Re: Load problems... - Mailing list pgsql-admin

> Hello Daniel,
>
>     I can't answer your specific question, but I _can_
> tell you that the gurus will probably need more information
> that you presented.
>
> 1)  What operating system and version?
Slackware linux 8.0, with the kernel upgraded to 2.4.16, stripped to the bare
bones for efficiency

> 2)  Have you tuned your OS, or is it a stock installation?
see above

> 3)  "running a medium sized (30k customers) ISP off a postgresql
>     database"  ??  Ie, you're authenticating users via PostgreSQL?
>     You're serving them webmail via PostgreSQL?  You're sniffing
>     their network traffic and stuffing it into PostgreSQL?  ;)
>     You get the idea.
Radius authentication, email authentication, customers checking their
downloads, and a banner system (we're a free isp), so probably a bit heavier
than the figures may have suggested...

> 4)  You mention that 7.2b4 runs better than before, but still
>     ends up with fork errors.  Exact error message?  How many
>     PostgreSQL processes are running when this happens?  Does
>     the user that PostgreSQL is running under have resource
>     limits?  Are they too low?  Is this server also their STMP
>     host, along with HTTP, HTTPS, FTP .. etc?  If you're
>     getting fork errors, you have too many processes running,
>     most likely.  Are your processes closing the database
>     connection when they're done with it?

[4059]   DEBUG:  connection startup failed (fork failure): Resource
temporarily unavailable
[4059]   DEBUG:  could not launch checkpoint process (fork failure): Resource
temporarily unavailable
[4059]   DEBUG:  connection startup failed (fork failure): Resource
temporarily unavailable
[4059]   DEBUG:  connection startup failed (fork failure): Resource
temporarily unavailable

etc ad nauseum
there are generally up to 200 copies of postmaster running at any given time,
but there aren't any limits imposed upon the postgres user.
The server is purely for the database and radius (which doesn't use up enough
cpu to matter)
The connections are mostly coming in via the teapop mail server, which closes
the connection when done, and php scripts, which are (at least theoretically)
using persistent connections. Radius just opens a couple of connections and
uses those exclusively.

>
> You see what I'm getting at.  :)  There are simply too many
> variables without more details.
>
> Benny