Re: Should vacuum process config file reload more often

On Wed, Apr 5, 2023 at 2:56 PM Robert Haas <robertmhaas(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
> + /*
> + * Balance and update limit values for autovacuum workers. We must
> + * always do this in case the autovacuum launcher or another
> + * autovacuum worker has recalculated the number of workers across
> + * which we must balance the limit. This is done by the launcher when
> + * launching a new worker and by workers before vacuuming each table.
> + */
>
> I don't quite understand what's going on here. A big reason that I'm
> worried about this whole issue in the first place is that sometimes
> there's a vacuum going on a giant table and you can't get it to go
> fast. You want it to absorb new settings, and to do so quickly. I
> realize that this is about the number of workers, not the actual cost
> limit, so that makes what I'm about to say less important. But ... is
> this often enough? Like, the time before we move onto the next table
> could be super long. The time before a new worker is launched should
> be ~autovacuum_naptime/autovacuum_max_workers or ~20s with default
> settings, so that's not horrible, but I'm kind of struggling to
> understand the rationale for this particular choice. Maybe it's fine.

VacuumUpdateCosts() also calls AutoVacuumUpdateCostLimit(), so this will
happen if a config reload is pending the next time vacuum_delay_point()
is called (which is pretty often -- roughly once per block vacuumed but
definitely more than once per table).

Relevant code is at the top of vacuum_delay_point():

if (ConfigReloadPending && IsAutoVacuumWorkerProcess())
{
ConfigReloadPending = false;
ProcessConfigFile(PGC_SIGHUP);
VacuumUpdateCosts();
}

- Melanie