pgsql-bugs(at)postgresql(dot)org writes:
> We noticed that doing a pg_dump was taking longer and longer to perform when doing data backup. For this and other reasons, we began doing backup by stopping the server and tarring the data directory. Now, we are trying to upgrade to 7.2.1 and we find that we must do a pg_dump of our data to restore properly, but running pg_dump now causes all available resources to be used up with no output until the system locks up.
> We run postgresql 7.1 on RedHat Linux 7.3
Try using 7.2's pg_dump.
regards, tom lane