postgresql-admin-notes.md

Postgresql Admin Notes

psql: FATAL: database "" does not exist

If you see this for your user account, you need to create a database for your user:

$ createdb

This command with no arguments should create your user db

Changing your password

You can use the psql command

$ psql
psql> \password

... or, you can use a query

ALTER USER myuser PASSWORD 'secret';

Getting config values from database

Here's a query statement that shows all config values

$ psql -c 'show all'

You can also get individual values

$ psql -c 'show config_file'

Connecting through a tunnel

Create the SSH tunnel:

$ ssh -nNT -L 3333:ra-sam.cdko7wofihzp.us-west-2.rds.amazonaws.com:5432 deploy@w1.rpm

$ psql -h localhost -p 3333 -U postgres -W ra_sam

Pg stat statement

Tracking execution statistics for all SQL statements executed by the server

First you need to add the appropriate config to the postgresql.conf

# changed from
# #shared_preload_libraries = ''
# to:
shared_preload_libraries = 'pg_stat_statements'

Create the extention for the specific database you want to work with

$ psql mydb
> create extension pg_stat_statements;

Get the top 100 slow queries:

SELECT
  (total_time / 1000 / 60) as total_minutes,
  (total_time/calls) as average_time,
  query
FROM pg_stat_statements
ORDER BY 1 DESC
LIMIT 100;

Resetting the stats

$ psql mydb
> select pg_stat_reset();

Getting database size:

For the whole database:

SELECT datname, pg_size_pretty(pg_database_size(datname))
FROM pg_database
WHERE datname = 'ra_sam_development'
ORDER BY pg_database_size(datname) DESC;

Getting amounts for individual tables:

SELECT
  table_name as "table",
  pg_size_pretty(pg_relation_size(table_name)) as "size"
FROM information_schema.tables
WHERE table_schema = 'public'
ORDER BY pg_relation_size(table_name) DESC;

Getting index sizes

For sum of all indexes for table:

SELECT pg_size_pretty (pg_indexes_size('[schema].[table_name]'));

For breakdown of indexes:

\di+ [schema].[table_name]*

Showing long running postgres processes

https://medium.com/little-programming-joys/finding-and-killing-long-running-queries-on-postgres-7c4f0449e86d

SELECT pid, now() - pg_stat_activity.query_start AS duration, left(query, 80), state
FROM pg_stat_activity
WHERE now() - pg_stat_activity.query_start > interval '5 minutes';

What's blocking a running query

SELECT * FROM pg_blocking_pids(4711);

Kill a hung query

First find the PID of the process

SELECT pg_terminate_backend(<pid>);

PSQL queries to increase the Postgres log level

ALTER SYSTEM SET log_min_messages = 'INFO';
ALTER SYSTEM SET log_statement = 'all';
SELECT pg_reload_conf();

Killing idle sessions

Starting with Postgres 9.6, you can use the idle_in_transaction_session_timeout to set the amount of time a transaction will take before it is killed.

This query will set the time to 2.5 seconds

SET idle_in_transaction_session_timeout TO 2500;

Files

Asking the database where it keeps the log file:

This could be useful, however when I tried it the records didn't have a location for the log file on my system.

SELECT *
FROM pg_settings
WHERE category IN( 'Reporting and Logging / Where to Log' , 'File Locations')
ORDER BY category, name;

Log File

Using the Postgres.app on the Mac: ~/Library/Application\ Support/Postgres/var-9.5/postgres-server.log

Using Homebrew: /usr/local/var/log/postgres.log

Config file

You can get postgres to tell you this with the query:

SHOW CONFIG_FILE;

... or on the command line with the help of psql

$ psql -c 'show config_file'

Using the Postgres.app on the Mac: ~/Library/Application\ Support/Postgres/var-9.5/postgresql.conf

Using Homebrew: /usr/local/var/postgres/postgresql.conf

Host based authentication file

Using the Postgres.app on the Mac: ~/Library/Application\ Support/Postgres/var-9.5/pg_hba.conf

Using Homebrew: /usr/local/var/postgres/pg_hba.conf

Setting the slow query log:

Set the log_statement value to all.

Set the log_min_duration_statement statement to a number of milliseconds, say 250.

Queries that last longer than that get logged to the log file:

Setting up pgbadger for log analysis

pgbadger will analyze the log file and spit out a report with interesting information about postgres, like a list of the slowest queries.

Install:

$ brew install pgbadger

Config file settings:

Add to config file /usr/local/var/postgres/postgres.conf

log_min_duration_statement = 1
log_duration = off
log_line_prefix = '%t [%p]: [%l-1] user=%u,db=%d,app=%a,client=%h '
log_statement = 'none'

Make sure you restart the server. Run some queries and then generate the report with:

$ pgbadger /usr/local/var/log/postgres.log

The report will be an html file named out.html.

PostgreSQL's explain analyze made readable

You can use the explain.depesz.com to break down the results of an EXPLAIN ANALYZE query in a more human readable fashion.