Re: Load problems...

On Wed, 19 Dec 2001, Daniel Andersen wrote:

> Does postgresql have any problems managing load? I'm running a medium sized
> (30k customers) ISP off a postgresql database but it can't seem to manage
> very well with the dozen or so requests per second it receives. The machine
> we are handling is plenty powerful enough for a database like this (a dual
> 1ghz p3 machine with 1gb of ram) but for some reason it never runs quite
> perfectly. 7.1.3 would overload the system rapidly and slow to a crawl, so we
> installed 7.2b4 only to find it runs like a dream (less that 10% cpu usage
> most of the time) but eventually fails to fork and crashes and burns, at
> which point i have to restart it. Could anyone shed any light on a possible
> solution to these problems?

Hello Daniel,

I can't answer your specific question, but I _can_
tell you that the gurus will probably need more information
that you presented.

1) What operating system and version?
2) Have you tuned your OS, or is it a stock installation?
3) "running a medium sized (30k customers) ISP off a postgresql
database" ?? Ie, you're authenticating users via PostgreSQL?
You're serving them webmail via PostgreSQL? You're sniffing
their network traffic and stuffing it into PostgreSQL? ;)
You get the idea.
4) You mention that 7.2b4 runs better than before, but still
ends up with fork errors. Exact error message? How many
PostgreSQL processes are running when this happens? Does
the user that PostgreSQL is running under have resource
limits? Are they too low? Is this server also their STMP
host, along with HTTP, HTTPS, FTP .. etc? If you're
getting fork errors, you have too many processes running,
most likely. Are your processes closing the database
connection when they're done with it?

You see what I'm getting at. :) There are simply too many
variables without more details.

Benny

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"The onions are irritating my buttocks." - Sluggy Freelance
10-12-1998