pgbench \u2014 run a benchmark test on PostgreSQL
\npgbench -i [option...] [dbname]
pgbench [option...] [dbname]
pgbench is a simple program for running benchmark tests on PostgreSQL. It runs the same sequence of SQL commands over and over, possibly in multiple concurrent database sessions, and then calculates the average transaction rate (transactions per second). By default, pgbench tests a scenario that is loosely based on TPC-B, involving five SELECT, UPDATE, and INSERT commands per transaction. However, it is easy to test other cases by writing your own transaction script files.
Typical output from pgbench looks like:
\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 10\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\ntps = 85.184871 (including connections establishing)\ntps = 85.296346 (excluding connections establishing)\n\n
The first six lines report some of the most important parameter settings. The next line reports the number of transactions completed and intended (the latter being just the product of number of clients and number of transactions per client); these will be equal unless the run failed before completion. (In -T mode, only the actual number of transactions is printed.) The last two lines report the number of transactions per second, figured with and without counting the time to start database sessions.
The default TPC-B-like transaction test requires specific tables to be set up beforehand. pgbench should be invoked with the -i (initialize) option to create and populate these tables. (When you are testing a custom script, you don't need this step, but will instead need to do whatever setup your test needs.) Initialization looks like:
pgbench -i [\nother-options]dbname\n
where dbname is the name of the already-created database to test in. (You may also need -h, -p, and/or -U options to specify how to connect to the database server.)
pgbench -i creates four tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers, destroying any existing tables of these names. Be very careful to use another database if you have tables having these names!
At the default \u201cscale factor\u201d of 1, the tables initially contain this many rows:
\ntable # of rows\n---------------------------------\npgbench_branches 1\npgbench_tellers 10\npgbench_accounts 100000\npgbench_history 0\n\n
You can (and, for most purposes, probably should) increase the number of rows by using the -s (scale factor) option. The -F (fillfactor) option might also be used at this point.
Once you have done the necessary setup, you can run your benchmark with a command that doesn't include -i, that is
pgbench [\noptions]dbname\n
In nearly all cases, you'll need some options to make a useful test. The most important options are -c (number of clients), -t (number of transactions), -T (time limit), and -f (specify a custom script file). See below for a full list.
The following is divided into three subsections: Different options are used during database initialization and while running benchmarks, some options are useful in both cases.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line initialization arguments:
\n-i--initializeRequired to invoke initialization mode.
\n-F fillfactor--fillfactor=fillfactorCreate the pgbench_accounts, pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables with the given fillfactor. Default is 100.
-n--no-vacuumPerform no vacuuming after initialization.
\n-q--quietSwitch logging to quiet mode, producing only one progress message per 5 seconds. The default logging prints one message each 100000 rows, which often outputs many lines per second (especially on good hardware).
\n-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factorMultiply the number of rows generated by the scale factor. For example, -s 100 will create 10,000,000 rows in the pgbench_accounts table. Default is 1. When the scale is 20,000 or larger, the columns used to hold account identifiers (aid columns) will switch to using larger integers (bigint), in order to be big enough to hold the range of account identifiers.
--foreign-keysCreate foreign key constraints between the standard tables.
\n--index-tablespace=index_tablespaceCreate indexes in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--tablespace=tablespaceCreate tables in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--unlogged-tablesCreate all tables as unlogged tables, rather than permanent tables.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line benchmarking arguments:
\n-b scriptname[@weight]--builtin=scriptname[@weight]Add the specified built-in script to the list of scripts to be executed. Available built-in scripts are: tpcb-like, simple-update and select-only. Unambiguous prefixes of built-in names are accepted. With the special name list, show the list of built-in scripts and exit immediately.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. See below for details.
-c clients--client=clientsNumber of clients simulated, that is, number of concurrent database sessions. Default is 1.
\n-C--connectEstablish a new connection for each transaction, rather than doing it just once per client session. This is useful to measure the connection overhead.
\n-d--debugPrint debugging output.
\n-D varname=value--define=varname=valueDefine a variable for use by a custom script (see below). Multiple -D options are allowed.
-f filename[@weight]--file=filename[@weight]Add a transaction script read from filename to the list of scripts to be executed.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. (To use a script file name that includes an @ character, append a weight so that there is no ambiguity, for example filen@me@1.) See below for details.
