Thread: Shared memory usage

Shared memory usage

From
"Max Zorloff"
Date:
Hello.

I have a postgres 8.0 and ~400mb database with lots of simple selects
using indexes.
I've installed pgpool on the system. I've set num_init_children to 5 and
here is the top output.
One of postmasters is my demon running some insert/update tasks. I see
that they all use cpu heavily, but do not use the shared memory.
shared_buffers is set to 60000, yet they use a minimal part of that. I'd
like to know why won't they use more? All the indexes and half of the
database should be in the shared memory, is it not? Or am I completely
missing what are the shared_buffers for? If so, then how do I put my
indexes and at least a part of the data into memory?

top - 00:12:35 up 50 days, 13:22,  8 users,  load average: 4.84, 9.71,
13.22
Tasks: 279 total,  10 running, 268 sleeping,   1 stopped,   0 zombie
Cpu(s): 50.0% us, 12.9% sy,  0.0% ni, 33.2% id,  1.8% wa,  0.0% hi,  2.1%
si
Mem:   6102304k total,  4206948k used,  1895356k free,   159436k buffers
Swap:  1959888k total,    12304k used,  1947584k free,  2919816k cached

   PID USER      PR  NI  VIRT  RES  SHR S %CPU %MEM    TIME+  COMMAND
11492 postgres  16   0  530m  72m  60m S   14  1.2   0:50.91 postmaster
11493 postgres  16   0  531m  72m  60m R   14  1.2   0:48.78 postmaster
11490 postgres  15   0  530m  71m  59m S   13  1.2   0:50.26 postmaster
11491 postgres  15   0  531m  75m  62m S   11  1.3   0:50.67 postmaster
11495 postgres  16   0  530m  71m  59m R   10  1.2   0:50.71 postmaster
10195 postgres  15   0  536m  84m  66m S    6  1.4   1:11.72 postmaster

postgresql.conf:

shared_buffers = 60000
work_mem = 2048
maintenance_work_mem = 256000

The rest are basically default values

Thank you in advance.

Re: Shared memory usage

From
Martijn van Oosterhout
Date:
On Sun, Aug 26, 2007 at 01:22:58AM +0400, Max Zorloff wrote:
> Hello.
>
> I have a postgres 8.0 and ~400mb database with lots of simple selects
> using indexes.
> I've installed pgpool on the system. I've set num_init_children to 5 and
> here is the top output.
> One of postmasters is my demon running some insert/update tasks. I see
> that they all use cpu heavily, but do not use the shared memory.
> shared_buffers is set to 60000, yet they use a minimal part of that. I'd
> like to know why won't they use more? All the indexes and half of the
> database should be in the shared memory, is it not? Or am I completely
> missing what are the shared_buffers for? If so, then how do I put my
> indexes and at least a part of the data into memory?

shared_memory is used for caching. It is filled as stuff is used. If
you're not using all of it that means it isn't needed. Remember, it is
not the only cache. Since your database is only 400MB it will fit
entirely inside the OS disk cache, so you really don't need much shared
memory at all.

Loading stuff into memory for the hell of it is a waste, let the system
manage the memory itself, if it needs it, it'll use it.

Have a nice day,
--
Martijn van Oosterhout   <kleptog@svana.org>   http://svana.org/kleptog/
> From each according to his ability. To each according to his ability to litigate.

Attachment

Re: Shared memory usage

From
"Max Zorloff"
Date:
On Sun, 26 Aug 2007 00:39:52 +0400, Martijn van Oosterhout
<kleptog@svana.org> wrote:

> On Sun, Aug 26, 2007 at 01:22:58AM +0400, Max Zorloff wrote:
>> Hello.
>>
>> I have a postgres 8.0 and ~400mb database with lots of simple selects
>> using indexes.
>> I've installed pgpool on the system. I've set num_init_children to 5 and
>> here is the top output.
>> One of postmasters is my demon running some insert/update tasks. I see
>> that they all use cpu heavily, but do not use the shared memory.
>> shared_buffers is set to 60000, yet they use a minimal part of that. I'd
>> like to know why won't they use more? All the indexes and half of the
>> database should be in the shared memory, is it not? Or am I completely
>> missing what are the shared_buffers for? If so, then how do I put my
>> indexes and at least a part of the data into memory?
>
> shared_memory is used for caching. It is filled as stuff is used. If
> you're not using all of it that means it isn't needed. Remember, it is
> not the only cache. Since your database is only 400MB it will fit
> entirely inside the OS disk cache, so you really don't need much shared
> memory at all.
>
> Loading stuff into memory for the hell of it is a waste, let the system
> manage the memory itself, if it needs it, it'll use it.
>
> Have a nice day,

Could it be that most of the cpu usage is from lots of fast indexed sql
queries
wrapped in sql functions?

Re: Shared memory usage

From
"Max Zorloff"
Date:
On Sun, 26 Aug 2007 00:39:52 +0400, Martijn van Oosterhout
<kleptog@svana.org> wrote:

> On Sun, Aug 26, 2007 at 01:22:58AM +0400, Max Zorloff wrote:
>> Hello.
>>
> shared_memory is used for caching. It is filled as stuff is used. If
> you're not using all of it that means it isn't needed. Remember, it is
> not the only cache. Since your database is only 400MB it will fit
> entirely inside the OS disk cache, so you really don't need much shared
> memory at all.
>
> Loading stuff into memory for the hell of it is a waste, let the system
> manage the memory itself, if it needs it, it'll use it.
>

Where do I find my OS disk cache settings? I'm using Linux.