Hi.
1. Those are temp files on the destination node (where the logical subscription exists and tablesync worker runs), not on the source. On the source, it’s all clear.
2. No “spill” suffix/substring in the file names. I tried to look at the content of these temp files, I I saw some text fragments from the original table’s text column there. I.e. it looks like for some reason, the stream received from the source node’s COPY command goes to that temp files (at least partially).
3. I made several more experiments, increasing work_mem to several GB (for the role which tablesync worker uses when copying) definitely helps with temp files.
Thanks!
On Sun, Feb 2, 2025 at 5:13 PM Dmitry Koterov <dmitry.koterov@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Trying to monitor perf during the initial tablesync phase (COPY) right after CREATE SUBSCRIPTION. I noticed that the size of 17/main/base/pgsql_tmp on the destination node grows (tens of gigabytes) as the COPY command (running internally on the publisher) progresses. Then in the end (when its "EXPLAIN SELECT 1 FROM tbl" on the destination shows the approximate number of rows equals to the number of rows on the source node) it hangs for several minutes, and then 17/main/base/pgsql_tmp empties, and the subscription progresses.
>
> It seems like if I increase work_mem to several GB, then the growth of 17/main/base/pgsql_tmp becomes less significant.
>
> Questions:
>
> 1. Are there some diagnostics commands that would allow me to figure out what is in those tmp files? Why does the subscriber create those tmp files and not just write directly to the data files and WAL? (The table has 2 bytea columns, i.e. it's TOASTed for sure.)
>
We do write spill files (ending with '.spill') if the changes are
large. Can you please share the name of tmp files to avoid any
assumptions?
--
With Regards,
Amit Kapila.
