> > > That said, I have seen some folks post about writing a
> perl or shell
> > > script that runs every x minutes looking for connections
> that have
> > > been idle for > a certain amount of time and kill the backend
> > > associated with it (sigterm, not -9...)
> >
> > what are the implications of killing a postmaster process?
>
> A Sigterm is generally considered safe. It's -9 and its ilk
> that you need to be wary of.
No it's not. See the archives.
The only *safe* way to do it ATM is to restart the database. SIGTERM may
leave orphaned locks or such things in the system. (Incidentally, -9 on
a single backend should be safe I believe. The postmaster will tell all
concurrent connections to abort and restart. It's not nice, but it
should be safe - should perform onrmal recovery same as if you pull the
plug)
//Magnus