postmaster process

Al Bean <albean84@hotmail.com> wrote:

Hi,

I just started working with postgres. When I do a top and display
all the processes for the postgres user I notice that there are three
postmaster processes. I'm just wondering if its normal for three to
be running. Is there are way to increase / decrease this number?

Thanks,
Al

Yes it's normal.
The three processes do different things:

postmaster <- main postgresql process
postgres: stats buffer process
postgres: stats collector process

The processes are forked so they don't take as much extra memory as one
would think.
Also there will be one more per session to the database.

Magnus