Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session in windows

2007-12-21 Thread Bruce Momjian
Howard Cole wrote:
  Wow, yea, I see that now, but it is alone a paragraph above.  I updated
  the text to:
 
 The xref linkend=app-pg-ctl program provides a convenient
 interface for sending these signals to shut down the server.
 Alternatively, you can send the signal directly using
 commandkill/ on non-Windows systems.
 

 My documentation point is that in administering the service, I cannot 
 drop a database if there is still an active connection. To drop a 
 process in linux appears to be easy using kill, but this does not seem 
 to be the case in windows using taskkill. I would rather see some 
 reference to killing rogue connections using pg_ctl in the Managing 
 Databases chapter, and reference to it in Destroying a Database and 
 DROP DATABASE documentation because this would be where I would first 
 search for a solution when I had the problem.

Uh, well we have this TODO:

* Allow administrators to safely terminate individual sessions either
  via an SQL function or SIGTERM

  Lock table corruption following SIGTERM of an individual backend
  has been reported in 8.0.  A possible cause was fixed in 8.1, but
  it is unknown whether other problems exist.  This item mostly
  requires additional testing rather than of writing any new code.

  http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2006-08/msg00174.php

so I am unsure how we would give such a capability on Windows when we
don't support it on Unix either.

 In the pg_ctl documentation, I would recommend explicitly stating that 
 pg_ctl kill -TERM pid can be used to kill individual connections to a 
 database in windows, because taskkill and select pg_cancel_backend() 
 do not seem to always work (for me anyway) in windows. Also HUP and 

Where do we say that about Unix in the pg_ctl manual?

 other signals mean nothing to a windows user.

We actually simulate these signals on Windows, so the pg_ctl kill
actually works just like Unix.  We do have in the pg_ctl manual:

   optionkill/option mode allows you to send a signal to a specified
process.  This is particularly valuable for productnameMicrosoft 
Windows/
which does not have a applicationkill/ command.  Use
literal--help/ to see a list of supported signal names.

Is that unclear?

 In general the documentation, understandably, is geared toward *nix, I 
 do not know what proportion of installations are Windows, but I suspect 
 they are growing at a rapid rate since version 8. Postgres on Windows is 
 a fabulous product, and the migration to the windows platform has been 
 much cleaner than the migration of Mysql, so it would be a shame to lose 
 market share on the basis that the documentation still has sections 
 biased towards *nix. Removal of *nix-isms from the main strand of the 
 documentation and additions of clearly marked build dependant comments 
 where appropriate would make a big difference in uniting the world! So 
 for example, the documentation for pg_ctl would have a description and 
 common options, and then list any linux/bsd/unix/windows differences in 
 section similar to the User Comments sections of the documentation.

Can you give a specific example?  As I said we simulate Windows so it
should act just like Unix.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB http://postgres.enterprisedb.com

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Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session in windows

2007-12-19 Thread Howard Cole

Bruce Momjian wrote:

Alvaro Herrera wrote:
  

Bruce Momjian wrote:


Alvaro Herrera wrote:
  

Huh, why is it awkward?

Alternatively, you can send the signal directly using commandkill/
(or commandpg_ctl kill TERM [process id]/).


I think we should mention Windows in there somewhere, because it isn't
alternatively on Windows.
  

Actually, this whole change is a bit silly, because the text now says
something like:

You can send these signals using pg_ctl kill.  Alternatively you can
use kill (or pg_ctl kill)



Wow, yea, I see that now, but it is alone a paragraph above.  I updated
the text to:

   The xref linkend=app-pg-ctl program provides a convenient
   interface for sending these signals to shut down the server.
   Alternatively, you can send the signal directly using
   commandkill/ on non-Windows systems.

  
My documentation point is that in administering the service, I cannot 
drop a database if there is still an active connection. To drop a 
process in linux appears to be easy using kill, but this does not seem 
to be the case in windows using taskkill. I would rather see some 
reference to killing rogue connections using pg_ctl in the Managing 
Databases chapter, and reference to it in Destroying a Database and 
DROP DATABASE documentation because this would be where I would first 
search for a solution when I had the problem.


