Received: from maia.hub.org (maia-5.hub.org [200.46.204.29]) by mail.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EE35E632F76 for ; Fri, 30 Apr 2010 15:12:21 -0300 (ADT) Received: from mail.postgresql.org ([200.46.204.86]) by maia.hub.org (mx1.hub.org [200.46.204.29]) (amavisd-maia, port 10024) with ESMTP id 66436-06 for ; Fri, 30 Apr 2010 18:12:14 +0000 (UTC) X-Greylist: from auto-whitelisted by SQLgrey-1.7.6 Received: from sss.pgh.pa.us (sss.pgh.pa.us [66.207.139.130]) by mail.postgresql.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8079F632CBB for ; Fri, 30 Apr 2010 15:12:14 -0300 (ADT) Received: from sss2.sss.pgh.pa.us (tgl@localhost [127.0.0.1]) by sss.pgh.pa.us (8.14.2/8.14.2) with ESMTP id o3UIC6AF012918; Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:12:06 -0400 (EDT) To: Jason Culverhouse cc: pgsql-admin@postgresql.org Subject: Re: Can I safely kill a VACUUM ANALYZE with pg_cancel_backend 8.3 In-reply-to: <73FACE25-A114-4F01-857C-F21067ADA1BA@Mischievous.org> References: <73FACE25-A114-4F01-857C-F21067ADA1BA@Mischievous.org> Comments: In-reply-to Jason Culverhouse message dated "Fri, 30 Apr 2010 10:57:16 -0700" Date: Fri, 30 Apr 2010 14:12:06 -0400 Message-ID: <12917.1272651126@sss.pgh.pa.us> From: Tom Lane X-Virus-Scanned: Maia Mailguard 1.0.1 X-Spam-Status: No, hits=-1.865 tagged_above=-10 required=5 tests=AWL=0.045, BAYES_00=-1.9, T_RP_MATCHES_RCVD=-0.01 X-Spam-Level: X-Archive-Number: 201004/371 X-Sequence-Number: 34465 Jason Culverhouse writes: > I have a vacuum process that has been running on a table for the past 20 days. > The server is postgres 8.3 on ubuntu linux. > Can I safely kill the vacuum with: > select pg_cancel_backend(26433) Sure. 20 days is a long time. Is it actually running, or blocked on a lock? If not blocked, I have to guess that you've chosen very poor vacuum delay settings. regards, tom lane