Re: OSDL DBT-2 w/ PostgreSQL 7.3.4 and 7.4beta5

markw@osdl.org wrote:

>Results from 7.4beta5
>    http://developer.osdl.org/markw/dbt2-pgsql/188/
>    - metric 1446.01
>  
>

CPU: P4 / Xeon with 2 hyper-threads, speed 1497.51 MHz (estimated)
Counted GLOBAL_POWER_EVENTS events (time during which processor is not stopped) with a unit mask of 0x01 (count cycles
whenprocessor is active) count 100000
 
samples  %        app name                 symbol name
15369575  9.6780  postgres                 SearchCatCache
13714258  8.6357  vmlinux                  .text.lock.signal
10611912  6.6822  vmlinux                  do_sigaction
4400461   2.7709  vmlinux                  rm_from_queue

18% cpu time in the kernel signal handlers.

What are signals used for by postgres? I've seen the sigalarm to 
implement timeouts, what else?

--   Manfred