-j threads--jobs=threadsNumber of worker threads within pgbench. Using more than one thread can be helpful on multi-CPU machines. Clients are distributed as evenly as possible among available threads. Default is 1.
\n-l--logWrite information about each transaction to a log file. See below for details.
\n-L limit--latency-limit=limitTransactions that last more than limit milliseconds are counted and reported separately, as late.
When throttling is used (--rate=...), transactions that lag behind schedule by more than limit ms, and thus have no hope of meeting the latency limit, are not sent to the server at all. They are counted and reported separately as skipped.
-M querymode--protocol=querymodeProtocol to use for submitting queries to the server:
\nsimple: use simple query protocol.
extended: use extended query protocol.
prepared: use extended query protocol with prepared statements.
The default is simple query protocol. (See Chapter\u00a052 for more information.)
\n-n--no-vacuumPerform no vacuuming before running the test. This option is necessary if you are running a custom test scenario that does not include the standard tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
-N--skip-some-updatesRun built-in simple-update script. Shorthand for -b simple-update.
-P sec--progress=secShow progress report every sec seconds. The report includes the time since the beginning of the run, the tps since the last report, and the transaction latency average and standard deviation since the last report. Under throttling (-R), the latency is computed with respect to the transaction scheduled start time, not the actual transaction beginning time, thus it also includes the average schedule lag time.
-r--report-latenciesReport the average per-statement latency (execution time from the perspective of the client) of each command after the benchmark finishes. See below for details.
\n-R rate--rate=rateExecute transactions targeting the specified rate instead of running as fast as possible (the default). The rate is given in transactions per second. If the targeted rate is above the maximum possible rate, the rate limit won't impact the results.
\nThe rate is targeted by starting transactions along a Poisson-distributed schedule time line. The expected start time schedule moves forward based on when the client first started, not when the previous transaction ended. That approach means that when transactions go past their original scheduled end time, it is possible for later ones to catch up again.
\nWhen throttling is active, the transaction latency reported at the end of the run is calculated from the scheduled start times, so it includes the time each transaction had to wait for the previous transaction to finish. The wait time is called the schedule lag time, and its average and maximum are also reported separately. The transaction latency with respect to the actual transaction start time, i.e., the time spent executing the transaction in the database, can be computed by subtracting the schedule lag time from the reported latency.
\nIf --latency-limit is used together with --rate, a transaction can lag behind so much that it is already over the latency limit when the previous transaction ends, because the latency is calculated from the scheduled start time. Such transactions are not sent to the server, but are skipped altogether and counted separately.
A high schedule lag time is an indication that the system cannot process transactions at the specified rate, with the chosen number of clients and threads. When the average transaction execution time is longer than the scheduled interval between each transaction, each successive transaction will fall further behind, and the schedule lag time will keep increasing the longer the test run is. When that happens, you will have to reduce the specified transaction rate.
\n-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factorReport the specified scale factor in pgbench's output. With the built-in tests, this is not necessary; the correct scale factor will be detected by counting the number of rows in the pgbench_branches table. However, when testing only custom benchmarks (-f option), the scale factor will be reported as 1 unless this option is used.
-S--select-onlyRun built-in select-only script. Shorthand for -b select-only.
-t transactions--transactions=transactionsNumber of transactions each client runs. Default is 10.
\n-T seconds--time=secondsRun the test for this many seconds, rather than a fixed number of transactions per client. -t and -T are mutually exclusive.
-v--vacuum-allVacuum all four standard tables before running the test. With neither -n nor -v, pgbench will vacuum the pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables, and will truncate pgbench_history.
--aggregate-interval=secondsLength of aggregation interval (in seconds). May be used only with -l option. With this option, the log contains per-interval summary data, as described below.
--log-prefix=prefixSet the filename prefix for the log files created by --log. The default is pgbench_log.
--progress-timestampWhen showing progress (option -P), use a timestamp (Unix epoch) instead of the number of seconds since the beginning of the run. The unit is in seconds, with millisecond precision after the dot. This helps compare logs generated by various tools.
--sampling-rate=rateSampling rate, used when writing data into the log, to reduce the amount of log generated. If this option is given, only the specified fraction of transactions are logged. 1.0 means all transactions will be logged, 0.05 means only 5% of the transactions will be logged.
\nRemember to take the sampling rate into account when processing the log file. For example, when computing tps values, you need to multiply the numbers accordingly (e.g., with 0.01 sample rate, you'll only get 1/100 of the actual tps).