In the pg_ctl documentation, I would recommend explicitly stating that 
pg_ctl kill -TERM pid can be used to kill individual connections to a 
database in windows, because taskkill and select pg_cancel_backend() 
do not seem to always work (for me anyway) in windows. Also HUP and 
other signals mean nothing to a windows user.


In general the documentation, understandably, is geared toward *nix, I 
do not know what proportion of installations are Windows, but I suspect 
they are growing at a rapid rate since version 8. Postgres on Windows is 
a fabulous product, and the migration to the windows platform has been 
much cleaner than the migration of Mysql, so it would be a shame to lose 
market share on the basis that the documentation still has sections 
biased towards *nix. Removal of *nix-isms from the main strand of the 
documentation and additions of clearly marked build dependant comments 
where appropriate would make a big difference in uniting the world! So 
for example, the documentation for pg_ctl would have a description and 
common options, and then list any linux/bsd/unix/windows differences in 
section similar to the User Comments sections of the documentation.


I enjoyed that!

Anyway - Merry Christmas / Eid / Holidays to you all and I'm looking 
forward to 8.3 under the christmas tree.


Howard.




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Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session in windows

2007-12-17 Thread Alvaro Herrera
Bruce Momjian wrote:
 Howard Cole wrote:
  
   Which you can do, no?  I thought pg_ctl's kill option was invented
   specifically to make this less painful on Windows.
   I shall look into the pg_ctl options to see if the kill option does 
   what taskill cannot (thanks for the heads up on that)
  
  Using
  $ pg_ctl kill TERM [pid]
  worked great. Since very few people seem to know about this, could I 
  suggest making it more prominent in the server administration pages.
 
 Agreed. I have added the second sentence to our 8.3 beta docs:
 
Alternatively, you can send the signal directly using commandkill/
(or commandpg_ctl kill TERM [process id]/ on productnameWindows/).
 
 You can actually use pg_ctl kill on Unix too but it seems awkward to
 suggest it in the existing sentence.

Huh, why is it awkward?

Alternatively, you can send the signal directly using commandkill/
(or commandpg_ctl kill TERM [process id]/).

-- 
Alvaro Herrerahttp://www.CommandPrompt.com/
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.

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Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session in windows

2007-12-17 Thread Bruce Momjian
Alvaro Herrera wrote:
 Bruce Momjian wrote:
  Howard Cole wrote:
   
Which you can do, no?  I thought pg_ctl's kill option was invented
specifically to make this less painful on Windows.
I shall look into the pg_ctl options to see if the kill option does 
what taskill cannot (thanks for the heads up on that)
   
   Using
   $ pg_ctl kill TERM [pid]
   worked great. Since very few people seem to know about this, could I 
   suggest making it more prominent in the server administration pages.
  
  Agreed. I have added the second sentence to our 8.3 beta docs:
  
 Alternatively, you can send the signal directly using commandkill/
 (or commandpg_ctl kill TERM [process id]/ on 
  productnameWindows/).
  
  You can actually use pg_ctl kill on Unix too but it seems awkward to
  suggest it in the existing sentence.
 
 Huh, why is it awkward?
 
 Alternatively, you can send the signal directly using commandkill/
 (or commandpg_ctl kill TERM [process id]/).

I think we should mention Windows in there somewhere, because it isn't
alternatively on Windows.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB http://postgres.enterprisedb.com

  + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

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Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session in windows

2007-12-17 Thread Alvaro Herrera
Bruce Momjian wrote:
 Alvaro Herrera wrote:

  Huh, why is it awkward?
  
  Alternatively, you can send the signal directly using commandkill/
  (or commandpg_ctl kill TERM [process id]/).
 
 I think we should mention Windows in there somewhere, because it isn't
 alternatively on Windows.

Actually, this whole change is a bit silly, because the text now says
something like:

You can send these signals using pg_ctl kill.  Alternatively you can
use kill (or pg_ctl kill)

In my opinion this change should be reverted.

-- 
Alvaro Herrerahttp://www.CommandPrompt.com/
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support

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Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session in windows

2007-12-17 Thread Bruce Momjian
Alvaro Herrera wrote:
 Bruce Momjian wrote:
  Alvaro Herrera wrote:
 
   Huh, why is it awkward?
   
