8.3rc1 Out of memory when performing update

A simple update query, over roughly 17 million rows, populating a newly added column in a table, resulted in an out of memory error when the process memory usage reached 2GB. Could this be due to a poor choice of some configuration parameter, or is there a limit on how many rows I can update in a single statement?

Log:
...
2008-01-25 09:42:08.119 NZDT [3432]: [1-1] LOG: checkpoint starting: time
2008-01-25 09:42:08.697 NZDT [3432]: [2-1] LOG: checkpoint complete: wrote 2 buffers (0.0%); 0 transaction log file(s) added, 0 removed, 0 recycled; write=0.218 s, sync=0.047 s, total=0.578 s
...
2008-01-25 10:44:49.011 NZDT [3824]: [1-1] LOG: connection received: host=(removed) port=3207
2008-01-25 10:44:49.042 NZDT [3824]: [2-1] LOG: connection authorized: user=postgres database=(removed)
2008-01-25 10:52:08.204 NZDT [3432]: [3-1] LOG: checkpoint starting: time
2008-01-25 10:52:39.673 NZDT [3432]: [4-1] LOG: checkpoint complete: wrote 275 buffers (6.7%); 1 transaction log file(s) added, 0 removed, 0 recycled; write=27.078 s, sync=1.485 s, total=31.407 s
2008-01-25 11:02:08.055 NZDT [3432]: [5-1] LOG: checkpoint starting: time
2008-01-25 11:02:32.759 NZDT [3432]: [6-1] LOG: checkpoint complete: wrote 222 buffers (5.4%); 0 transaction log file(s) added, 0 removed, 69 recycled; write=22.766 s, sync=0.968 s, total=24.704 s
2008-01-25 11:12:08.344 NZDT [3432]: [7-1] LOG: checkpoint starting: time
2008-01-25 11:12:38.423 NZDT [3432]: [8-1] LOG: checkpoint complete: wrote 268 buffers (6.5%); 0 transaction log file(s) added, 0 removed, 77 recycled; write=27.875 s, sync=1.312 s, total=30.094 s
2008-01-25 11:22:08.088 NZDT [3432]: [9-1] LOG: checkpoint starting: time
2008-01-25 11:22:29.526 NZDT [3432]: [10-1] LOG: checkpoint complete: wrote 188 buffers (4.6%); 0 transaction log file(s) added, 0 removed, 48 recycled; write=18.155 s, sync=1.391 s, total=21.312 s
2008-01-25 11:32:08.362 NZDT [3432]: [11-1] LOG: checkpoint starting: time
2008-01-25 11:33:21.706 NZDT [3432]: [12-1] LOG: checkpoint complete: wrote 672 buffers (16.4%); 0 transaction log file(s) added, 0 removed, 59 recycled; write=70.423 s, sync=1.562 s, total=73.375 s
2008-01-25 11:42:08.244 NZDT [3432]: [13-1] LOG: checkpoint starting: time
2008-01-25 11:42:27.010 NZDT [3432]: [14-1] LOG: checkpoint complete: wrote 175 buffers (4.3%); 0 transaction log file(s) added, 0 removed, 51 recycled; write=17.077 s, sync=1.204 s, total=18.813 s
2008-01-25 11:52:08.299 NZDT [3432]: [15-1] LOG: checkpoint starting: time
2008-01-25 11:52:33.627 NZDT [3432]: [16-1] LOG: checkpoint complete: wrote 233 buffers (5.7%); 0 transaction log file(s) added, 0 removed, 64 recycled; write=23.328 s, sync=1.468 s, total=25.391 s
TopMemoryContext: 49816 total in 6 blocks; 5656 free (6 chunks); 44160 used
RI compare cache: 8192 total in 1 blocks; 1800 free (0 chunks); 6392 used
RI query cache: 8192 total in 1 blocks; 5968 free (0 chunks); 2224 used
TopTransactionContext: 8192 total in 1 blocks; 7792 free (0 chunks); 400 used
Operator class cache: 8192 total in 1 blocks; 3848 free (0 chunks); 4344 used
Operator lookup cache: 24576 total in 2 blocks; 14072 free (6 chunks); 10504 used
MessageContext: 40960 total in 3 blocks; 19960 free (5 chunks); 21000 used
