pg\_wait\_sampling – sampling based statistics of wait events

Introduction

PostgreSQL 9.6+ provides an information about current wait event of particular

process. However, in order to gather descriptive statistics of server

behavior user have to sample current wait event multiple times.

pg\_wait\_sampling is an extension for collecting sampling statistics of wait

events. It collects two kinds of statistics.

* History of waits events. It's implemented as in-memory ring buffer where

samples of each process wait events are written with given (configurable)

period. Therefore, for each running process user can see some number of

recent samples depending on history size (configurable). Assuming there is

a client who periodically read this history and dump it somewhere, user

can have continuous history.

* Waits profile. It's implemented as in-memory hash table where count

of samples are accumulated per each process and each wait event. This hash

table can be reset by user request. Assuming there is a client who

periodically dumps profile and resets it, user can have statistics of

intensivity of wait events among time.

pg\_wait\_sampling launches special background worker for gathering the

statistics above.

Authors

* Alexander Korotkov <a.korotkov@postgrespro.ru>, Postgres Professional,

Moscow, Russia

Availability

pg\_wait\_sampling is realized as an extension and not available in default

PostgreSQL installation. It is available from

[github](https://github.com/postgrespro/pg_wait_sampling)

under the same license as

[PostgreSQL](http://www.postgresql.org/about/licence/)

and supports PostgreSQL 9.6+.

Installation

pg\_wait\_sampling is PostgreSQL extension which requires PostgreSQL 9.6 or

higher. Before build and install you should ensure following:

* PostgreSQL version is 9.6 or higher.

* You have development package of PostgreSQL installed or you built

PostgreSQL from source.

* Your PATH variable is configured so that pg\_config command available, or

set PG_CONFIG variable.

Typical installation procedure may look like this:

$ git clone https://github.com/postgrespro/pg_wait_sampling.git

$ cd pg_wait_sampling

$ make USE_PGXS=1

$ sudo make USE_PGXS=1 install

$ make USE_PGXS=1 installcheck

$ psql DB -c "CREATE EXTENSION pg_wait_sampling;"

Usage

pg\_wait\_sampling interacts with user by set of views and functions.

pg\_wait\_sampling\_current view -- information about current wait events for

all processed including background workers.

| Column name | Column type | Description |

| ----------- | ----------- | ----------------------- |

| pid | int4 | Id of process |

| event_type | text | Name of wait event type |

| event | text | Name of wait event |

pg_wait_sampling_get_current(pid int4) returns the same table for single given

process.

pg\_wait\_sampling\_history -- history of wait events obtained by sampling into

in-memory ring buffer.

| Column name | Column type | Description |

| ----------- | ----------- | ----------------------- |

| pid | int4 | Id of process |

| ts | timestamptz | Sample timestamp |

| event_type | text | Name of wait event type |

| event | text | Name of wait event |

pg\_wait\_sampling\_profile -- profile of wait events obtained by sampling into

in-memory hash table.

| Column name | Column type | Description |

| ----------- | ----------- | ----------------------- |

| pid | int4 | Id of process |

| event_type | text | Name of wait event type |

| event | text | Name of wait event |

| count | text | Count of samples |

pg_wait_sampling_reset_profile() function resets the profile.

Contribution

Please, notice, that pg\_wait\_sampling is still under development and while

it's stable and tested, it may contains some bugs. Don't hesitate to raise

[issues at github](https://github.com/postgrespro/pg_wait_sampling/issues) with

your bug reports.

If you're lacking of some functionality in pg\_wait\_sampling and feeling power

to implement it then you're welcome to make pull requests.