Re: was is the normal number of postgres.exe?

In response to "Wm.A.Stafford" <stafford(at)marine(dot)rutgers(dot)edu>:

> We are testing an application received from a collaborator that uses the
> latest version of postgresql. After a few minutes of use we often see a
> dozen or more postgres.exe listed by the windows XP task manager. This
> is at a time when we are not doing anything with the application so
> these processes are not associated with our current use of the
> application. These processes are using zero cpu and between 2,500k and
> 3,500k of memory. Occasionally we also see one or two postgres.exe that
> are using about 50% of cpu.
>
> On another machine that is running postgresql as a service we usually
> see three or four postgresql. Any ideas about what could be causing the
> large number of postgres.exe or the cpu hogging postgres.exe?

Each connection to the database spawns a new process. On a POSIX system,
you can use netstat to see what each process is connected to. I'm sure
there's some equivalent on Windows. Connections that are idle still
require a process running to handle them. If they're using CPU, then
they are executing queries or doing other work.

There are also a few processes that are always running depending on your
configuration: the background writer, and possibly the autovacuum process.
These will use CPU if they're actually doing work.

--
Bill Moran
http://www.potentialtech.com