On Mon, Jul 24, 2006 at 08:43:15AM +1000, Mark Matthews wrote: > Can anyone recommend good reference text, web or other, for general > PostgreSQL DBA tasks. The PostgreSQL documentation is a good place to start. See "Server Administration," especially the chapters concerning routine maintenance, backup and restore, and monitoring. http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.1/interactive/admin.html (Adjust the link to match the version you're running.) > Stuff like: > * Things to do to clean up periodically (CLUSTER, VACUUM FULL, etc) See above. > * How to analyse queries to optimise data retrieval (Use of EXPLAIN, > etc) See "Performance Tips" in the documentation and the tuning documents at powerpostgresql.com. You could also peruse the list archives, especially pgsql-performance, to see how real performance problems have been investigated and addressed. For example, search for threads that contain the words "EXPLAIN ANALYZE". http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.1/interactive/performance-tips.html http://www.powerpostgresql.com/Docs/ http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-performance/ The General Bits newsletter has interesting articles; see the Archives and General Tidbits links. http://www.varlena.com/varlena/GeneralBits/ > We are running Debian stable (sarge) and therefore 7.4. Moving to 8.1 > soon (hopefully) Before upgrading read the Release Notes for all newer versions to see what changes you'll be getting. See also "If You Are Upgrading" in the Installation Instructions and read the Backup and Restore chapter, which has a "Migration Between Releases" section. http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.1/interactive/release.html http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.1/interactive/install-upgrading.html http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.1/interactive/migration.html -- Michael Fuhr
