Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2010 10:18:23 -0600
From: Kenneth Marshall <ktm@rice.edu>
To: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Cc: "Thorne, Francis" <thornef@cromwell.co.uk>, pgsql-admin@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: AIX - Out of Memory
Message-ID: <20100215161823.GB16501@it.is.rice.edu>
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	<29675.1266249426@sss.pgh.pa.us>
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On Mon, Feb 15, 2010 at 10:57:06AM -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
> "Thorne, Francis" <thornef@cromwell.co.uk> writes:
> > Looking for some help with regards to an 'Out of Memory' issue I have
> > with our Postgresql install on AIX.  When running large updates or
> > select queries we get an out of memory error returned and details
> > entered in the log file like below.  This is a 64-bit install and I have
> > set the ulimit for the postgres user to unlimited.  
> 
> The bloat seems to be here:
> 
> >     AfterTriggerEvents: 131063808 total in 26 blocks; 576 free (7
> > chunks); 131063232 used
> 
> but it's hard to believe you'd be getting "out of memory" after only
> 130MB in a 64-bit build.  Are you *sure* the postgres executable is
> 64-bit?  Are you *sure* the postmaster has been launched with
> nonrestrictive ulimit?  On lots of setups that takes modifying the
> PG startup script, not just fooling with some user's .profile.
> 
> > This is a 64-bit install (8.3) on AIX 5.3
> 
> 8.3.what?
> 
> 			regards, tom lane

I no longer have an AIX box, but I had similar problems with other
applications that needed large amounts of memory. Some OS specific
steps needed to be taken to allow normal users to allocate large
blocks of memory. The information needed was in their on-line docs
as I recall, but I do not remember the details. The executables may
need to be built with specific options/flags to work.

Regards,
Ken