   Alternatively, you can send the signal directly using commandkill/
   (or commandpg_ctl kill TERM [process id]/).
  
  I think we should mention Windows in there somewhere, because it isn't
  alternatively on Windows.
 
 Actually, this whole change is a bit silly, because the text now says
 something like:
 
 You can send these signals using pg_ctl kill.  Alternatively you can
 use kill (or pg_ctl kill)

Wow, yea, I see that now, but it is alone a paragraph above.  I updated
the text to:

   The xref linkend=app-pg-ctl program provides a convenient
   interface for sending these signals to shut down the server.
   Alternatively, you can send the signal directly using
   commandkill/ on non-Windows systems.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB http://postgres.enterprisedb.com

  + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

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Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session in windows

2007-12-16 Thread Bruce Momjian
Howard Cole wrote:
 
  Which you can do, no?  I thought pg_ctl's kill option was invented
  specifically to make this less painful on Windows.
  I shall look into the pg_ctl options to see if the kill option does 
  what taskill cannot (thanks for the heads up on that)
 
 Using
 $ pg_ctl kill TERM [pid]
 worked great. Since very few people seem to know about this, could I 
 suggest making it more prominent in the server administration pages.

Agreed. I have added the second sentence to our 8.3 beta docs:

   Alternatively, you can send the signal directly using commandkill/
   (or commandpg_ctl kill TERM [process id]/ on productnameWindows/).

You can actually use pg_ctl kill on Unix too but it seems awkward to
suggest it in the existing sentence.

-- 
  Bruce Momjian  [EMAIL PROTECTED]http://momjian.us
  EnterpriseDB http://postgres.enterprisedb.com

  + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. +

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Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session in windows

2007-12-13 Thread Howard Cole

Dann Corbit wrote:

What happens if you disable the net card on your server machine?

  

Hi Dann,
The connection is from IIS worker process running on the same machine. 
My problem is that I want to disable connections for a single database. 
Disabling the pgsql service or disabling the card (can you do this on a 
windows machine?) would disconnect all the databases which would be 
major incident on the server.

Howard.

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Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session in windows

2007-12-13 Thread Howard Cole

Thomas H. wrote:



On Tue, Dec 11, 2007 at 05:50:46PM -0500, Tom Lane wrote:

Alvaro Herrera [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

Howard Cole wrote:
I take it from the lack of response that nobody knows how to kill 
a connection from the postgresql side on windows?

You can't, short of sending a signal to the process or restarting the
service.

Which you can do, no?  I thought pg_ctl's kill option was invented
specifically to make this less painful on Windows.


It does, and it shuold work. But it's just as dangerous as using kill
directly on the backends on Unix, of course.


wasn't the OP asking for a way to kill active connections to a db? 
afaik pgAdmin3 does provide this functionality:


pgadmin3  tools  server status

there you can easily terminate connections  transactions to a 
particular db. works pretty well in my test, i can kill active 
connections and drop the db afterwards.


regards,
thomas
The pgadmin terminate connections never did anything on any of my 
windows servers. I always assumed it was something geared towards nix 
servers that never quite worked on windows???


I shall look into the pg_ctl options to see if the kill option does what 
taskill cannot (thanks for the heads up on that)


Thanks all.


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Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session in windows

2007-12-13 Thread Thomas H.
wasn't the OP asking for a way to kill active connections to a db? 
afaik pgAdmin3 does provide this functionality:


pgadmin3  tools  server status

there you can easily terminate connections  transactions to a 
particular db. works pretty well in my test, i can kill active 
connections and drop the db afterwards.


regards,
thomas
The pgadmin terminate connections never did anything on any of my 
windows servers. I always assumed it was something geared towards nix 
servers that never quite worked on windows???




i'm using the pgAdmin3 on windows 2003 and win32 pgsql 8.x for quite a 
while now, and the terminate feature has been working just fine a few 
times in the last years.


- thomas


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Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session in windows

2007-12-13 Thread Howard Cole



Which you can do, no?  I thought pg_ctl's kill option was invented
specifically to make this less painful on Windows.
I shall look into the pg_ctl options to see if the kill option does 
what taskill cannot (thanks for the heads up on that)



Using
$ pg_ctl kill TERM [pid]
worked great. Since very few people seem to know about this, could I 
suggest making it more prominent in the server administration pages.
Thanks for your help gentlemen. Once again I am overwhelmed by the 
quality of support on the forum.



