Interestingly, after shutting down the server with
shared_buffer=1500MB in the middle of that UPDATE, I see this:
bash-3.2$ /opt/bin/pg_ctl -D /data/pgsql/ stop
waiting for server to shut down....LOG: received smart shutdown request
LOG: autovacuum launcher shutting down
........................................................... failed
pg_ctl: server does not shut down
bash-3.2$ /opt/bin/pg_ctl -D /data/pgsql/ stop
waiting for server to shut
down..........................................................LOG:
shutting down
LOG: database system is shut down
done
server stopped
-- had to do it twice, the box was paging for a minute or two.
Should I do something about the autovacuum e.g. to turn it off
completely? I thought it's not on as all of it was still commented
out in postgresql.conf as shipped, only tweaked a few numbers as
reported before.
Cheers,
Alexy