Re: postgresql-server-8.4.4-1PGDG.el5 - ERROR: could not write block 503414 of temporary file: No space le,ft on device

On Wed, Jul 28, 2010 at 15:43, Irene Barg <ibarg@noao.edu> wrote:
> Alex,
> The postmaster wouldn't start with shared_buffers = 5632MB, so we reduced it
> to 2GB. The system's shared memory is:
>
>> [dppops@pipen18 ~]$ sudo /sbin/sysctl -a | grep kernel | grep shmmax
>> kernel.shmmax = 4182863872

You can bump that up so it works with the larger setting (assuming you
are running a 64bit OS):
http://developer.postgresql.org/pgdocs/postgres/kernel-resources.html

> The system is behaving normal now, it does create intermittant 'pgsql_tmp'
> files, but removes them after the SQL statement completes. We will monitor
> the logs and try to make informed tweaks to the postgresql settings as
> needed.

If its doing a sort or join a btree index on the appropriate column(s) may help.