Kill -9 for a session process caused all the sessions to be killed

Hi All,

I by mistake ran a query to update a huge table with around 500000 rows and has to kill the session.

I found the process-id from the query select * from pg_stat_activity. I killed the process using Kill -9 process_id.

This caused all other sessions in the system to be killed and database was unreachable for a minute or so.

MY QUESTION: Is this normal? Why did command Kill-9 caused other sessions to be killed? What is the best way to kill a session in Postgres?

Regards,

Atul Goel

Below is the logs I could find

terminating any other active server processes

WARNING:  terminating connection because of crash of another server process

DETAIL:  The postmaster has commanded this server process to roll back the current transaction and exit, because another server process exited abnormally and possibly corrupted shared memory.

HINT:  In a moment you should be able to reconnect to the database and repeat your command.

WARNING:  terminating connection because of crash of another server process

DETAIL:  The postmaster has commanded this server process to roll back the current transaction and exit, because another server process exited abnormally and possibly corrupted shared memory.

HINT:  In a moment you should be able to reconnect to the database and repeat your command.

WARNING:  terminating connection because of crash of another server process

DETAIL:  The postmaster has commanded this server process to roll back the current transaction and exit, because another server process exited abnormally and possibly corrupted shared memory.

HINT:  In a moment you should be able to reconnect to the database and repeat your command.

WARNING:  terminating connection because of crash of another server process

DETAIL:  The postmaster has commanded this server process to roll back the current transaction and exit, because another server process exited abnormally and possibly corrupted shared memory.

HINT:  In a moment you should be able to reconnect to the database and repeat your command.

WARNING:  terminating connection because of crash of another server process

DETAIL:  The postmaster has commanded this server process to roll back the current transaction and exit, because another server process exited abnormally and possibly corrupted shared memory.

HINT:  In a moment you should be able to reconnect to the database and repeat your command.

WARNING:  terminating connection because of crash of another server process

DETAIL:  The postmaster has commanded this server process to roll back the current transaction and exit, because another server process exited abnormally and possibly corrupted shared memory.

HINT:  In a moment you should be able to reconnect to the database and repeat your command.

WARNING:  terminating connection because of crash of another server process

DETAIL:  The postmaster has commanded this server process to roll back the current transaction and exit, because another server process exited abnormally and possibly corrupted shared memory.

HINT:  In a moment you should be able to reconnect to the database and repeat your command.

WARNING:  terminating connection because of crash of another server process

DETAIL:  The postmaster has commanded this server process to roll back the current transaction and exit, because another server process exited abnormally and possibly corrupted shared memory.

HINT:  In a moment you should be able to reconnect to the database and repeat your command.

WARNING:  terminating connection because of crash of another server process

DETAIL:  The postmaster has commanded this server process to roll back the current transaction and exit, because another server process exited abnormally and possibly corrupted shared memory.

HINT:  In a moment you should be able to reconnect to the database and repeat your command.

WARNING:  terminating connection because of crash of another server process

DETAIL:  The postmaster has commanded this server process to roll back the current transaction and exit, because another server process exited abnormally and possibly corrupted shared memory.

HINT:  In a moment you should be able to reconnect to the database and repeat your command.

LOG:  all server processes terminated; reinitializing

LOG:  database system was interrupted; last known up at 2010-09-22 18:11:41 BST

LOG:  database system was not properly shut down; automatic recovery in progress

LOG:  redo starts at 9/65010CC8

LOG:  unexpected pageaddr 9/61576000 in log file 9, segment 105, offset 5726208

LOG:  redo done at 9/69574B20

LOG:  autovacuum launcher started

LOG:  database system is ready to accept connections

Atul Goel

SENIOR DEVELOPER

Global DataPoint

Middlesex House, 34-42 Cleveland Street

London W1T 4LB, UK

T: +44 (0)20 7079 4822

M: +44 (0)7846765098

www.globaldatapoint.com