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><H1
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><A
NAME="WAL-CONFIGURATION"
>28.4. <ACRONYM
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>WAL</ACRONYM
> Configuration</A
></H1
><P
>   There are several <ACRONYM
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>WAL</ACRONYM
>-related configuration parameters that
   affect database performance. This section explains their use.
   Consult <A
HREF="runtime-config.html"
>Chapter 18</A
> for general information about
   setting server configuration parameters.
  </P
><P
>   <I
CLASS="FIRSTTERM"
>Checkpoints</I
><A
NAME="AEN32649"
></A
>
   are points in the sequence of transactions at which it is guaranteed
   that the data files have been updated with all information written before
   the checkpoint.  At checkpoint time, all dirty data pages are flushed to
   disk and a special checkpoint record is written to the log file. 
   (The changes were previously flushed to the <ACRONYM
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>WAL</ACRONYM
> files.)
   In the event of a crash, the crash recovery procedure looks at the latest
   checkpoint record to determine the point in the log (known as the redo
   record) from which it should start the REDO operation.  Any changes made to
   data files before that point are guaranteed to be already on disk.  Hence, after
   a checkpoint, log segments preceding the one containing
   the redo record are no longer needed and can be recycled or removed. (When
   <ACRONYM
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>WAL</ACRONYM
> archiving is being done, the log segments must be
   archived before being recycled or removed.)
  </P
><P
>   The checkpoint requirement of flushing all dirty data pages to disk
   can cause a significant I/O load.  For this reason, checkpoint
   activity is throttled so I/O begins at checkpoint start and completes
   before the next checkpoint starts;  this minimizes performance
   degradation during checkpoints.
  </P
><P
>   The server's background writer process will automatically perform
   a checkpoint every so often.  A checkpoint is created every <A
HREF="runtime-config-wal.html#GUC-CHECKPOINT-SEGMENTS"
>checkpoint_segments</A
> log segments, or every <A
HREF="runtime-config-wal.html#GUC-CHECKPOINT-TIMEOUT"
>checkpoint_timeout</A
> seconds, whichever comes first.
   The default settings are 3 segments and 300 seconds respectively.
   It is also possible to force a checkpoint by using the SQL command
   <TT
CLASS="COMMAND"
>CHECKPOINT</TT
>.
  </P
><P
>   Reducing <TT
CLASS="VARNAME"
>checkpoint_segments</TT
> and/or
   <TT
CLASS="VARNAME"
>checkpoint_timeout</TT
> causes checkpoints to be done
   more often. This allows faster after-crash recovery (since less work
   will need to be redone). However, one must balance this against the
   increased cost of flushing dirty data pages more often. If
   <A
HREF="runtime-config-wal.html#GUC-FULL-PAGE-WRITES"
>full_page_writes</A
> is set (as is the default), there is
   another factor to consider. To ensure data page consistency,
   the first modification of a data page after each checkpoint results in
   logging the entire page content. In that case,
   a smaller checkpoint interval increases the volume of output to the WAL log,
   partially negating the goal of using a smaller interval,
   and in any case causing more disk I/O.
  </P
><P
>   Checkpoints are fairly expensive, first because they require writing
   out all currently dirty buffers, and second because they result in
   extra subsequent WAL traffic as discussed above.  It is therefore
   wise to set the checkpointing parameters high enough that checkpoints
   don't happen too often.  As a simple sanity check on your checkpointing
   parameters, you can set the <A
HREF="runtime-config-wal.html#GUC-CHECKPOINT-WARNING"
>checkpoint_warning</A
>
   parameter.  If checkpoints happen closer together than
   <TT
CLASS="VARNAME"
>checkpoint_warning</TT
> seconds,
   a message will be output to the server log recommending increasing
   <TT
CLASS="VARNAME"
>checkpoint_segments</TT
>.  Occasional appearance of such
   a message is not cause for alarm, but if it appears often then the
   checkpoint control parameters should be increased. Bulk operations such
   as large <TT
CLASS="COMMAND"
>COPY</TT
> transfers might cause a number of such warnings
   to appear if you have not set <TT
CLASS="VARNAME"
>checkpoint_segments</TT
> high
   enough.
