Re: Background writer memory bloat?

Peter Eisentraut  writes:
> I'm seeing a background writer process in an 8.0.8 installation that uses 1.6
> GB of main memory, and ps shows that it has used an unreasonable amount of 
> CPU time so far.  It seems that the machine was under heavy load just before 
> I got to it; maybe that is cause?  Has anyone seen this sort of memory bloat 
> on the background writer process?

Are you sure it's bloat, and not just a reflection of the fact that it's
touched every page of the shared buffers over its lifespan?  Some OSes
(you did not say what this is) report a process' memory size as
including only those pages of shared memory it's touched.

			regards, tom lane