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Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session in windows

2007-12-13 Thread Howard Cole

Thomas H. wrote:
wasn't the OP asking for a way to kill active connections to a db? 
afaik pgAdmin3 does provide this functionality:


pgadmin3  tools  server status

there you can easily terminate connections  transactions to a 
particular db. works pretty well in my test, i can kill active 
connections and drop the db afterwards.


regards,
thomas
The pgadmin terminate connections never did anything on any of my 
windows servers. I always assumed it was something geared towards nix 
servers that never quite worked on windows???




i'm using the pgAdmin3 on windows 2003 and win32 pgsql 8.x for quite a 
while now, and the terminate feature has been working just fine a few 
times in the last years.


- thomas




Hi Thomas,
Just tried it on my vista client machine. The Terminate button is 
greyed out - I just have a cancel option. Maybe I am not using pgAdmin 
right?

P.S. The pg_ctl kill TERM worked fine.

Howard.

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Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session in windows

2007-12-12 Thread Magnus Hagander
On Tue, Dec 11, 2007 at 05:50:46PM -0500, Tom Lane wrote:
 Alvaro Herrera [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
  Howard Cole wrote:
  I take it from the lack of response that nobody knows how to kill a 
  connection from the postgresql side on windows?
 
  You can't, short of sending a signal to the process or restarting the
  service.
 
 Which you can do, no?  I thought pg_ctl's kill option was invented
 specifically to make this less painful on Windows.

It does, and it shuold work. But it's just as dangerous as using kill
directly on the backends on Unix, of course.

//Magnus

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Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session in windows

2007-12-12 Thread Thomas H.



On Tue, Dec 11, 2007 at 05:50:46PM -0500, Tom Lane wrote:

Alvaro Herrera [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:

Howard Cole wrote:
I take it from the lack of response that nobody knows how to kill a 
connection from the postgresql side on windows?

You can't, short of sending a signal to the process or restarting the
service.

Which you can do, no?  I thought pg_ctl's kill option was invented
specifically to make this less painful on Windows.


It does, and it shuold work. But it's just as dangerous as using kill
directly on the backends on Unix, of course.


wasn't the OP asking for a way to kill active connections to a db? afaik 
pgAdmin3 does provide this functionality:


pgadmin3  tools  server status

there you can easily terminate connections  transactions to a 
particular db. works pretty well in my test, i can kill active 
connections and drop the db afterwards.


regards,
thomas


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Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session in windows

2007-12-11 Thread Howard Cole

Hello everyone,

I take it from the lack of response that nobody knows how to kill a 
connection from the postgresql side on windows? Is there another way 
around this? In the end I created another database and changed all my 
code to use the new database, the original database is still there (now 
redundant for 4 days) and the mysterious connection is still there. 
There has to be a better solution?


Howard.

Howard Cole wrote:

Hi,

I've written about this problem before and thanks to Bill Bartlett and 
Richard Huxton for previous replies, but the problem keeps coming up...


I'm running postgresql V8.2.5 (I think!) on W2K3 Server and 
occasionally I want to rebuild a database. However I cannot drop the 
database because there is some unclosed client attached.


Following Richard and Bills suggestions, I have tried 
pg_cancel_backend(pid) but the process remains in pg_stat_activity and 
the process still runs.


I then kill the process directly using taskill but again, the process 
remains in pg_stat_activity and I cannot drop the database.


I eventually have to resort to restarting the postgres service, but 
this is on a live system running several database so I do not want to 
have to do this.


Any suggestions?

Ta

Howard
www.selestial.com


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Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session in windows

2007-12-11 Thread Alvaro Herrera
Howard Cole wrote:
 Hello everyone,

 I take it from the lack of response that nobody knows how to kill a 
 connection from the postgresql side on windows?

You can't, short of sending a signal to the process or restarting the
service.