  </P
><P
>   To avoid flooding the I/O system with a burst of page writes,
   writing dirty buffers during a checkpoint is spread over a period of time.
   That period is controlled by
   <A
HREF="runtime-config-wal.html#GUC-CHECKPOINT-COMPLETION-TARGET"
>checkpoint_completion_target</A
>, which is
   given as a fraction of the checkpoint interval.
   The I/O rate is adjusted so that the checkpoint finishes when the
   given fraction of <TT
CLASS="VARNAME"
>checkpoint_segments</TT
> WAL segments
   have been consumed since checkpoint start, or the given fraction of
   <TT
CLASS="VARNAME"
>checkpoint_timeout</TT
> seconds have elapsed,
   whichever is sooner.  With the default value of 0.5,
   <SPAN
CLASS="PRODUCTNAME"
>PostgreSQL</SPAN
> can be expected to complete each checkpoint
   in about half the time before the next checkpoint starts.  On a system
   that's very close to maximum I/O throughput during normal operation,
   you might want to increase <TT
CLASS="VARNAME"
>checkpoint_completion_target</TT
>
   to reduce the I/O load from checkpoints.  The disadvantage of this is that
   prolonging checkpoints affects recovery time, because more WAL segments
   will need to be kept around for possible use in recovery.  Although
   <TT
CLASS="VARNAME"
>checkpoint_completion_target</TT
> can be set as high as 1.0,
   it is best to keep it less than that (perhaps 0.9 at most) since
   checkpoints include some other activities besides writing dirty buffers.
   A setting of 1.0 is quite likely to result in checkpoints not being
   completed on time, which would result in performance loss due to
   unexpected variation in the number of WAL segments needed.
  </P
><P
>   There will always be at least one WAL segment file, and will normally
   not be more than (2 + <TT
CLASS="VARNAME"
>checkpoint_completion_target</TT
>) * <TT
CLASS="VARNAME"
>checkpoint_segments</TT
> + 1
   files.  Each segment file is normally 16 MB (though this size can be
   altered when building the server).  You can use this to estimate space
   requirements for <ACRONYM
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>WAL</ACRONYM
>.
   Ordinarily, when old log segment files are no longer needed, they
   are recycled (renamed to become the next segments in the numbered
   sequence). If, due to a short-term peak of log output rate, there
   are more than 3 * <TT
CLASS="VARNAME"
>checkpoint_segments</TT
> + 1
   segment files, the unneeded segment files will be deleted instead
   of recycled until the system gets back under this limit.
  </P
><P
>   There are two commonly used internal <ACRONYM
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>WAL</ACRONYM
> functions:
   <CODE
CLASS="FUNCTION"
>LogInsert</CODE
> and <CODE
CLASS="FUNCTION"
>LogFlush</CODE
>.
