Glen Parker wrote:
>> I wonder if the simple solution is to just have a cron script modify
>> postgresql.conf and pg_ctl reload. That seems very flexible, or have
>> two postgresql.conf files and move them into place via cron.
>
> I'd still prefer to vacuum on demand actually. Rather than hope that
> autovacuum hit all the nastiest tables, I'd like to be able to record
> the fact that tables (x,y,z) were vacuumed and how long it took. I want
> the logic autovacuum uses to determine if a table needs vacuuming, but
> I'd rather do the actual vacuuming myself.
>
> I'd also like to use some of this information to issue reindex and
> cluster commands only when they're needed. In fact, on days when I
> cluster, there's no need whatsoever to also vacuum those tables. This
> is something that autovacuum won't do at all.
>
> If the best I got was access to the same information autovacuum uses to
> make its decisions, I'd be pretty happy
Well take a look at the autovacuum code, also, before autovacuum was
integrated into core it existed as a libpq based contrib application so
you can look in one of the older branches for that code.