EDIT: With thanks to u/code@lemmy.mayes.io, I have a solution for cleaning up the one table that is growing ridiculously in size and that is the activity table. A TRUNCATE activity; command cleaned that right up. A word of caution is in order because the Lemmy instance must be shutdown completely and only the postgres container running if you’re using docker.

As a new Lemmy admin, I think I really need to learn PostgreSQL administration because I need a way to keep my database from ballooning in size and there are no management tools built yet for it. Would someone be so kind as to recommend a good website for learning PostgreSQL? This would also help me maintain my mastodon instance.

  •  PenguinCoder   ( @Penguincoder@beehaw.org ) English
    11•1 year ago

    learn PostgreSQL administration

    Definitely helpful, but administration only goes so far with the Lemmy database. Take a look at this post and let me know if it answers any of your questions; if you have more feel free to ask, or ping me on matrix @penguincoder:hive.beehaw.org

      •  code   ( @code@lemmy.mayes.io ) English
        5•1 year ago

        Look at vacumn command. Also dbeaver is a teally good gui tool. Right now there is one table thats the main cause (i think its called activity but dont quote me on that there was a post about it)

        That table is mainly for debugging as it logs every action in activitypub your instance does. I truncate it once a week and vacumn it (shrinks the disk space used). Caution. You must shut down lemmy before doing so. I run containers so i stop all except postgres and clean it up.

          •  PenguinCoder   ( @Penguincoder@beehaw.org ) English
            1•1 year ago

            Really ugly, but really works. Connect to psql and run:

            WITH RECURSIVE pg_inherit(inhrelid, inhparent) AS
    (select inhrelid, inhparent
    FROM pg_inherits
    UNION
    SELECT child.inhrelid, parent.inhparent
    FROM pg_inherit child, pg_inherits parent
    WHERE child.inhparent = parent.inhrelid),
pg_inherit_short AS (SELECT * FROM pg_inherit WHERE inhparent NOT IN (SELECT inhrelid FROM pg_inherit))
SELECT table_schema
    , TABLE_NAME
    , row_estimate
    , pg_size_pretty(total_bytes) AS total
    , pg_size_pretty(index_bytes) AS INDEX
    , pg_size_pretty(toast_bytes) AS toast
    , pg_size_pretty(table_bytes) AS TABLE
    , total_bytes::float8 / sum(total_bytes) OVER () AS total_size_share
  FROM (
    SELECT *, total_bytes-index_bytes-COALESCE(toast_bytes,0) AS table_bytes
    FROM (
         SELECT c.oid
              , nspname AS table_schema
              , relname AS TABLE_NAME
              , SUM(c.reltuples) OVER (partition BY parent) AS row_estimate
              , SUM(pg_total_relation_size(c.oid)) OVER (partition BY parent) AS total_bytes
              , SUM(pg_indexes_size(c.oid)) OVER (partition BY parent) AS index_bytes
              , SUM(pg_total_relation_size(reltoastrelid)) OVER (partition BY parent) AS toast_bytes
              , parent
          FROM (
                SELECT pg_class.oid
                    , reltuples
                    , relname
                    , relnamespace
                    , pg_class.reltoastrelid
                    , COALESCE(inhparent, pg_class.oid) parent
                FROM pg_class
                    LEFT JOIN pg_inherit_short ON inhrelid = oid
                WHERE relkind IN ('r', 'p')
             ) c
             LEFT JOIN pg_namespace n ON n.oid = c.relnamespace
  ) a
  WHERE oid = parent
) a
ORDER BY total_bytes DESC LIMIT 3;

            That will show the top 3 database tables sizes. I bet you number one is activity.