Re: shared_buffers and shmmax

shared_buffers is in disk block size, typically 8K, at least that's what it is on Linux platforms. shmmax is quite
simplyin bytes. 

The default shared_buffer of a 1000 is quite conservative. A good starting value is something like 15-25 percent of
yourmain memory or so I am being told. It really depends on how the machine you have your database on is being used. If
postgresis the only application using your box then you can even set this to 80% of the memory. You're fine as long as
postgresdoes not have to resort to using the swap space. 

If you set shared_buffers so high that it doesn't agree with your systems shmmax then postgres will give you the
requiredvalue on startup. 


Regards,

Val


--- On Tue, 22/7/08, dx k9 <bitsandbytes88@hotmail.com> wrote:

> From: dx k9 <bitsandbytes88@hotmail.com>
> Subject: [ADMIN] shared_buffers and shmmax
> To: "posgres support" <pgsql-admin@postgresql.org>
> Date: Tuesday, 22 July, 2008, 2:39 PM
> Hi,
> I'm trying to understand what the documentation means
> by bytes per increment, what is the increment supposed to
> be bytes, MB, or Kb.  I have my shared_buffers set to 577
> MB(4 instances) and I'm multiplying by 8400 bytes.  I
> would think I would want to keep everything in bytes and
> not mulitply bytes times MB, but this is what table 17-2
> implies.  If I convert 577 to bytes and multiply, my
> calculator goes exponential on me. I'm going through
> this table and adding up to see what my shmmax should be
> (it's 7.5 GB) out of a total memory of 16 GB with 1000
> max_connections right now.  What should I use as the
> "increment" value in regards to shared buffers,
> 577, 590848 or 605028352 ?
>
> a) 577 MB (This seems too small)
> b) 590,848 Kb (this seems just right)
> c) 605,028,352 bytes  (this seems too big, I hope it's
> not c)
>
> Thanks,
> ~DjK
>
> Table 17-2. Configuration parameters affecting
> PostgreSQL's shared memory usage
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Name
> Approximate multiplier (bytes per increment) as of 8.3
>
>
> max_connections
> 1800 + 270 * max_locks_per_transaction
>
> autovacuum_max_workers
> 1800 + 270 * max_locks_per_transaction
>
> max_prepared_transactions
> 770 + 270 * max_locks_per_transaction
>
> shared_buffers
> 8400 (assuming 8 kB BLCKSZ)
>
> wal_buffers
> 8200 (assuming 8 kB XLOG_BLCKSZ)
>
> max_fsm_relations
> 70
>
> max_fsm_pages
> 6
>
> Fixed space requirements
> 770 kB
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