Re: blocking index creation

On 10/11/2017 04:11 PM, Neto pr wrote:
>
> 2017-10-11 10:46 GMT-03:00 Laurenz Albe <laurenz(dot)albe(at)cybertec(dot)at
> <mailto:laurenz(dot)albe(at)cybertec(dot)at>>:
>
> Neto pr wrote:
> > When creating index on table of approximately 10GB of data, the DBMS hangs (I think),
> > because even after waiting 10 hours there was no return of the command.
> > It happened by creating Hash indexes and B + tree indexes.
> > However, for some columns, it was successfully (L_RETURNFLAG, L_PARTKEY).
>
> > If someone has a hint how to speed up index creation so that it completes successfully.
>
> Look if CREATE INDEX is running or waiting for a lock (check the
> "pg_locks" table, see if the backend consumes CPU time).
>
>
> In this moment now, there is an index being created in the Lineitem
> table (+ - 10 Gb), and apparently it is locked, since it started 7 hours
> ago.
> I've looked at the pg_locks table and look at the result, it's with
> "ShareLock" lock mode.
> Is this blocking correct? or should it be another type?
>

Yes, CREATE INDEX acquire SHARE lock, see

https://www.postgresql.org/docs/9.1/static/explicit-locking.html

> Before creating the index, should I set the type of transaction lock? What?

Eeee? Not sure I understand. The command acquires all necessary locks
automatically.

> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> SELECT
>       L.mode, c.relname, locktype,  l.GRANTED, l.transactionid,
> virtualtransaction
> FROM   pg_locks l, pg_class   c
> where  c.oid = l.relation
>
> -------------- RESULT
> --------------------------------------------------------------
> AccessShareLock pg_class_tblspc_relfilenode_index relation TRUE
> (null) 3/71
> AccessShareLock pg_class_relname_nsp_index relation TRUE (null) 3/71
> AccessShareLock pg_class_oid_index relation TRUE (null) 3/71
> AccessShareLock pg_class relation TRUE (null) 3/71
> AccessShareLock pg_locks relation TRUE (null) 3/71
> ShareLock lineitem relation TRUE (null) 21/3769
>
>  

Well, we see something is holding a SHARE lock on the "lineitem" table,
but we don't really know what the session is doing.

There's a PID in the pg_locks table, you can use it to lookup the
session in pg_stat_activity which includes the query (and also "state"
column that will tell you if it's active or waiting for a lock.

regards

--
Tomas Vondra http://www.2ndQuadrant.com
PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services