PostgreSQL Processes are very few and countable like, writer process, wal writer proces,stats collector,autovacuum process,syslogger process,archiver process & daemon postmaster. If replication enabled then there will be wal sender & wal receiver process. In my trainings, I use to show process information by executing “ps -ef | grep postgres”, but how could I show the same on Solaris. So, I checked with Solaris Documentation and found its very simple and easy to get the process names as linux.
In PostgreSQL documentaion, its said to use /usr/ucb/ps with -ww options to get process names instead of regular /usr/bin/ps, however most of the information are hidden by /usr/ucb/ps option as well. Lets see how to retrieve complete postgres process names in solaris.
Below are my postgres 9.1 instance processes on Solaris:
bash-3.00$ /usr/ucb/ps -awwx | grep postgres
7778 ? S 0:04 /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/bin/64/postgres -D /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/data
7779 ? S 0:01 /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/bin/64/postgres -D /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/data
7780 ? S 0:00 /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/bin/64/postgres -D /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/data
7781 ? S 0:00 /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/bin/64/postgres -D /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/data
7776 pts/5 S 0:00 /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/bin/64/postgres -D /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/data
More extended way with pargs:
bash-3.00$ pargs `/usr/ucb/ps -awwx | grep postgres | awk '{print $1}'`
7778: /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/bin/64/postgres -D /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/data
argv[0]: postgres: writer process
argv[1]:
argv[2]:
7779: /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/bin/64/postgres -D /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/data
argv[0]: postgres: wal writer process
argv[1]:
argv[2]:
7780: /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/bin/64/postgres -D /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/data
argv[0]: postgres: autovacuum launcher process
argv[1]:
argv[2]:
7781: /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/bin/64/postgres -D /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/data
argv[0]: postgres: stats collector process
argv[1]:
argv[2]:
7776: /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/bin/64/postgres -D /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/data
argv[0]: /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/bin/64/postgres
argv[1]: -D
argv[2]: /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/data
7776 is postmaster daemon process.
bash-3.00$ cat /Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/data/postmaster.pid
7776
/Desktop/postgres/9.1-pgdg/data
1339917119
5432
/tmp
localhost
5432001 50331683
Though it seems simple I believe its worth to know :).
–Raghav
instead of "grep something | awk '{ print $1 }'" you could try "awk '/something/ { print $1 }'"
So our documentation is wrong now? Can you suggest a patch?
If you are using pargs, why not use pargs `pgrep postgres` directly?
@Johann/Daniel
Thanks for your comments. Yep, you can do it in that way as well. If you see any of my blogs, all commands are very basic. Intention is to keep very simple who are new to PG or OS.. :).
@ Bruce
Nope, documentation is pretty much correct. Sometimes using /usr/ucb/ps -auwwx won't display the process titles, for that we need to use extended approach like pargs on Solaris.
Thanks Bruce 🙂
So our documentation is wrong now? Can you suggest a patch?
@Johann/Daniel
Thanks for your comments. Yep, you can do it in that way as well. If you see any of my blogs, all commands are very basic. Intention is to keep very simple who are new to PG or OS.. :).
@ Bruce
Nope, documentation is pretty much correct. Sometimes using /usr/ucb/ps -auwwx won't display the process titles, for that we need to use extended approach like pargs on Solaris.
Thanks Bruce 🙂
instead of "grep something | awk '{ print $1 }'" you could try "awk '/something/ { print $1 }'"
If you are using pargs, why not use pargs `pgrep postgres` directly?