Re: is it cool to restart servers as preventive maintenance?

Kiriakos Georgiou <kg(dot)postgresql(at)olympiakos(dot)com> writes:

> Hello,
>
> Is it accepted practice to restart a production database on a regular basis (e.g.: once a month) ?
>
> In the last 12 months I have noticed 3-4 instances of database
> flakiness that is cured by restarting. I’ve been using
> PostgreSQL since 2007 and I haven’t seen such issues
> requiring a reboot, but on my current project we do some rather heavy
> duty PostGIS analysis that apparently stresses the system enough to
> occasionally cause this (that’s my theory anyway.)
> I’m beginning to seriously consider restarting servers on a
> monthly basis.

I once took a new DBA position and found them doing a weekly full
restart and clustering several large table.

This went on for a short while until I brought to their attention that
the only problem was long-open transactions :-)

We put in a fix for that problem...

Thus rather than taking production down every Friday night, we went out
partying instead.

Unsophisticated/brute force approach and nobody wins.

YMMV

> regards,
> Kiriakos Georgiou

--
Jerry Sievers
Postgres DBA/Development Consulting
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