Stephen Robert Norris <srn(at)commsecure(dot)com(dot)au> writes:
> 1) Open many (I used 800) database connections and leave them idle.
> 2) run: while true; do vacuum {database} ; done
> Wait. Observe db has stopped doing useful work.
Is your machine capable of supporting 800 active backends in the absence
of any vacuum processing? I'm not sure that "we're driving our server
into swapping hell" qualifies as a Postgres bug ...
If you're seeing load peaks in excess of what would be observed with
800 active queries, then I would agree there's something to investigate
here.
regards, tom lane