shared_buffers
(integer
)
Sets the number of shared memory buffers used by the database
server. The default is typically 1000, but may be less if your
kernel settings will not support it (as determined during
initdb). Each buffer is 8192 bytes, unless a
different value of BLCKSZ
was chosen when building
the server. This setting must be at least 16, as well as at
least twice the value of max_connections;
however, settings significantly higher than the minimum are
usually needed for good performance. Values of a few thousand
are recommended for production installations. This option can
only be set at server start.
Increasing this parameter may cause PostgreSQL to request more System V shared memory than your operating system's default configuration allows. See Section 16.4.1, “Shared Memory and Semaphores” for information on how to adjust those parameters, if necessary.
temp_buffers
(integer
)
Sets the maximum number of temporary buffers used by each database session. These are session-local buffers used only for access to temporary tables. The default is 1000. The setting can be changed within individual sessions, but only up until the first use of temporary tables within a session; subsequent attempts to change the value will have no effect on that session.
A session will allocate temporary buffers as needed up to the limit
given by temp_buffers
. The cost of setting a large
value in sessions that do not actually need a lot of temporary
buffers is only a buffer descriptor, or about 64 bytes, per
increment in temp_buffers
. However if a buffer is
actually used an additional 8192 bytes will be consumed for it
(or in general, BLCKSZ
bytes).
max_prepared_transactions
(integer
)
Sets the maximum number of transactions that can be in the “prepared” state simultaneously (see PREPARE TRANSACTION). Setting this parameter to zero disables the prepared-transaction feature. The default is 5. This option can only be set at server start.
If you are not using prepared transactions, this parameter may as
well be set to zero. If you are using them, you will probably
want max_prepared_transactions
to be at least
as large as max_connections, to avoid unwanted
failures at the prepare step.
Increasing this parameter may cause PostgreSQL to request more System V shared memory than your operating system's default configuration allows. See Section 16.4.1, “Shared Memory and Semaphores” for information on how to adjust those parameters, if necessary.
work_mem
(integer
)
Specifies the amount of memory to be used by internal sort operations
and hash tables before switching to temporary disk files. The value is
specified in kilobytes, and defaults to 1024 kilobytes (1 MB).
Note that for a complex query, several sort or hash operations might be
running in parallel; each one will be allowed to use as much memory
as this value specifies before it starts to put data into temporary
files. Also, several running sessions could be doing such operations
concurrently. So the total memory used could be many
times the value of work_mem
; it is necessary to
keep this fact in mind when choosing the value. Sort operations are
used for ORDER BY
, DISTINCT
, and
merge joins.
Hash tables are used in hash joins, hash-based aggregation, and
hash-based processing of IN
subqueries.
maintenance_work_mem
(integer
)
Specifies the maximum amount of memory to be used in maintenance
operations, such as VACUUM
, CREATE
INDEX
, and ALTER TABLE ADD FOREIGN KEY
.
The value is specified in kilobytes, and defaults to 16384 kilobytes
(16 MB). Since only one of these operations can be executed at
a time by a database session, and an installation normally doesn't
have very many of them happening concurrently, it's safe to set this
value significantly larger than work_mem
. Larger
settings may improve performance for vacuuming and for restoring
database dumps.
max_stack_depth
(integer
)
Specifies the maximum safe depth of the server's execution stack.
The ideal setting for this parameter is the actual stack size limit
enforced by the kernel (as set by ulimit -s
or local
equivalent), less a safety margin of a megabyte or so. The safety
margin is needed because the stack depth is not checked in every
routine in the server, but only in key potentially-recursive routines
such as expression evaluation. Setting the parameter higher than
the actual kernel limit will mean that a runaway recursive function
can crash an individual backend process. The default setting is
2048 KB (two megabytes), which is conservatively small and unlikely
to risk crashes. However, it may be too small to allow execution
of complex functions.
These parameters control the size of the shared free space
map, which tracks the locations of unused space in the database.
An undersized free space map may cause the database to consume
increasing amounts of disk space over time, because free space that
is not in the map cannot be re-used; instead PostgreSQL
will request more disk space from the operating system when it needs
to store new data.
The last few lines displayed by a database-wide VACUUM VERBOSE
command can help in determining if the current settings are adequate.
A NOTICE
message is also printed during such an operation
if the current settings are too low.
Increasing these parameters may cause PostgreSQL to request more System V shared memory than your operating system's default configuration allows. See Section 16.4.1, “Shared Memory and Semaphores” for information on how to adjust those parameters, if necessary.
max_fsm_pages
(integer
)
Sets the maximum number of disk pages for which free space will
be tracked in the shared free-space map. Six bytes of shared memory
are consumed for each page slot. This setting must be more than
16 * max_fsm_relations
. The default is 20000.
This option can only be set at server start.
max_fsm_relations
(integer
)
Sets the maximum number of relations (tables and indexes) for which free space will be tracked in the shared free-space map. Roughly seventy bytes of shared memory are consumed for each slot. The default is 1000. This option can only be set at server start.
max_files_per_process
(integer
)
Sets the maximum number of simultaneously open files allowed to each server subprocess. The default is 1000. If the kernel is enforcing a safe per-process limit, you don't need to worry about this setting. But on some platforms (notably, most BSD systems), the kernel will allow individual processes to open many more files than the system can really support when a large number of processes all try to open that many files. If you find yourself seeing “Too many open files” failures, try reducing this setting. This option can only be set at server start.
preload_libraries
(string
)
This variable specifies one or more shared libraries that are
to be preloaded at server start. A parameterless
initialization function can optionally be called for each
library. To specify that, add a colon and the name of the
initialization function after the library name. For example
'$libdir/mylib:mylib_init'
would cause
mylib
to be preloaded and mylib_init
to be executed. If more than one library is to be loaded,
separate their names with commas.
If a specified library or initialization function is not found, the server will fail to start.
PostgreSQL procedural language
libraries may be preloaded in this way, typically by using the
syntax '$libdir/plXXX:plXXX_init'
where
XXX
is pgsql
, perl
,
tcl
, or python
.
By preloading a shared library (and initializing it if applicable), the library startup time is avoided when the library is first used. However, the time to start each new server process may increase slightly, even if that process never uses the library. So this option is recommended only for libraries that will be used in most sessions.
During the execution of VACUUM and ANALYZE commands, the system maintains an
internal counter that keeps track of the estimated cost of the
various I/O operations that are performed. When the accumulated
cost reaches a limit (specified by
vacuum_cost_limit
), the process performing
the operation will sleep for a while (specified by
vacuum_cost_delay
). Then it will reset the
counter and continue execution.
The intent of this feature is to allow administrators to reduce
the I/O impact of these commands on concurrent database
activity. There are many situations in which it is not very
important that maintenance commands like
VACUUM
and ANALYZE
finish
quickly; however, it is usually very important that these
commands do not significantly interfere with the ability of the
system to perform other database operations. Cost-based vacuum
delay provides a way for administrators to achieve this.
This feature is disabled by default. To enable it, set the
vacuum_cost_delay
variable to a nonzero
value.
vacuum_cost_delay
(integer
)
The length of time, in milliseconds, that the process will sleep
when the cost limit has been exceeded.
The default value is 0, which disables the cost-based vacuum
delay feature. Positive values enable cost-based vacuuming.
Note that on many systems, the effective resolution
of sleep delays is 10 milliseconds; setting
vacuum_cost_delay
to a value that is
not a multiple of 10 may have the same results as setting it
to the next higher multiple of 10.
vacuum_cost_page_hit
(integer
)
The estimated cost for vacuuming a buffer found in the shared buffer cache. It represents the cost to lock the buffer pool, lookup the shared hash table and scan the content of the page. The default value is 1.
vacuum_cost_page_miss
(integer
)
The estimated cost for vacuuming a buffer that has to be read from disk. This represents the effort to lock the buffer pool, lookup the shared hash table, read the desired block in from the disk and scan its content. The default value is 10.
vacuum_cost_page_dirty
(integer
)
The estimated cost charged when vacuum modifies a block that was previously clean. It represents the extra I/O required to flush the dirty block out to disk again. The default value is 20.
vacuum_cost_limit
(integer
)
The accumulated cost that will cause the vacuuming process to sleep. The default value is 200.
There are certain operations that hold critical locks and should
therefore complete as quickly as possible. Cost-based vacuum
delays do not occur during such operations. Therefore it is
possible that the cost accumulates far higher than the specified
limit. To avoid uselessly long delays in such cases, the actual
delay is calculated as vacuum_cost_delay
*
accumulated_balance
/
vacuum_cost_limit
with a maximum of
vacuum_cost_delay
* 4.
Beginning in PostgreSQL 8.0, there is a separate server process called the background writer, whose sole function is to issue writes of “dirty” shared buffers. The intent is that server processes handling user queries should seldom or never have to wait for a write to occur, because the background writer will do it. This arrangement also reduces the performance penalty associated with checkpoints. The background writer will continuously trickle out dirty pages to disk, so that only a few pages will need to be forced out when checkpoint time arrives, instead of the storm of dirty-buffer writes that formerly occurred at each checkpoint. However there is a net overall increase in I/O load, because where a repeatedly-dirtied page might before have been written only once per checkpoint interval, the background writer might write it several times in the same interval. In most situations a continuous low load is preferable to periodic spikes, but the parameters discussed in this subsection can be used to tune the behavior for local needs.
bgwriter_delay
(integer
)
Specifies the delay between activity rounds for the
background writer. In each round the writer issues writes
for some number of dirty buffers (controllable by the
following parameters). It then sleeps for bgwriter_delay
milliseconds, and repeats. The default value is 200. Note
that on many systems, the effective resolution of sleep
delays is 10 milliseconds; setting bgwriter_delay
to a value that is not a multiple of 10 may have the same
results as setting it to the next higher multiple of 10.
This option can be set at server start or in the
postgresql.conf
file.
bgwriter_lru_percent
(floating point
)
To reduce the probability that server processes will need to issue
their own writes, the background writer tries to write buffers that
are likely to be recycled soon. In each round, it examines up to
bgwriter_lru_percent
of the buffers that are nearest to
being recycled, and writes any that are dirty.
The default value is 1.0 (this is a percentage of the total number
of shared buffers).
This option can be set at server start or in the
postgresql.conf
file.
bgwriter_lru_maxpages
(integer
)
In each round, no more than this many buffers will be written
as a result of scanning soon-to-be-recycled buffers.
The default value is 5.
This option can be set at server start or in the
postgresql.conf
file.
bgwriter_all_percent
(floating point
)
To reduce the amount of work that will be needed at checkpoint time,
the background writer also does a circular scan through the entire
buffer pool, writing buffers that are found to be dirty.
In each round, it examines up to
bgwriter_all_percent
of the buffers for this purpose.
The default value is 0.333 (this is a percentage of the total number
of shared buffers). With the default bgwriter_delay
setting, this will allow the entire shared buffer pool to be scanned
about once per minute.
This option can be set at server start or in the
postgresql.conf
file.
bgwriter_all_maxpages
(integer
)
In each round, no more than this many buffers will be written
as a result of the scan of the entire buffer pool. (If this
limit is reached, the scan stops, and resumes at the next buffer
during the next round.)
The default value is 5.
This option can be set at server start or in the
postgresql.conf
file.
Smaller values of bgwriter_all_percent
and
bgwriter_all_maxpages
reduce the extra I/O load
caused by the background writer, but leave more work to be done
at checkpoint time. To reduce load spikes at checkpoints,
increase these two values.
Similarly, smaller values of bgwriter_lru_percent
and
bgwriter_lru_maxpages
reduce the extra I/O load
caused by the background writer, but make it more likely that server
processes will have to issue writes for themselves, delaying interactive
queries.
To disable background writing entirely,
set both maxpages
values and/or both
percent
values to zero.