Re: Return of the Solaris vacuum polling problem -- anyone remember this?

Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com>

From: Josh Berkus <josh@agliodbs.com>
To: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Cc: PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Date: 2010-08-18T19:02:34Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
> On further reflection, though: since we put in the BufferAccessStrategy
> code, which was in 8.3, the background writer isn't *supposed* to be
> very much involved in writing pages that are dirtied by VACUUM.  VACUUM
> runs in a small ring of buffers and is supposed to have to clean its own
> dirt most of the time.  So it's wrong to blame this on the bgwriter not
> holding up its end.  Rather, what you need to be thinking about is how
> come vacuum seems to be making lots of pages dirty on only one of these
> machines.

This is an anti-wraparound vacuum, so it could have something to do with
the hint bits.  Maybe it's setting the freeze bit on every page, and
writing them one page at a time?  Still don't understand the call to
pollsys, even so, though.

-- 
                                  -- Josh Berkus
                                     PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
                                     http://www.pgexperts.com