   <CODE
CLASS="FUNCTION"
>LogInsert</CODE
> is used to place a new record into
   the <ACRONYM
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>WAL</ACRONYM
> buffers in shared memory. If there is no
   space for the new record, <CODE
CLASS="FUNCTION"
>LogInsert</CODE
> will have
   to write (move to kernel cache) a few filled <ACRONYM
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>WAL</ACRONYM
>
   buffers. This is undesirable because <CODE
CLASS="FUNCTION"
>LogInsert</CODE
>
   is used on every database low level modification (for example, row
   insertion) at a time when an exclusive lock is held on affected
   data pages, so the operation needs to be as fast as possible.  What
   is worse, writing <ACRONYM
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>WAL</ACRONYM
> buffers might also force the
   creation of a new log segment, which takes even more
   time. Normally, <ACRONYM
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>WAL</ACRONYM
> buffers should be written
   and flushed by a <CODE
CLASS="FUNCTION"
>LogFlush</CODE
> request, which is
   made, for the most part, at transaction commit time to ensure that
   transaction records are flushed to permanent storage. On systems
   with high log output, <CODE
CLASS="FUNCTION"
>LogFlush</CODE
> requests might
   not occur often enough to prevent <CODE
CLASS="FUNCTION"
>LogInsert</CODE
>
   from having to do writes.  On such systems
   one should increase the number of <ACRONYM
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>WAL</ACRONYM
> buffers by
   modifying the configuration parameter <A
HREF="runtime-config-wal.html#GUC-WAL-BUFFERS"
>wal_buffers</A
>.  The default number of <ACRONYM
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>WAL</ACRONYM
>
   buffers is 8.  Increasing this value will
   correspondingly increase shared memory usage.  When
   <A
HREF="runtime-config-wal.html#GUC-FULL-PAGE-WRITES"
>full_page_writes</A
> is set and the system is very busy,
   setting this value higher will help smooth response times during the
   period immediately following each checkpoint.
  </P
><P
>   The <A
HREF="runtime-config-wal.html#GUC-COMMIT-DELAY"
>commit_delay</A
> parameter defines for how many
   microseconds the server process will sleep after writing a commit
   record to the log with <CODE
CLASS="FUNCTION"
>LogInsert</CODE
> but before
   performing a <CODE
CLASS="FUNCTION"
>LogFlush</CODE
>. This delay allows other
   server processes to add their commit records to the log so as to have all
   of them flushed with a single log sync. No sleep will occur if
   <A
HREF="runtime-config-wal.html#GUC-FSYNC"
>fsync</A
>
   is not enabled, nor if fewer than <A
HREF="runtime-config-wal.html#GUC-COMMIT-SIBLINGS"
>commit_siblings</A
>
   other sessions are currently in active transactions; this avoids
   sleeping when it's unlikely that any other session will commit soon.
   Note that on most platforms, the resolution of a sleep request is
   ten milliseconds, so that any nonzero <TT
CLASS="VARNAME"
>commit_delay</TT
>
   setting between 1 and 10000 microseconds would have the same effect.
   Good values for these parameters are not yet clear; experimentation
   is encouraged.
  </P
><P
>   The <A
HREF="runtime-config-wal.html#GUC-WAL-SYNC-METHOD"
>wal_sync_method</A
> parameter determines how
   <SPAN
CLASS="PRODUCTNAME"
>PostgreSQL</SPAN
> will ask the kernel to force
   <ACRONYM
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>WAL</ACRONYM
> updates out to disk.
   All the options should be the same in terms of reliability, with
   the exception of <TT
CLASS="LITERAL"
>fsync_writethrough</TT
>, which can sometimes
   force a flush of the disk cache even when other options do not do so.
   However, it's quite platform-specific which one will be the fastest;
   you can test option speeds using the utility <TT
CLASS="FILENAME"
>src/tools/fsync</TT
>
   in the PostgreSQL source tree.
   Note that this parameter is irrelevant if <TT
CLASS="VARNAME"
>fsync</TT
>
   has been turned off.
  </P
><P
>   Enabling the <A
HREF="runtime-config-developer.html#GUC-WAL-DEBUG"
>wal_debug</A
> configuration parameter
   (provided that <SPAN
CLASS="PRODUCTNAME"
>PostgreSQL</SPAN
> has been
   compiled with support for it) will result in each
   <CODE
CLASS="FUNCTION"
>LogInsert</CODE
> and <CODE
CLASS="FUNCTION"
>LogFlush</CODE
>
   <ACRONYM
CLASS="ACRONYM"
>WAL</ACRONYM
> call being logged to the server log. This
   option might be replaced by a more general mechanism in the future.
  </P
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