the constraints), and just let the COPY take a day or two.

I'm using PostgreSQL 7.0.3 on an AMD Athlon 650 with 256 MB RAM, 500 MB
swap, Linux 2.2.18.

--
Shaw Terwilliger <sterwill(at)sourcegear(dot)com>
SourceGear Corporation
217.356.0105 x 641