Re: Increase in max_connections - Mailing list pgsql-general

Hi all,

We're running postgres 9.3.2, server configuration below. 

Seemingly randomly, we will see the number of active queries in postgres go up until we hit max_connections. The DB will recover after a few minutes.

We had the issue a couple of times in Feb 2014. We then upgraded the postgres server from 9.1 to 9.3.2, and the occurrence has gone up significantly – to several times a day. 

The user CPU goes up as well to a 100%, no increase in I/O or system CPU.

We have slow query logging, and there is no dramatic change in the slow queries either. 

There is a corresponding spike in shared locks, but that seems to be an effect not a cause – it corresponds to an increase in the number of running processes at the time.

We had a similar issue in the past – that was solved by disabling transparent_huge_pages – but the difference there was that we'd see queries slow down dramatically. Currently, we don't. Also, transparent_huge_pages is still disabled.

I do realize the issue would be caused by a spurt in incoming connections – we do not yet have conclusive evidence on whether that's happening (active queries climbs up, however no conclusive proof on whether thats because of slow down, or because of increase in traffic). Working on getting the information, will update with that information as soon as we have it.

I thought I'd send a post out to the group before then, to see if anyone has run into anything similar.

Thanks,

Karthik

site=# SELECT version();

PostgreSQL 9.3.2 on x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, compiled by gcc (GCC) 4.4.6 20120305 (Red Hat 4.4.6-4), 64-bit

site=# SELECT name, current_setting(name), source

site-#   FROM pg_settings

site-#   WHERE source NOT IN ('default', 'override');

application_name|psql|client

archive_command|/usr/bin/archiver.sh %f %p|configuration file

archive_mode|on|configuration file

autovacuum_freeze_max_age|250000000|configuration file

autovacuum_max_workers|6|configuration file

bgwriter_lru_maxpages|1000|configuration file

bgwriter_lru_multiplier|4|configuration file

checkpoint_completion_target|0.8|configuration file

checkpoint_segments|250|configuration file

checkpoint_timeout|15min|configuration file

checkpoint_warning|6min|configuration file

client_encoding|UTF8|client

commit_siblings|25|configuration file

cpu_tuple_cost|0.03|configuration file

DateStyle|ISO, MDY|configuration file

default_statistics_target|300|configuration file

default_text_search_config|pg_catalog.english|configuration file

effective_cache_size|568GB|configuration file

fsync|on|configuration file

lc_messages|en_US.UTF-8|configuration file

lc_monetary|en_US.UTF-8|configuration file

lc_numeric|en_US.UTF-8|configuration file

lc_time|en_US.UTF-8|configuration file

listen_addresses|*|configuration file

log_autovacuum_min_duration|0|configuration file

log_checkpoints|on|configuration file

log_connections|on|configuration file

log_destination|syslog|configuration file

log_directory|pg_log|configuration file

log_filename|postgresql-%a.log|configuration file

log_line_prefix|user=%u,db=%d,ip=%h |configuration file

log_min_duration_statement|100ms|configuration file

log_min_messages|debug1|configuration file

log_rotation_age|1d|configuration file

log_rotation_size|0|configuration file

log_timezone|US/Pacific|configuration file

log_truncate_on_rotation|on|configuration file

logging_collector|off|configuration file

maintenance_work_mem|1GB|configuration file

max_connections|1500|configuration file

max_locks_per_transaction|1000|configuration file

max_stack_depth|2MB|environment variable

max_wal_senders|5|configuration file

port|5432|command line

random_page_cost|2|configuration file

shared_buffers|8GB|configuration file

synchronous_commit|off|configuration file

syslog_facility|local0|configuration file

syslog_ident|postgres|configuration file

TimeZone|US/Pacific|configuration file

vacuum_freeze_table_age|0|configuration file

wal_buffers|32MB|configuration file

wal_keep_segments|250|configuration file

wal_level|hot_standby|configuration file

wal_sync_method|fsync|configuration file

work_mem|130MB|configuration file