db server processes hanging around

On 06/19/2012 09:29 AM, Mark Rostron wrote:

hi

we are running out of database connections.

we are using pg 9.0.6 on linux centos 5.7 64bit.
we are not using any go-between connection pools such as pgbouncer or
pgpool - connections occur directly from client to database.
the connection setup on the client (java) is default, only providing
(user,password,dbhost,dbname).

we have about 10 developers developing java thru IDEA who start/stop
the local tomcat server frequently.
i have observed that tomcat doesn't disconnect from pg cleanly when
they cycle, and the server processes persist for a long time.
I have had them reduce their local connection factory pool size to 1
(this helped) and increased our max_connection value to 1000.
yet the problem persists.

I have noticed that the server processes do die "after some time" -
due to inactivity?
we are looking for a way to control server processes better than we
are doing now.

thnx for your time.
mr

I am unaware of any system setting like max_connection_idle_time (though
it might be a useful addition). I have not had to mess with
tcp_keepalive settings but you might be able to alter those (perhaps at
the OS instead of PostgreSQL) to reduce the delay before the backend
terminates. But this won't work for socket connections.

You could hack together a tailored solution by having cron run a script
that would query pg_stat_activity for queries equal to "<IDLE>" and with
a backend_start age greater than whatever you find reasonable and then
execute pg_terminate_backend() on those PIDs. You could even have a
table of developer IP addresses and only terminate those processes.
Alternately, if Tomcat connected to a different port you could only kill
those.

Cheers,
Steve

Or ask your Java devs to investigate why the shut down does not close
the physical connection properly. Does IDEA claim to shut down Tomcat
but actually it is still running because of a threads not being
cleaned up?

Are you sure this isn't happening during normal operation of the
application? If its bad connection/thread management, something like
this might show up in production.

- Sumit

On 19 June 2012 18:28, Steve Crawford <scrawford@pinpointresearch.com> wrote:

On 06/19/2012 09:29 AM, Mark Rostron wrote:

hi

we are running out of database connections.

we are using pg 9.0.6 on linux centos 5.7 64bit.
we are not using any go-between connection pools such as pgbouncer or
pgpool - connections occur directly from client to database.
the connection setup on the client (java) is default, only providing
(user,password,dbhost,dbname).

we have about 10 developers developing java thru IDEA who start/stop the
local tomcat server frequently.
i have observed that tomcat doesn't disconnect from pg cleanly when they
cycle, and the server processes persist for a long time.
I have had them reduce their local connection factory pool size to 1 (this
helped) and increased our max_connection value to 1000.
yet the problem persists.

I have noticed that the server processes do die "after some time" - due to
inactivity?
we are looking for a way to control server processes better than we are
doing now.

thnx for your time.
mr

I am unaware of any system setting like max_connection_idle_time (though it
might be a useful addition). I have not had to mess with tcp_keepalive
settings but you might be able to alter those (perhaps at the OS instead of
PostgreSQL) to reduce the delay before the backend terminates. But this
won't work for socket connections.

You could hack together a tailored solution by having cron run a script that
would query pg_stat_activity for queries equal to "<IDLE>" and with a
backend_start age greater than whatever you find reasonable and then execute
pg_terminate_backend() on those PIDs. You could even have a table of
developer IP addresses and only terminate those processes. Alternately, if
Tomcat connected to a different port you could only kill those.

Cheers,
Steve

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Em 20/06/2012 04:53, Sumit Raja escreveu:

Or ask your Java devs to investigate why the shut down does not close
the physical connection properly. Does IDEA claim to shut down Tomcat
but actually it is still running because of a threads not being
cleaned up?

Are you sure this isn't happening during normal operation of the
application? If its bad connection/thread management, something like
this might show up in production.

- Sumit

On 19 June 2012 18:28, Steve Crawford <scrawford@pinpointresearch.com> wrote:

On 06/19/2012 09:29 AM, Mark Rostron wrote:

hi

we are running out of database connections.

we are using pg 9.0.6 on linux centos 5.7 64bit.
we are not using any go-between connection pools such as pgbouncer or
pgpool - connections occur directly from client to database.
the connection setup on the client (java) is default, only providing
(user,password,dbhost,dbname).

we have about 10 developers developing java thru IDEA who start/stop the
local tomcat server frequently.
i have observed that tomcat doesn't disconnect from pg cleanly when they
cycle, and the server processes persist for a long time.
I have had them reduce their local connection factory pool size to 1 (this
helped) and increased our max_connection value to 1000.
yet the problem persists.

I have noticed that the server processes do die "after some time" - due to
inactivity?
we are looking for a way to control server processes better than we are
doing now.

thnx for your time.
mr

I am unaware of any system setting like max_connection_idle_time (though it
might be a useful addition). I have not had to mess with tcp_keepalive
settings but you might be able to alter those (perhaps at the OS instead of
PostgreSQL) to reduce the delay before the backend terminates. But this
won't work for socket connections.

You could hack together a tailored solution by having cron run a script that
would query pg_stat_activity for queries equal to "<IDLE>" and with a
backend_start age greater than whatever you find reasonable and then execute
pg_terminate_backend() on those PIDs. You could even have a table of
developer IP addresses and only terminate those processes. Alternately, if
Tomcat connected to a different port you could only kill those.

Cheers,
Steve

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To make changes to your subscription:
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I've been working with Tomcat and PostgreSQL (and NetBeans + Eclipse
IDEs) for about 4 years now, without such problem.
When Tomcat is stopped, all database connections are closed (if you are
using the great Database Pooling that comes with Tomcat).
But then, you must check your application. There are times when you
create a thread (and forget to set "Deamon" as true), and then when you
Shutdown Tomcat, it remains running (you check confirm that looking for
the "java" processess in memory.
If you are running IDEA + Tomcat, you will see (at minimum) 2 Java
process running. When you stop Tomcat, then you should see only one Java
process running (otherwise, you have a "hang" thread in your application).
One idea is to create a Application Lifecycle listener, and make it
shutdown all your Threads (and possible database connections) before
leaving.

Regards,

Edson

thank you
yes we are continuing to observe connection count.
so far we have made changed TCP stack configuration and will continue to
observe.
mr

On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 12:53 AM, Sumit Raja <
sumit.raja@raja-consulting.co.uk> wrote: