Re: Vacuuming

On Fri, Feb 12, 2010 at 7:32 PM, <peter(at)vfemail(dot)net> wrote:
>
> There's a script running on my server hosting a PostgreSQL database that does some type of vacuuming routine every Friday at 5:00 p.m.  Specifically, the script executes this command:
>
>     psql -d database_name -c "vacuum full verbose"
>
> and e-mails the verbose output to me.  Today's report today contains about 900,000 characters.
>
> I don't event know where to begin reading that report, interpreting what it's telling me, determining what's important, or ascertaining what's routing and unimportant.
>
> Can anybody give me any guidance or point me to a document that I should read to understand what the PostgreSQL vacuum does and why this is an important function and how to decipher the verbose output?
>

You should never run VACUUM FULL on a regular basis. In fact, it's
recommended never to use FULL.
See: http://wiki.postgresql.org/wiki/VACUUM_FULL