Re: Invulnerable VACUUM process thrashing everything

Russ Garrett <russ@garrett.co.uk> writes:
> VACUUM *will* respond to a SIGTERM, but it doesn't check very often -
> I've often had to wait hours for it to determine that it's been killed,
> and my tables aren't anywhere near 1TB. Maybe this is a place where
> things could be improved...

Hmm, there are CHECK_FOR_INTERRUPTS calls in all the loops that seem
significant to me.  Is there anything odd about your database schema?
Unusual index types or data types maybe?  Also, what PG version are
you using?

If you notice a VACUUM not responding to SIGTERM promptly, it'd be
useful to attach to the backend process with gdb and get a stack trace
to find out what it's doing.

            regards, tom lane