-- 
Alvaro Herrera   Valdivia, Chile   ICBM: S 39º 49' 18.1, W 73º 13' 56.4
We're here to devour each other alive(Hobbes)

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Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session in windows

2007-12-11 Thread Tom Lane
Alvaro Herrera [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
 Howard Cole wrote:
 I take it from the lack of response that nobody knows how to kill a 
 connection from the postgresql side on windows?

 You can't, short of sending a signal to the process or restarting the
 service.

Which you can do, no?  I thought pg_ctl's kill option was invented
specifically to make this less painful on Windows.

regards, tom lane

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Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session in windows

2007-12-11 Thread Dann Corbit
 -Original Message-
 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:pgsql-general-
 [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Howard Cole
 Sent: Tuesday, December 11, 2007 2:21 PM
 To: 'PgSql General'
 Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session in windows
 
 Hello everyone,
 
 I take it from the lack of response that nobody knows how to kill a
 connection from the postgresql side on windows? Is there another way
 around this? In the end I created another database and changed all my
 code to use the new database, the original database is still there
(now
 redundant for 4 days) and the mysterious connection is still there.
 There has to be a better solution?

What happens if you disable the net card on your server machine?

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[GENERAL] Killing a session in windows

2007-12-07 Thread Howard Cole

Hi,

I've written about this problem before and thanks to Bill Bartlett and 
Richard Huxton for previous replies, but the problem keeps coming up...


I'm running postgresql V8.2.5 (I think!) on W2K3 Server and occasionally 
I want to rebuild a database. However I cannot drop the database because 
there is some unclosed client attached.


Following Richard and Bills suggestions, I have tried 
pg_cancel_backend(pid) but the process remains in pg_stat_activity and 
the process still runs.


I then kill the process directly using taskill but again, the process 
remains in pg_stat_activity and I cannot drop the database.


I eventually have to resort to restarting the postgres service, but this 
is on a live system running several database so I do not want to have to 
do this.


Any suggestions?

Ta

Howard
www.selestial.com


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[GENERAL] Killing a session on windows

2007-11-29 Thread Howard Cole


I have a database I want to drop on a windows server. Unfortunately I 
cannot restart postgres because it is running several live database.


To kill the offending session, I tried select * from pg_stat_activity to 
find the PID of the session, and then tried to kill it with command line:


taskkill /f /pid 1234

This appeared to kill the session, but postgres still thinks the session 
is live with the same process id.


Using the SysInternals process explorer - there doesn't appear to be a 
process with the given ID.


How can I get postgres to drop this session?

Thanks

Howard Cole
www.selestial.com

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Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session on windows

2007-11-29 Thread Richard Huxton

Howard Cole wrote:


I have a database I want to drop on a windows server. Unfortunately I 
cannot restart postgres because it is running several live database.


To kill the offending session, I tried select * from pg_stat_activity to 
find the PID of the session, and then tried to kill it with command line:


taskkill /f /pid 1234

This appeared to kill the session, but postgres still thinks the session 
is live with the same process id.


Hmm - some signalling glitch presumably. Was it not possible to identify 
the client and disconnect that?


Using the SysInternals process explorer - there doesn't appear to be a 
process with the given ID.


How can I get postgres to drop this session?


You could try pg_cancel_backend() - not sure what happens if it can't 
find the process though.


http://www.postgresql.org/docs/8.2/static/functions-admin.html

--
  Richard Huxton
  Archonet Ltd

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Re: [GENERAL] Killing a session on windows

2007-11-29 Thread Bill Bartlett
Use select pg_cancel_backend(pid) instead -- we have to do this periodically
when queries get timed out by the web server but Postgres doesn't notice /
doesn't get notified...

- Bill

-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Howard Cole
Sent: Thursday, November 29, 2007 5:55 AM
To: 'PgSql General'
Subject: [GENERAL] Killing a session on windows


I have a database I want to drop on a windows server. Unfortunately I 
cannot restart postgres because it is running several live database.

To kill the offending session, I tried select * from pg_stat_activity to 
find the PID of the session, and then tried to kill it with command line:

taskkill /f /pid 1234

This appeared to kill the session, but postgres still thinks the session 
is live with the same process id.

Using the SysInternals process explorer - there doesn't appear to be a 
process with the given ID.

How can I get postgres to drop this session?

Thanks

Howard Cole
www.selestial.com

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