Re: BUG #14963: Number of wal files are keep on increasing - Mailing list pgsql-bugs

Raghavendra :

On Tue, Dec 12, 2017 at 9:52 AM, Raghavendra Rao J S V
<raghavendrajsv@gmail.com> wrote:
> Below error is there in several times in log file.
> WARNING,01000,"archive_mode enabled, yet archive_command is not
> set",,,,,,,,,""

This tells it all.

Archive mode tells postgres you want to keep all the log files, for
backup purposes or building standby or whatever.

To implement this postgres calls your archive_command to copy the log
files, and if it fails logs and KEEPS the file, assuming it will
succeed later, but it doesn't delete them, as postgres tries very hard
to avoid loosing any data.

In your case you should probably disable archive mode, since you are
not archiving. Or maybe implement archive command ( see the section on
archiving on the docs ).

Also note your are hitting this behaviour for archive_command,
explicitly written in the docs: "If archive_command is an empty string
(the default) while archive_mode is enabled, WAL archiving is
temporarily disabled, but the server continues to accumulate WAL
segment files in the expectation that a command will soon be provided.
"

This is for situation like a change in log storage, postgres
accumulates logs until you finish the switch, then you restart with a
new working archive command and all the logs are copied and deleted.

Francisco Olarte.