temp_file_limit parameter ignored?

Hello, all.

I’m an experienced Oracle DBA who’s converting to PostgreSQL, so please be kind.

I’m running the 64-bit PostgreSQL 9.5 on Ubuntu 16.04. I’m trying to index some large tables, so I set temp_file_limit to -1 in postgresql.conf and restarted the server. My index creation calls consistently failed with “temporary file size exceeds temp_file_limit (4194304kB)”. Sure enough, when I connect as ‘postgres’ to the database and run “show temp_file_limit”, 4GB is the answer.

Is there something obvious I’m missing?

Erwin Fritz
IS Operations Manager
GLJ Petroleum Consultants
Tel: +1 (403) 266-9570

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