2 27.1. Standard Unix Tools #
4 On most Unix platforms, PostgreSQL modifies its command title as
5 reported by ps, so that individual server processes can readily be
6 identified. A sample display is
7 $ ps auxww | grep ^postgres
8 postgres 15551 0.0 0.1 57536 7132 pts/0 S 18:02 0:00 postgres -i
9 postgres 15554 0.0 0.0 57536 1184 ? Ss 18:02 0:00 postgres: back
11 postgres 15555 0.0 0.0 57536 916 ? Ss 18:02 0:00 postgres: chec
13 postgres 15556 0.0 0.0 57536 916 ? Ss 18:02 0:00 postgres: walw
15 postgres 15557 0.0 0.0 58504 2244 ? Ss 18:02 0:00 postgres: auto
17 postgres 15582 0.0 0.0 58772 3080 ? Ss 18:04 0:00 postgres: joe
19 postgres 15606 0.0 0.0 58772 3052 ? Ss 18:07 0:00 postgres: tgl
20 regression [local] SELECT waiting
21 postgres 15610 0.0 0.0 58772 3056 ? Ss 18:07 0:00 postgres: tgl
22 regression [local] idle in transaction
24 (The appropriate invocation of ps varies across different platforms, as
25 do the details of what is shown. This example is from a recent Linux
26 system.) The first process listed here is the primary server process.
27 The command arguments shown for it are the same ones used when it was
28 launched. The next four processes are background worker processes
29 automatically launched by the primary process. (The “autovacuum
30 launcher” process will not be present if you have set the system not to
31 run autovacuum.) Each of the remaining processes is a server process
32 handling one client connection. Each such process sets its command line
34 postgres: user database host activity
36 The user, database, and (client) host items remain the same for the
37 life of the client connection, but the activity indicator changes. The
38 activity can be idle (i.e., waiting for a client command), idle in
39 transaction (waiting for client inside a BEGIN block), or a command
40 type name such as SELECT. Also, waiting is appended if the server
41 process is presently waiting on a lock held by another session. In the
42 above example we can infer that process 15606 is waiting for process
43 15610 to complete its transaction and thereby release some lock.
44 (Process 15610 must be the blocker, because there is no other active
45 session. In more complicated cases it would be necessary to look into
46 the pg_locks system view to determine who is blocking whom.)
48 If cluster_name has been configured the cluster name will also be shown
50 $ psql -c 'SHOW cluster_name'
57 postgres 27093 0.0 0.0 30096 2752 ? Ss 11:34 0:00 postgres: ser
58 ver1: background writer
61 If you have turned off update_process_title then the activity indicator
62 is not updated; the process title is set only once when a new process
63 is launched. On some platforms this saves a measurable amount of
64 per-command overhead; on others it's insignificant.
68 Solaris requires special handling. You must use /usr/ucb/ps, rather
69 than /bin/ps. You also must use two w flags, not just one. In addition,
70 your original invocation of the postgres command must have a shorter ps
71 status display than that provided by each server process. If you fail
72 to do all three things, the ps output for each server process will be
73 the original postgres command line.