Horton

Thread

Commits

  1. Remove outdated recommendation for manual VACUUM

  1. Remove recommendation for nightly VACUUM

    Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at> — 2022-06-27T06:31:46Z

    A customer recently pointed me to
https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-vacuum.html
and asked if I agree with the statement there that a nightly
scheduled VACUUM were a good idea:

"We recommend that active production databases be vacuumed frequently
 (at least nightly), in order to remove dead rows. After adding or
 deleting a large number of rows, it might be a good idea to issue a
 VACUUM ANALYZE command for the affected table. This will update the
 system catalogs with the results of all recent changes, and allow the
 PostgreSQL query planner to make better choices in planning queries."

Looking at the Git history, most of that paragraph is from a time
when autovacuum did not yet exist or was much less reliable than it
is now.  So I suggest removing all that and pointing to autovacuum
instead, as done in the attached patch.

Yours,
Laurenz Albe

  2. Re: Remove recommendation for nightly VACUUM

    Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net> — 2022-06-27T08:31:43Z

    On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 8:31 AM Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at>
wrote:

> A customer recently pointed me to
> https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-vacuum.html
> and asked if I agree with the statement there that a nightly
> scheduled VACUUM were a good idea:
>
> "We recommend that active production databases be vacuumed frequently
>  (at least nightly), in order to remove dead rows. After adding or
>  deleting a large number of rows, it might be a good idea to issue a
>  VACUUM ANALYZE command for the affected table. This will update the
>  system catalogs with the results of all recent changes, and allow the
>  PostgreSQL query planner to make better choices in planning queries."
>
> Looking at the Git history, most of that paragraph is from a time
> when autovacuum did not yet exist or was much less reliable than it
> is now.  So I suggest removing all that and pointing to autovacuum
> instead, as done in the attached patch.
>

Agred. A nightly vacuum is definitely not something for "most people"
anymore.

But also. "active production databases". Surely we recommend regular vacuum
in *all* databases when it's primarily driven by autovacuum? At least all
active. But there's nothing special about "production"? Since we're
tweaking the wording, I would suggest removing that reference as well.

-- 
 Magnus Hagander
 Me: https://www.hagander.net/ <http://www.hagander.net/>
 Work: https://www.redpill-linpro.com/ <http://www.redpill-linpro.com/>

  3. Re: Remove recommendation for nightly VACUUM

    Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at> — 2022-06-27T08:52:19Z

    On Mon, 2022-06-27 at 10:31 +0200, Magnus Hagander wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 8:31 AM Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at> wrote:
> > A customer recently pointed me to
> > https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/sql-vacuum.html
> > and asked if I agree with the statement there that a nightly
> > scheduled VACUUM were a good idea:
> 
> Agred. A nightly vacuum is definitely not something for "most people" anymore.
> 
> But also. "active production databases". Surely we recommend regular vacuum in *all*
> databases when it's primarily driven by autovacuum? At least all active. But
> there's nothing special about "production"? Since we're tweaking the wording,
> I would suggest removing that reference as well.

You are right.  Done in the attached.

Yours,
Laurenz Albe

  4. Re: Remove recommendation for nightly VACUUM

    Peter Geoghegan <pg@bowt.ie> — 2022-06-27T15:35:35Z

    On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 1:32 AM Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net> wrote:
>> Looking at the Git history, most of that paragraph is from a time
>> when autovacuum did not yet exist or was much less reliable than it
>> is now.  So I suggest removing all that and pointing to autovacuum
>> instead, as done in the attached patch.
>
>
> Agred. A nightly vacuum is definitely not something for "most people" anymore.

+1.

The VACUUM documentation needs to be totally overhauled. This is a start.

-- 
Peter Geoghegan

  5. Re: Remove recommendation for nightly VACUUM

    Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net> — 2022-06-27T17:48:39Z

    On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 5:36 PM Peter Geoghegan <pg@bowt.ie> wrote:

> On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 1:32 AM Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net>
> wrote:
> >> Looking at the Git history, most of that paragraph is from a time
> >> when autovacuum did not yet exist or was much less reliable than it
> >> is now.  So I suggest removing all that and pointing to autovacuum
> >> instead, as done in the attached patch.
> >
> >
> > Agred. A nightly vacuum is definitely not something for "most people"
> anymore.
>
> +1.
>
> The VACUUM documentation needs to be totally overhauled. This is a start.
>

Agred, let's do partial improvement and not wait for a rewrite. Thus,
applied! Thanks!

-- 
 Magnus Hagander
 Me: https://www.hagander.net/ <http://www.hagander.net/>
 Work: https://www.redpill-linpro.com/ <http://www.redpill-linpro.com/>

  6. Re: Remove recommendation for nightly VACUUM

    Laurenz Albe <laurenz.albe@cybertec.at> — 2022-06-27T20:06:42Z

    On Mon, 2022-06-27 at 19:48 +0200, Magnus Hagander wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 5:36 PM Peter Geoghegan <pg@bowt.ie> wrote:
> > On Mon, Jun 27, 2022 at 1:32 AM Magnus Hagander <magnus@hagander.net> wrote:
> > > > Looking at the Git history, most of that paragraph is from a time
> > > > when autovacuum did not yet exist or was much less reliable than it
> > > > is now.  So I suggest removing all that and pointing to autovacuum
> > > > instead, as done in the attached patch.
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Agred. A nightly vacuum is definitely not something for "most people" anymore.
> > 
> > +1.
> > 
> > The VACUUM documentation needs to be totally overhauled. This is a start.
> 
> Agred, let's do partial improvement and not wait for a rewrite. Thus, applied! Thanks!

Thanks!

Laurenz Albe