Re: How to simulate crashes of PostgreSQL?

On Mon, Aug 24, 2009 at 12:49 AM, Craig
Ringer<craig@postnewspapers.com.au> wrote:
> You should also test your client's response to the Pg server remaining
> up but becoming non-responsive (eg: failed disk array causes Pg backends
> to remain in uninterruptable disk I/O system calls in the kernel). A
> possibly good way to do this is to SIGSTOP the backend(s).

This is a far more common and likely problem than the server crash
scenario.  I've had servers go unresponsive under load before.  Took
the load away and they came back, but the way the app responded has
not always been optimal.  Many apps get jammed up from something like
this and require the app servers to be restarted.