Re: Postgres filling up hard drive with swap files

On Aug 20, 2004, at 2:43 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
> Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com> writes:
>> Joe Lester <joe_lester@sweetwater.com> wrote:
>>>> I'm wondering, however, if you have a connection leak instead.  i.e.
>>>> is it possible that your client application is opening a whole bunch
>>>> of connections and never closing them?
>>>
>>> No. The clients open only one connection (and hang onto it for dear
>>> life  :-).
>
>> If these clients aren't utilizing the database, it might be worthwhile
>> to have them disconnect after a period of inactivity, and reconnect
>> when
>> things get busy again.
>
> If my theory is right, this would actually be counterproductive.  The
> leak I think I'm seeing is associated with backend exit and so the way
> to slow it as much as possible is to prolong backend lifetime as much
> as possible.  Joe, what is the mean lifetime of your connections
> anyway?
> I assume they don't stay up forever.

They are "permanent connections", meaning that the same connection
stays open on the server as long as the client application is running.
And it's common for the clients to stay running for days at a time. I'd
say the average length of a connection is 3 days.