[pgpool-hackers: 115] Re: Explanation of max_pool parameter

[Gurjeet Singh]

It doesn't sound like an FAQ item. Either a page in Wiki or in User
contributed docs would be fine with me.

On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 9:34 PM, Tatsuo Ishii <ishii at postgresql.org> wrote:

> Putting into Wiki and add link in docs sounds nice idea.
> What about adding to FAQ?
>
> Or do you want to place "User contributed documentation" section?
> http://www.pgpool.net/mediawiki/index.php/Documentation
> --
> Tatsuo Ishii
> SRA OSS, Inc. Japan
> English: http://www.sraoss.co.jp/index_en.php
> Japanese: http://www.sraoss.co.jp
>
> > Because it is quite elaborate explanation, it might not be a good fit for
> > docs, which are supposed to be concise. Probably it should reside
> somewhere
> > in wiki and the docs for max_pool should link there. But don't mind me if
> > you think these can fit right in the docs.
> >
> > On Wed, Aug 22, 2012 at 7:06 PM, Tatsuo Ishii <ishii at postgresql.org>
> wrote:
> >
> >> Great explanation. I would like to add this to somewhere in the
> document.
> >> Thanks!
> >> --
> >> Tatsuo Ishii
> >> SRA OSS, Inc. Japan
> >> English: http://www.sraoss.co.jp/index_en.php
> >> Japanese: http://www.sraoss.co.jp
> >>
> >> > Hi Hackers,
> >> >
> >> >     I have answered max_pool related question a few times, and more
> than
> >> > once the following explanation cleared up the other party's confusion
> >> just
> >> > y reading it, without any more explanation from me. Do you think this
> >> > deserves some place on pgpool docs?
> >> >
> >> >     max_pool parameter configures how many connections to cache _per
> >> > child_. So if num_init_children is configured to 100, and max_pool is
> >> > configured to 3, then pgpool can potentially open 300 (=3*100)
> >> connections
> >> > to the backend database.
> >> >
> >> >     A child process opens a new backend connection only if the
> requested
> >> > [user,database] pair is not already in the cache. So if the
> application
> >> > uses only one user to connect to only one database, say
> [pguser1,pgdb1],
> >> > then each child will continue to reuse the first connection and will
> >> never
> >> > open a second connection, so in effect pgpool will open no more than
> 100
> >> > backend connections even though max_pool is set to 3.
> >> >
> >> >     But if the application uses more than one pair of [user,database]
> >> > connection parameters, then each child will cache the connection it
> might
> >> > already have for another pair, and open a new backend connection for
> the
> >> > requested pair.
> >> >
> >> >     For eg., if the application now uses these 4 pairs: [user1,db1]
> >> > [user1,db2] [user2,db1] [user2,db2] to connect to pgpool, then each
> child
> >> > process can cache up to 3 connections for the first 3 different pairs
> it
> >> > receives connection requests for. But as soon as it receives a request
> >> for
> >> > the 4th pair that it does not yet have a connection for, then it will
> >> > disconnect the oldest connection in the cache and open a new
> connection
> >> for
> >> > the 4th pair.
> >> >
> >> >     As we already know that there's no guarantee as to which child
> >> process
> >> > will handle an incoming connection request, max_pool tries to improve
> the
> >> > performance a little bit by caching connections of different pairs, in
> >> the
> >> > hopes that an incoming connection request might match one of the
> >> > connections cached by the child process. But this also causes an
> >> explosion
> >> > in the number of connections that pgpool would request from the
> database.
> >> >
> >> >     So, in order to guarantee that the application connection requests
> >> are
> >> > never rejected, and that the connection requests wait until a database
> >> > connection is available, the following condition should be met:
> >> >
> >> > max_pool*num_init_children <= (max_connections -
> >> > superuser_reserved_connections)
> >> >
> >> >     If the application uses superuser connections (which is not
> >> > recommended), then the condition is reduced to:
> >> >
> >> > max_pool*num_init_children <= max_connections
> >> >
> >> >     Setting max_pool to 1 will guarantee that the number of database
> >> > connections opened by pgpool child processes never exceeds the
> >> > num_init_children value. If for performance reasons, as explained
> above,
> >> > you do wish to set max_pool to more than 1, then max_connections will
> >> also
> >> > have to be increased accordingly so that application connection
> requests
> >> do
> >> > not get denied.
> >> >
> >> > Best regards,
> >> > --
> >> > Gurjeet Singh
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Gurjeet Singh
>



-- 
Gurjeet Singh
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