Re: Expose checkpoint start/finish times into SQL.

Theo Schlossnagle <jesus(at)omniti(dot)com> writes:
> On Apr 3, 2008, at 10:33 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
>> Theo claimed he had a reason for wanting to know the latest checkpoint
>> time, *without* any intention of time-extended tracking of that; but
>> he didn't say what it was.

> We had a recent event where the system stopped checkpointing, which
> eventually lead to Robert Treat's therapy session at PostgreSQL
> Conference East.

Therapy is great ;-) ... but "the system stopped checkpointing" does not
strike me as a routine occurrence that we should be making provisions
for DBAs to watch for. What, pray tell, is the DBA supposed to do when
and if he notices that? Not to mention that since checkpointing is
ingrained in the bgwriter, you've got worse problems than that if it's
not working.

I'd much rather be spending our time and effort on understanding what
broke for you, and fixing the code so it doesn't happen again. An ounce
of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and all that...

regards, tom lane