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3 Before we proceed, you should understand the basic
4 <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> system architecture.
5 Understanding how the parts of
6 <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> interact will make this
7 chapter somewhat clearer.
9 In database jargon, <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> uses a
10 client/server model. A <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span>
11 session consists of the following cooperating processes
14 </p><div class="itemizedlist"><ul class="itemizedlist" style="list-style-type: disc; "><li class="listitem"><p>
15 A server process, which manages the database files, accepts
16 connections to the database from client applications, and
17 performs database actions on behalf of the clients. The
18 database server program is called
19 <code class="filename">postgres</code>.
20 <a id="id-1.4.3.3.3.3.1.1.2" class="indexterm"></a>
21 </p></li><li class="listitem"><p>
22 The user's client (frontend) application that wants to perform
23 database operations. Client applications can be very diverse
24 in nature: a client could be a text-oriented tool, a graphical
25 application, a web server that accesses the database to
26 display web pages, or a specialized database maintenance tool.
27 Some client applications are supplied with the
28 <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> distribution; most are
30 </p></li></ul></div><p>
32 As is typical of client/server applications, the client and the
33 server can be on different hosts. In that case they communicate
34 over a TCP/IP network connection. You should keep this in mind,
35 because the files that can be accessed on a client machine might
36 not be accessible (or might only be accessible using a different
37 file name) on the database server machine.
39 The <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span> server can handle
40 multiple concurrent connections from clients. To achieve this it
41 starts (<span class="quote">“<span class="quote">forks</span>”</span>) a new process for each connection.
42 From that point on, the client and the new server process
43 communicate without intervention by the original
44 <code class="filename">postgres</code> process. Thus, the
45 supervisor server process is always running, waiting for
46 client connections, whereas client and associated server processes
47 come and go. (All of this is of course invisible to the user. We
48 only mention it here for completeness.)
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