The pg_prewarm module provides a convenient way
to load relation data into either the operating system buffer cache
or the PostgreSQL buffer cache. Prewarming
can be performed manually using the pg_prewarm function,
or can be performed automatically by including pg_prewarm in
shared_preload_libraries. In the latter case, the
system will run a background worker which periodically records the contents
of shared buffers in a file called autoprewarm.blocks and
will, using 2 background workers, reload those same blocks after a restart.
pg_prewarm(regclass, mode text default 'buffer', fork text default 'main',
first_block int8 default null,
last_block int8 default null) RETURNS int8
The first argument is the relation to be prewarmed. The second argument
is the prewarming method to be used, as further discussed below; the third
is the relation fork to be prewarmed, usually main.
The fourth argument is the first block number to prewarm
(NULL is accepted as a synonym for zero). The fifth
argument is the last block number to prewarm (NULL
means prewarm through the last block in the relation). The return value
is the number of blocks prewarmed.
There are three available prewarming methods. prefetch
issues asynchronous prefetch requests to the operating system, if this is
supported, or throws an error otherwise. read reads
the requested range of blocks; unlike prefetch, this is
synchronous and supported on all platforms and builds, but may be slower.
buffer reads the requested range of blocks into the
database buffer cache.
Note that with any of these methods, attempting to prewarm more blocks than
can be cached — by the OS when using prefetch or
read, or by PostgreSQL when
using buffer — will likely result in lower-numbered
blocks being evicted as higher numbered blocks are read in. Prewarmed data
also enjoys no special protection from cache evictions, so it is possible
that other system activity may evict the newly prewarmed blocks shortly
after they are read; conversely, prewarming may also evict other data from
cache. For these reasons, prewarming is typically most useful at startup,
when caches are largely empty.
autoprewarm_start_worker() RETURNS void
Launch the main autoprewarm worker. This will normally happen automatically, but is useful if automatic prewarm was not configured at server startup time and you wish to start up the worker at a later time.
autoprewarm_dump_now() RETURNS int8
Update autoprewarm.blocks immediately. This may be useful
if the autoprewarm worker is not running but you anticipate running it
after the next restart. The return value is the number of records written
to autoprewarm.blocks.
These parameters must be set in postgresql.conf.
Typical usage might be:
# postgresql.conf shared_preload_libraries = 'pg_prewarm' pg_prewarm.autoprewarm = true pg_prewarm.autoprewarm_interval = 300s
Robert Haas <rhaas@postgresql.org>