Re: Vacuum full - disk space eaten by WAL logfiles

From: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
To: "Lee Wu" <Lwu(at)mxlogic(dot)com>
Cc: pgsql-admin(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: Re: Vacuum full - disk space eaten by WAL logfiles
Date: 2005-01-11 18:04:41
Message-ID: 1756.1105466681@sss.pgh.pa.us
Views: Raw Message | Whole Thread | Download mbox | Resend email
Thread:
Lists: pgsql-admin

"Lee Wu" <Lwu(at)mxlogic(dot)com> writes:
> On the other hand, should not PG use fix number/amount
> of LOG files like Oracle even though there may be other activities at
> the same time?

No, it certainly should not. Anyone who's admin'd an Oracle
installation will tell you what a PITA it is that Oracle keels over
and dies when you exceed the fixed log space allocation.

The real question here is why the log space isn't getting recycled in
a timely fashion.

> Postgres.log:
> Jan 8 20:15:52 mybox postgres[8037]: [73] LOG: recycled transaction
> log file 00001AB100000060
> all other recycling transaction log ...
> Jan 8 20:15:52 mybox postgres[8037]: [74] LOG: removing transaction
> log file 00001AB100000061
> all other removing transaction log ...
> Jan 8 20:17:27 mybox postgres[8213]: [13] LOG: recycled transaction
> log file 00001AB2000000A3
> all other recycling transaction log ...
> Jan 8 20:17:42 mybox postgres[8213]: [74] LOG: removing transaction
> log file 00001AB200000077
> all other removing transaction log ...
> Jan 8 20:25:33 mybox postgres[1602]: [13] PANIC: ZeroFill failed to
> write /my/pg_xlog/xlogtemp.1602: No space left on device
> Jan 8 20:25:35 mybox postgres[8213]: [163] LOG: removing transaction
> log file 00001AB2000000EC
> Jan 8 20:25:35 mybox postgres[1602]: [14-1] LOG: statement: COPY
> table1 (domain, domain_id, customer_id, action_unspecified,
> action_unknown,
> Jan 8 20:25:35 mybox postgres[8213]: [164] LOG: removing transaction
> log file 00001AB2000000ED
> Jan 8 20:25:35 mybox postgres[8213]: [165] LOG: removing transaction
> log file 00001AB2000000EE
> Jan 8 20:25:35 mybox postgres[1602]: [14-2] action_none, action_deny,
> action_fail, action_strip, action_tag, action_quarantine, action_clean,
> action_copy, action_allow,

Hmm. You seem to have removed all the evidence about the interesting
question, which is what process 8213 (which was evidently doing a
checkpoint) was doing between 20:17:42 and 20:25:35.

Also, what postgresql.conf parameters are you using? The mix
of "removing" and "recycling" operations seems a bit odd.

regards, tom lane

In response to

Browse pgsql-admin by date

  From Date Subject
Next Message Christian Fowler 2005-01-11 18:05:04 Assimilation of these "versus" and hardware threads
Previous Message Lee Wu 2005-01-11 15:53:08 Re: Vacuum full - disk space eaten by WAL logfiles