Re: Limit on number of users in postgresql?

Mark Walker <furface(at)omnicode(dot)com> writes:
> I'm wondering if there's a manageable limit on the number of users in
> postgresql. I could have conceivably thousands of different users for
> any particular app and multiple apps in the same server.

Numbers in the low thousands are probably workable, as long as you
aren't adding and removing users at a great rate. I think that the
main bottleneck would be the "flat file" that's used to tell the
postmaster about the set of valid users --- every time a user is
added/dropped/changed, that file gets rewritten and then re-parsed
by the postmaster. So you could eat a lot of overhead if you change
users every few seconds or something like that.

I'd suggest doing some testing to see if there are any unexpected
bottlenecks, but I don't see a reason to reject the idea out of hand.
(If you find any slownesses, report 'em, and we might be able to fix
'em.)

regards, tom lane