If I don't include WAL files as part of my backup, I do not run into this issue. But a backup without WAL files is not what I want. ________________________________________ From: Aggarwal, Ajay Sent: Monday, March 10, 2014 9:46 PM To: Haribabu Kommi Cc: pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: RE: replication timeout in pg_basebackup I have already tried experimenting with linux dirty_ratio etc. You can only fine tune up to a limit. The backup process still fills up the buffer cache very quickly. Yes, my database is about 5-6 GB in size and will grow bigger over time. If wish there was a way to slow down pg_basebackup or force it to use direct I/O. ________________________________________ From: Haribabu Kommi [kommi.haribabu@xxxxxxxxx] Sent: Monday, March 10, 2014 8:31 PM To: Aggarwal, Ajay Cc: pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: Re: replication timeout in pg_basebackup On Tue, Mar 11, 2014 at 7:07 AM, Aggarwal, Ajay <aaggarwal@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > Thanks Hari Babu. > > I think what is happening is that my dirty cache builds up quickly for the > volume where I am backing up. This would trigger flush of these dirty pages > to the disk. While this flush is going on pg_basebackup tries to do fsync() > on a received WAL file and gets blocked. But the sync is executed for every WAL file finish. Does your database is big in size? Does your setup is write-heavy operations? In Linux when it tries to write a bunch of buffers at once, the fysnc call might block for some time. In the following link there are some "Tuning Recommendations for write-heavy operations" which might be useful to you. http://www.westnet.com/~gsmith/content/linux-pdflush.htm Any other ideas to handle these kind of problems? Regards, Hari Babu Fujitsu Australia -- Sent via pgsql-general mailing list (pgsql-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-general