Paul,
> I would like to know what /etc/system and postgresql_conf values are
> recommended to deliver as much system resource as possible to Postgres. We
> use this Sun box solely for single user Postgres data warehousing
> workloads.
What's your disk system?
> shared_buffers = 500000
This is highly unlikely to be optimal. That's 3GB. On test linux systems
up to 8GB, we've not seen useful values of shared buffers anywhere above
400mb. How did you arrive at that figure?
> sort_mem = 2097152
> vacuum_mem = 1000000
These could be fine on a single-user system. sort_mem is per *sort* though,
not per query, so you'd need to watch out for complex queries spillling into
swap; perhaps set it a 0.5GB or 1GB?
Otherwise, start with the config guide at www.powerpostgresql.com/PerfList
--
Josh Berkus
Aglio Database Solutions
San Francisco