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PostgreSQL 8.3.5 Documentation
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Chapter 26. Monitoring Database Activity

Table of Contents

26.1. Standard Unix Tools

26.2. The Statistics Collector

26.2.1. Statistics Collection Configuration
26.2.2. Viewing Collected Statistics

26.3. Viewing Locks

26.4. Dynamic Tracing

26.4.1. Compiling for Dynamic Tracing
26.4.2. Built-in Trace Points
26.4.3. Using Trace Points
26.4.4. Defining Trace Points

A database administrator frequently wonders, "What is the system doing right now?" This chapter discusses how to find that out.

Several tools are available for monitoring database activity and analyzing performance. Most of this chapter is devoted to describing PostgreSQL's statistics collector, but one should not neglect regular Unix monitoring programs such as ps, top, iostat, and vmstat. Also, once one has identified a poorly-performing query, further investigation might be needed using PostgreSQL's EXPLAIN command. Section 14.1 discusses EXPLAIN and other methods for understanding the behavior of an individual query.

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User Comments

Peter Henderson

16 Sep 2008 14:33:48

Analysing a busy back end process.

When a postgres back end process is running forever you can determine what it is trying to do using
select * from pg_stat_activity where procpid = thepid;

Once you have determined the process really is errant, and simply not a long running query to make management reports, you can safely terminate it using

select pg_cancel_backend(pid of query);

Thanks from the folks on IRC who helped me solve this one.

Peter Henderson.

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