Re: pg_prewarm - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

From Dimitri Fontaine
Subject Re: pg_prewarm
Date
Msg-id 878vj9lxd7.fsf@hi-media-techno.com
Whole thread Raw
In response to pg_prewarm  (Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>)
Responses Re: pg_prewarm  (Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>)
List pgsql-hackers
Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> It's been bugging me for a while now that we don't have a prewarming
> utility, for a couple of reasons, including:
>
> 1. Our customers look at me funny when I suggest that they use
> pg_relation_filepath() and /bin/dd for this purpose.

Try telling them about pgfincore maybe.
 https://github.com/klando/pgfincore

> 2. Sometimes when I'm benchmarking stuff, I want to get all the data
> cached in shared_buffers.  This is surprisingly hard to do if the size
> of any relation involved is >=1/4 of shared buffers, because the
> BAS_BULKREAD stuff kicks in.  You can do it by repeatedly seq-scanning
> the relation - eventually all the blocks trickle in - but it takes a
> long time, and that's annoying.

That reminds me of something…
cedric=# select * from pgfadvise_willneed('pgbench_accounts');      relpath       | os_page_size | rel_os_pages |
os_pages_free--------------------+--------------+--------------+---------------base/11874/16447   |         4096 |
262144 |        169138 base/11874/16447.1 |         4096 |        65726 |        103352(2 rows) 
Time: 4462,936 ms

With pgfincore you can also get at how many pages are in memory already,
os cache or shared buffers, per file segment of a relation.  So you can
both force warming up a whole relation, parts of it, and check the
current state of things.

> So I wrote a prewarming utility.  Patch is attached.  You can prewarm
> either the OS cache or PostgreSQL's cache, and there are two options
> for prewarming the OS cache to meet different needs.  By passing the
> correct arguments to the function, you can prewarm an entire relation
> or just the blocks you choose; prewarming of blocks from alternate
> relation forks is also supported, for completeness.

Is it possible with your tool to snapshot the OS and PostgreSQL cache in
order to warm an Hot Standby server?

Regards,
--
Dimitri Fontaine
http://2ndQuadrant.fr     PostgreSQL : Expertise, Formation et Support


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