Vacuum full - disk space eaten by WAL logfiles

Hi all,

When we do weekly "vacuum full", PG uses all space and causes PG down.

checkpoint_segments | 30

checkpoint_timeout | 300

select version();

version

-------------------------------------------------------------

PostgreSQL 7.3.2 on i686-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by GCC 2.96

The error message is:

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 xxxxx
(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,

Jan 8 20:25:35 mybox postgres[8213]: [166] LOG: removing transaction
log file 00001AB2000000F0

Jan 8 20:25:35 mybox postgres[1602]: [14-3] module, period, created)
FROM stdin

Jan 8 20:25:35 mybox postgres[8213]: [167] LOG: removing transaction
log file 00001AB2000000F1

Jan 8 20:25:35 mybox postgres[8213]: [168] LOG: removing transaction
log file 00001AB2000000F2

Jan 8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[8213]: [169] LOG: removing transaction
log file 00001AB2000000F3

Jan 8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[8213]: [170] LOG: removing transaction
log file 00001AB2000000F4

Jan 8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[8213]: [171] LOG: removing transaction
log file 00001AB2000000F5

Jan 8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[862]: [13] LOG: server process (pid
1602) was terminated by signal 6

Jan 8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[862]: [14] LOG: terminating any other
active server processes

Jan 8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[8601]: [13-1] WARNING: copy: line 1,
Message from PostgreSQL backend:

Jan 8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[8601]: [13-2] ^IThe Postmaster has
informed me that some other backend

Jan 8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[8601]: [13-3] ^Idied abnormally and
possibly corrupted shared memory.

Jan 8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[8601]: [13-4] ^II have rolled back the
current transaction and am

Jan 8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[7284]: [13-1] WARNING: Message from
PostgreSQL backend:

Jan 8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[3658]: [13-1] WARNING: Message from
PostgreSQL backend:

When the error is happening, we see at one time, there are 563 WAL files
under pg_xlog. My understanding is we should expect

61 WAL files, each 16M.

Our /my/pg_xlog is 10G partition and typically has 8G left.

The table size of being vacuumed full is 35G.

What can I do to fix this mess??

Regards,