Richard van den Berg <richard(dot)vandenberg(at)trust-factory(dot)com> writes:
> We are in the process of upgrading our 400GB database from PostgreSQL
> 7.4.7 to 8.1.0. During the pg_restore I noticed that the autovacuum
> process was slowing things down significantly. I should have disabled it
> in postgresql.conf before starting the restore (duh).
> Not wanting to restart the restore, I searched for a method of disabling
> autovacuum on the fly. I found the solution based on the hints I found
> at http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-patches/2004-06/msg00414.php
Couldn't you have just set autovacuum = off in postgresql.conf? (Unlike
some other things, this setting can be changed after postmaster start.)
regards, tom lane