Vacuum full - disk space eaten by WAL logfiles - Mailing list pgsql-admin

Hi all,

When we do weekly “vacuum full”, PG uses all space and causes PG down.

checkpoint_segments            | 30

checkpoint_timeout                | 300

select version();

                           version

-------------------------------------------------------------

 PostgreSQL 7.3.2 on i686-pc-linux-gnu, compiled by GCC 2.96

The error message is:

Jan  8 20:25:33 mybox postgres[1602]: [13] PANIC:  ZeroFill failed to write /my/pg_xlog/xlogtemp.1602: No space left on device

Jan  8 20:25:35 mybox postgres[8213]: [163] LOG:  removing transaction log file 00001AB2000000EC

Jan  8 20:25:35 mybox postgres[1602]: [14-1] LOG:  statement: COPY xxxxx (domain, domain_id, customer_id, action_unspecified, action_unknown,

Jan  8 20:25:35 mybox postgres[8213]: [164] LOG:  removing transaction log file 00001AB2000000ED

Jan  8 20:25:35 mybox postgres[8213]: [165] LOG:  removing transaction log file 00001AB2000000EE

Jan  8 20:25:35 mybox postgres[1602]: [14-2]  action_none, action_deny, action_fail, action_strip, action_tag, action_quarantine, action_clean, action_copy, action_allow,

Jan  8 20:25:35 mybox postgres[8213]: [166] LOG:  removing transaction log file 00001AB2000000F0

Jan  8 20:25:35 mybox postgres[1602]: [14-3]  module, period, created) FROM stdin

Jan  8 20:25:35 mybox postgres[8213]: [167] LOG:  removing transaction log file 00001AB2000000F1

Jan  8 20:25:35 mybox postgres[8213]: [168] LOG:  removing transaction log file 00001AB2000000F2

Jan  8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[8213]: [169] LOG:  removing transaction log file 00001AB2000000F3

Jan  8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[8213]: [170] LOG:  removing transaction log file 00001AB2000000F4

Jan  8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[8213]: [171] LOG:  removing transaction log file 00001AB2000000F5

Jan  8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[862]: [13] LOG:  server process (pid 1602) was terminated by signal 6

Jan  8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[862]: [14] LOG:  terminating any other active server processes

Jan  8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[8601]: [13-1] WARNING:  copy: line 1, Message from PostgreSQL backend:

Jan  8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[8601]: [13-2] ^IThe Postmaster has informed me that some other backend

Jan  8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[8601]: [13-3] ^Idied abnormally and possibly corrupted shared memory.

Jan  8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[8601]: [13-4] ^II have rolled back the current transaction and am

Jan  8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[7284]: [13-1] WARNING:  Message from PostgreSQL backend:

Jan  8 20:25:36 mybox postgres[3658]: [13-1] WARNING:  Message from PostgreSQL backend:

When the error is happening, we see at one time, there are 563 WAL files under pg_xlog. My understanding is we should expect

61 WAL files, each 16M.

Our /my/pg_xlog is 10G partition and typically has 8G left.

The table size of being vacuumed full is 35G.

What can I do to fix this mess??

Regards,