smgr relation table: 8192 total in 1 blocks; 2808 free (0 chunks); 5384 used
TransactionAbortContext: 32768 total in 1 blocks; 32752 free (0 chunks); 16 used
Portal hash: 8192 total in 1 blocks; 3912 free (0 chunks); 4280 used
PortalMemory: 8192 total in 1 blocks; 8040 free (0 chunks); 152 used
PortalHeapMemory: 1024 total in 1 blocks; 760 free (0 chunks); 264 used
ExecutorState: 2044715008 total in 270 blocks; 21056 free (262 chunks); 2044693952 used
ExprContext: 0 total in 0 blocks; 0 free (0 chunks); 0 used
ExprContext: 0 total in 0 blocks; 0 free (0 chunks); 0 used
ExprContext: 0 total in 0 blocks; 0 free (0 chunks); 0 used
ExprContext: 0 total in 0 blocks; 0 free (0 chunks); 0 used
Relcache by OID: 8192 total in 1 blocks; 3376 free (0 chunks); 4816 used
CacheMemoryContext: 667472 total in 20 blocks; 182800 free (1 chunks); 484672 used
location_ix: 1024 total in 1 blocks; 304 free (0 chunks); 720 used
... [Cut 58 indexes with very similar lines to the above, to save space]
MdSmgr: 8192 total in 1 blocks; 7240 free (0 chunks); 952 used
LOCALLOCK hash: 8192 total in 1 blocks; 3912 free (0 chunks); 4280 used
Timezones: 49432 total in 2 blocks; 5968 free (0 chunks); 43464 used
ErrorContext: 8192 total in 1 blocks; 8176 free (3 chunks); 16 used
2008-01-25 11:53:10.315 NZDT [3824]: [3-1] ERROR: out of memory
2008-01-25 11:53:10.362 NZDT [3824]: [4-1] DETAIL: Failed on request of size 28.
2008-01-25 11:53:10.362 NZDT [3824]: [5-1] STATEMENT: UPDATE document_file SET document_type_id = (SELECT document_type_id FROM document d where d.id = document_id);
2008-01-25 12:00:53.571 NZDT [3604]: [1-1] LOG: connection received: host=(removed) port=3399
2008-01-25 12:00:54.274 NZDT [3604]: [2-1] LOG: connection authorized: user=postgres database=(removed)
2008-01-25 12:00:55.727 NZDT [3604]: [3-1] LOG: duration: 1264.999 ms statement: SET DateStyle=ISO;SELECT oid, pg_encoding_to_char(encoding) AS encoding, datlastsysoid
FROM pg_database WHERE oid = 16466
2008-01-25 12:02:08.322 NZDT [3432]: [17-1] LOG: checkpoint starting: time
2008-01-25 12:07:03.591 NZDT [3432]: [18-1] LOG: checkpoint complete: wrote 2784 buffers (68.0%); 0 transaction log file(s) added, 0 removed, 92 recycled; write=292.488 s, sync=1.515 s, total=295.473 s
2008-01-25 12:10:07.031 NZDT [3604]: [4-1] LOG: duration: 539646.999 ms statement: select count(*) from document_file;
2008-01-25 12:12:08.048 NZDT [3432]: [19-1] LOG: checkpoint starting: time
2008-01-25 12:15:22.176 NZDT [3432]: [20-1] LOG: checkpoint complete: wrote 949 buffers (23.2%); 0 transaction log file(s) added, 0 removed, 8 recycled; write=193.097 s, sync=0.936 s, total=194.127 s

Environment:
OS: Windows XP
PostgreSQL: 8.3RC1

Non default Resource and WAL configuration settings:
shared_buffers = 32MB
max_fsm_pages = 204800
checkpoint_segments = 300
checkpoint_timeout = 10min

The previous query (not logged due to log_min_duration_statement = 500) had been:
ALTER TABLE document_file ADD document_type_id integer;

The query plan:
Seq Scan on document_file (cost=0.00..280337907.00 rows=27619541 width=617)
SubPlan
-> Index Scan using pk_document_id on document d (cost=0.00..10.12 rows=1 width=4)
Index Cond: (id = $0)

Stephen Denne

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