To: "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Dilek_K=FC=E7=FCk?=" <dilekkucuk@gmail.com>
cc: pgsql-admin@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: max_files_per_process limit 
In-reply-to: <5d5d98b30811100618v2c0f935fka3f7970b622d6760@mail.gmail.com> 
References: <5d5d98b30811100618v2c0f935fka3f7970b622d6760@mail.gmail.com>
Comments: In-reply-to "=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Dilek_K=FC=E7=FCk?="
	<dilekkucuk@gmail.com>
	message dated "Mon, 10 Nov 2008 16:18:37 +0200"
Date: Mon, 10 Nov 2008 10:24:24 -0500
Message-ID: <6567.1226330664@sss.pgh.pa.us>
From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

"=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Dilek_K=FC=E7=FCk?=" <dilekkucuk@gmail.com> writes:
> We have a database of about 62000 tables (about 2000 tablespaces) with an
> index on each table. Postgresql version is 8.1.

You should probably rethink that schema.  A lot of similar tables can be
folded into one table with an extra key column.  Also, where did you get
the idea that 2000 tablespaces would be a good thing?  There's really no
point in more than one per spindle or filesystem.

> Although after the initial inserts to about 32000 tables the subsequent
> inserts are considerable fast, subsequent inserts to more than 32000 tables
> are very slow.

This has probably got more to do with inefficiencies of your filesystem
than anything else --- did you pick one that scales well to lots of
files per directory?

> This seems to be due to the datatype (integer) of max_files_per_process
> option in the postgres.conf file which is used to set the maximum number of
> open file descriptors.

It's not so much the datatype of max_files_per_process as the datatype
of kernel file descriptors that's the limitation ...

			regards, tom lane