<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" standalone="no"?> <!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /><title>Chapter 28. Monitoring Database Activity</title><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="stylesheet.css" /><link rev="made" href="pgsql-docs@lists.postgresql.org" /><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets Vsnapshot" /><link rel="prev" href="standby-settings.html" title="27.3. Standby Server Settings" /><link rel="next" href="monitoring-ps.html" title="28.1. Standard Unix Tools" /></head><body><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/transitional" class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="5" align="center">Chapter 28. Monitoring Database Activity</th></tr><tr><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="standby-settings.html" title="27.3. Standby Server Settings">Prev</a> </td><td width="10%" align="left"><a accesskey="u" href="admin.html" title="Part III. Server Administration">Up</a></td><th width="60%" align="center">Part III. Server Administration</th><td width="10%" align="right"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html" title="PostgreSQL 11.11 Documentation">Home</a></td><td width="10%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="monitoring-ps.html" title="28.1. Standard Unix Tools">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr></hr></div><div class="chapter" id="MONITORING"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title">Chapter 28. Monitoring Database Activity</h2></div></div></div><div class="toc"><p><strong>Table of Contents</strong></p><dl class="toc"><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="monitoring-ps.html">28.1. Standard Unix Tools</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="monitoring-stats.html">28.2. The Statistics Collector</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="monitoring-stats.html#MONITORING-STATS-SETUP">28.2.1. Statistics Collection Configuration</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="monitoring-stats.html#MONITORING-STATS-VIEWS">28.2.2. Viewing Statistics</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="monitoring-stats.html#MONITORING-STATS-FUNCTIONS">28.2.3. Statistics Functions</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="monitoring-locks.html">28.3. Viewing Locks</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="progress-reporting.html">28.4. Progress Reporting</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="progress-reporting.html#VACUUM-PROGRESS-REPORTING">28.4.1. VACUUM Progress Reporting</a></span></dt></dl></dd><dt><span class="sect1"><a href="dynamic-trace.html">28.5. Dynamic Tracing</a></span></dt><dd><dl><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="dynamic-trace.html#COMPILING-FOR-TRACE">28.5.1. Compiling for Dynamic Tracing</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="dynamic-trace.html#TRACE-POINTS">28.5.2. Built-in Probes</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="dynamic-trace.html#USING-TRACE-POINTS">28.5.3. Using Probes</a></span></dt><dt><span class="sect2"><a href="dynamic-trace.html#DEFINING-TRACE-POINTS">28.5.4. Defining New Probes</a></span></dt></dl></dd></dl></div><a id="id-1.6.15.2" class="indexterm"></a><a id="id-1.6.15.3" class="indexterm"></a><p> A database administrator frequently wonders, <span class="quote">“<span class="quote">What is the system doing right now?</span>”</span> This chapter discusses how to find that out. </p><p> Several tools are available for monitoring database activity and analyzing performance. Most of this chapter is devoted to describing <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span>'s statistics collector, but one should not neglect regular Unix monitoring programs such as <code class="command">ps</code>, <code class="command">top</code>, <code class="command">iostat</code>, and <code class="command">vmstat</code>. Also, once one has identified a poorly-performing query, further investigation might be needed using <span class="productname">PostgreSQL</span>'s <a class="xref" href="sql-explain.html" title="EXPLAIN"><span class="refentrytitle">EXPLAIN</span></a> command. <a class="xref" href="using-explain.html" title="14.1. Using EXPLAIN">Section 14.1</a> discusses <code class="command">EXPLAIN</code> and other methods for understanding the behavior of an individual query. </p></div><div xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/transitional" class="navfooter"><hr></hr><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="standby-settings.html" title="27.3. Standby Server Settings">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="admin.html" title="Part III. Server Administration">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="monitoring-ps.html" title="28.1. Standard Unix Tools">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">27.3. Standby Server Settings </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html" title="PostgreSQL 11.11 Documentation">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> 28.1. Standard Unix Tools</td></tr></table></div></body></html>