"Andy Shellam" <andy@andycc.net> writes:
>> Don't do this. Postgres itself will remove the file after the
>> archive_command has copied it elsewhere.
> In my 8.1.3 install, it didn't - when I specified a cp command, it left the
> files there. I had to define the command as "mv" to have them moved.
If it left the files there, it had a reason to (probably, that it wanted
to rename them for use as new WAL segments). It is NOT NOT NOT the job
of the archive_command to do anything except copy the data somewhere else.
Back to the OP's problem: failure to recycle WAL segments requires some
active looking into, not mindless removal of files. The only
explanations I can think of are that he's got the checkpoint interval
settings at wacko values, or more likely something is preventing
checkpoints from completing; if so, it's desperately important to find
out what and fix it. Manual file removal is addressing a symptom not
the problem.
regards, tom lane