Killing an offending process without restarting Postgresql safe?

From: "Philippe Lang" <philippe(dot)lang(at)attiksystem(dot)ch>
To: <pgsql-general(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: Killing an offending process without restarting Postgresql safe?
Date: 2009-01-28 08:43:23
Message-ID: E6A0649F1FBFA3408A37F505400E7AC215CD29@email.attiksystem.ch
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Hi,

I added an index on a Postgresql 7.4 database this morning (about 50
concurrent users), and then deleted it. I noticed the delete took too
much time to complete, so I logged on the server, and did a "ps -afxu".
I saw a process was stuck in a "drop index waiting" state, and several
others in a "select waiting" state.

I killed the "drop index waiting" process, and all the "select waiting"
processes disappeared. Then I dropped the index again, and it succeeded
this time.

I never restarted the database server at any time. Is that safe, or is
it a good thing to restart the server in such cases?

Best regards,

Philippe Lang

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