pg_cancel_backend and pg_terminate_backend

["Wetmore, Matthew (CTR)" <Matthew.Wetmore@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

You had to be a SU in 8.0, 9.0 allowed you to cancel your own query.

 

From: MichaelDBA <MichaelDBA@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, April 19, 2023 2:46 PM
To: Wells Oliver <wells.oliver@xxxxxxxxx>
Cc: pgsql-admin <pgsql-admin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: pg_cancel_backend and pg_terminate_backend

 

My experience with the older PG versions is that I couldn't stop a query sometimes with pg_cancel_backend, so I had to resort to pg_terminate_backend.

Regards,
Michael Vitale


Wells Oliver wrote on 4/19/2023 3:41 PM:

I usually prefer pg_cancel_backend because it seems.. nicer, but lately I've had a troublesome user who leaves transactions open and I've scripted up a call to pg_terminate_backend after 60 minutes in an idle transaction. It works well.

 

Question: is there any server impact beyond that user's transaction when calling pg_terminate_backend? I feel like there _used_ to be, maybe in PG9, where I recall maybe seeing a server disconnect or something when using terminate.

 

Just curious about this approach. Thanks.

 

--

Wells Oliver
wells.oliver@xxxxxxxxx

 

Regards,

Michael Vitale

Michaeldba@xxxxxxxxxxx

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