{"id":7933,"date":"2016-05-18T14:44:22","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T12:44:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/a-look-at-postgresql-9-6-killing-idle-transactions-automatically\/"},"modified":"2016-05-18T14:44:22","modified_gmt":"2016-05-18T12:44:22","slug":"a-look-at-postgresql-9-6-killing-idle-transactions-automatically","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/a-look-at-postgresql-9-6-killing-idle-transactions-automatically\/","title":{"rendered":"A look at PostgreSQL 9.6 \u2013 Killing idle transactions automatically"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A common issue with databases: The guy at floor 2 did some work on the database and then rashly left for lunch because the lady on floor 1 is already waiting for him. Unfortunately he did not close his transaction and now his session is blocking others. In PostgreSQL this might be even worse as all <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Tuple\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">tuples<\/a> modified by this transaction are not available for vacuum until the transaction is either committed or aborted. In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.postgresql.org\/docs\/9.6\/static\/release-9-6.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">PostgreSQL 9.6<\/a> there will be a way to minimize this risk.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>As always with PostgreSQL: If someone wants to add something to PostgreSQL core it starts with a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.postgresql.org\/message-id\/flat\/56AE0D10.6060805@2ndquadrant.fr#56AE0D10.6060805@2ndquadrant.fr\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">mail tread<\/a>. The result was a new parameter called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.postgresql.org\/docs\/9.6\/static\/runtime-config-client.html#GUC-IDLE-IN-TRANSACTION-SESSION-TIMEOUT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">idle_in_transaction_session_timeout<\/a>. Lets see how this works.<\/p>\n<p>The default value of idle_in_transaction_session_timeout is 0, which means disabled:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\n(postgres@[local]:5432) [postgres] &gt; show idle_in_transaction_session_timeout;\n idle_in_transaction_session_timeout \n-------------------------------------\n 0\n(1 row)\n<\/pre>\n<p>I&#8217;ll set it to one minute&#8230;<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\n(postgres@[local]:5432) [postgres] &gt; alter system set idle_in_transaction_session_timeout='1min';\nALTER SYSTEM\n<\/pre>\n<p>Lets create a user:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\n(postgres@[local]:5432) [postgres] &gt; create user u login password 'u';\nCREATE ROLE\n<\/pre>\n<p>Using that user login and start a transaction without doing any further work:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\npostgres@centos7:\/home\/postgres\/ [PG1] psql postgres u -W\nPassword for user u: \npsql (9.6beta1 dbi services build)\nType \"help\" for help.\n\n(u@[local]:5432) [postgres] &gt; begin;\nBEGIN\n<\/pre>\n<p>Btw: Being idle in transaction is reported in the process list, too:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\n(postgres@[local]:5432) [postgres] &gt; ! ps -ef | grep idle\npostgres  2712  2702  0 08:12 ?        00:00:00 postgres: postgres postgres [local] idle\npostgres  3072  2702  0 08:14 ?        00:00:00 postgres: u postgres [local] idle in transaction\npostgres  3412  2711  0 08:17 pts\/0    00:00:00 sh -c ps -ef | grep idle\npostgres  3414  3412  0 08:17 pts\/0    00:00:00 grep idle\n<\/pre>\n<p>After one minute this is reported in the log file:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: bash; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\n2016-05-18 08:17:32.352 CEST - 1 - 3072 - [local] - u@postgres FATAL:  terminating connection due to idle-in-transaction timeout\n<\/pre>\n<p>An attempt to do anything in the session that user u opened results in:<\/p>\n<pre class=\"brush: sql; gutter: true; first-line: 1\">\n(u@[local]:5432) [postgres] &gt; select 1;\nFATAL:  terminating connection due to idle-in-transaction timeout\nserver closed the connection unexpectedly\n        This probably means the server terminated abnormally\n        before or while processing the request.\nThe connection to the server was lost. Attempting reset: Succeeded.\n<\/pre>\n<p>Works well &#8230; no more killing sessions because guys head for lunch \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A common issue with databases: The guy at floor 2 did some work on the database and then rashly left for lunch because the lady on floor 1 is already waiting for him. Unfortunately he did not close his transaction and now his session is blocking others. In PostgreSQL this might be even worse as [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[229],"tags":[77],"type_dbi":[],"class_list":["post-7933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-database-administration-monitoring","tag-postgresql"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v28.8 (Yoast SEO v28.8) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>A look at PostgreSQL 9.6 \u2013 Killing idle transactions automatically - dbi Blog<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.dbi-services.com\/blog\/a-look-at-postgresql-9-6-killing-idle-transactions-automatically\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A look at PostgreSQL 9.6 \u2013 Killing idle transactions automatically\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A common issue with databases: The guy at floor 2 did some work on the database and then rashly left for lunch because the lady on floor 1 is already waiting for him. 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