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PostgreSQL settings

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PostgreSQL settings affect the performance of the database cluster. When you create a PostgreSQL database cluster, the values for all settings are set automatically. The values are selected to ensure high cluster performance and vary depending on the cluster configuration and PostgreSQL version.

If the automatic values are not suitable for your tasks, set your own values when creating the cluster or change the settings in an already created cluster.

For your information

We recommend that you change the settings only when necessary — incorrect values can reduce cluster performance. When scaling the cluster, some settings are automatically replaced with valid values.

View list of settings⁠

Check out the detailed description of settings in the Settings Parameters article of the PostgreSQL documentation.

You can view a list of settings available for modification when creating a cluster or changing settings.

If you have changed settings, you can see a list of all changes.

  1. In the Dashboard, on the top menu, click Products and select Cloud Databases.
  2. Open the Active tab.
  3. Open the cluster page → Settings tab.
  4. The DBMS Settings block displays the previously changed settings — name and value.

Change settings⁠

For your information

Changing some parameters in the settings causes the databases in the cluster to reboot — the cluster may be unavailable during this time. These settings depend on the PostgreSQL version — see their list.

  1. In the Dashboard, on the top menu, click Products and select Cloud Databases.
  2. Open the Active tab.
  3. Open the cluster page → Settings tab.
  4. In the DBMS Settings block, click Change and specify the new values.
  5. Click Save

List of settings that require a reboot⁠

  • autovacuum_freeze_max_age;
  • autovacuum_max_workers;
  • autovacuum_multixact_freeze_max_age;
  • max_files_per_process;
  • max_pred_locks_per_transaction;
  • max_prepared_transactions;
  • old_snapshot_threshold;
  • track_activity_query_size;
  • max_connections;
  • max_locks_per_transaction;
  • max_worker_processes;
  • shared_buffers (for all versions except PostgreSQL 11).

Settings when scaling a cluster⁠

Any DBMS parameter has limits of acceptable values. When scaling the cluster (changing the configuration), the values of some settings are automatically changed to the allowable values so that the cluster can work.

When the cluster is scaled and moves to ACTIVE status, you can set new values — change the settings.

A list of settings that change values when the cluster is scaled:

  • shared_buffers;
  • effective_cache_size;
  • maintenance_work_mem;
  • max_worker_processes;
  • max_parallel_workers;
  • autovacuum_max_workers;
  • vacuum_cost_limit;
  • max_parallel_workers_per_gather;
  • max_maintenance_workers.