\npgbench accepts the following command-line common arguments:
\n-h hostname--host=hostnameThe database server's host name
\n-p port--port=portThe database server's port number
\n-U login--username=loginThe user name to connect as
\n-V--versionPrint the pgbench version and exit.
\n-?--helpShow help about pgbench command line arguments, and exit.
\npgbench executes test scripts chosen randomly from a specified list. The scripts may include built-in scripts specified with -b and user-provided scripts specified with -f. Each script may be given a relative weight specified after an @ so as to change its selection probability. The default weight is 1. Scripts with a weight of 0 are ignored.
The default built-in transaction script (also invoked with -b tpcb-like) issues seven commands per transaction over randomly chosen aid, tid, bid and delta. The scenario is inspired by the TPC-B benchmark, but is not actually TPC-B, hence the name.
BEGIN;
UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;
SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;
UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;
UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;
INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);
END;
If you select the simple-update built-in (also -N), steps 4 and 5 aren't included in the transaction. This will avoid update contention on these tables, but it makes the test case even less like TPC-B.
If you select the select-only built-in (also -S), only the SELECT is issued.
pgbench has support for running custom benchmark scenarios by replacing the default transaction script (described above) with a transaction script read from a file (-f option). In this case a \u201ctransaction\u201d counts as one execution of a script file.
A script file contains one or more SQL commands terminated by semicolons. Empty lines and lines beginning with -- are ignored. Script files can also contain \u201cmeta commands\u201d, which are interpreted by pgbench itself, as described below.
Before PostgreSQL 9.6, SQL commands in script files were terminated by newlines, and so they could not be continued across lines. Now a semicolon is required to separate consecutive SQL commands (though a SQL command does not need one if it is followed by a meta command). If you need to create a script file that works with both old and new versions of pgbench, be sure to write each SQL command on a single line ending with a semicolon.
\nThere is a simple variable-substitution facility for script files. Variables can be set by the command-line -D option, explained above, or by the meta commands explained below. In addition to any variables preset by -D command-line options, there are a few variables that are preset automatically, listed in Table\u00a0242. A value specified for these variables using -D takes precedence over the automatic presets. Once set, a variable's value can be inserted into a SQL command by writing :variablename. When running more than one client session, each session has its own set of variables.
Table\u00a0242.\u00a0Automatic Variables
\n| Variable | \nDescription | \n
|---|---|
scale | \ncurrent scale factor | \n
client_id | \nunique number identifying the client session (starts from zero) | \n
Script file meta commands begin with a backslash (\\) and normally extend to the end of the line, although they can be continued to additional lines by writing backslash-return. Arguments to a meta command are separated by white space. These meta commands are supported:
\\set varname expressionSets variable varname to a value calculated from expression. The expression may contain integer constants such as 5432, double constants such as 3.14159, references to variables :variablename, unary operators (+, -) and binary operators (+, -, *, /, %) with their usual precedence and associativity, function calls, and parentheses.
Examples:
\n\\set ntellers 10 * :scale\n\\set aid (1021 * random(1, 100000 * :scale)) % \\\n (100000 * :scale) + 1\n
\\sleep number [ us | ms | s ]Causes script execution to sleep for the specified duration in microseconds (us), milliseconds (ms) or seconds (s). If the unit is omitted then seconds are the default. number can be either an integer constant or a :variablename reference to a variable having an integer value.
Example:
\n\\sleep 10 ms\n
\\setshell varname command [ argument ... ]Sets variable varname to the result of the shell command command with the given argument(s). The command must return an integer value through its standard output.
command and each argument can be either a text constant or a :variablename reference to a variable. If you want to use an argument starting with a colon, write an additional colon at the beginning of argument.
Example:
\n\\setshell variable_to_be_assigned command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n
\\shell command [ argument ... ]Same as \\setshell, but the result of the command is discarded.
Example:
\n\\shell command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n
The functions listed in Table\u00a0243 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set.
Table\u00a0243.\u00a0pgbench Functions
\n| Function | \nReturn Type | \nDescription | \nExample | \nResult | \n
|---|---|---|---|---|
| \nsame as a | \nabsolute value | \nabs(-17) | \n17 | \n
| \nsame as a | \nprint a to stderr, and return a | \ndebug(5432.1) | \n5432.1 | \n
| \ndouble | \ncast to double | \ndouble(5432) | \n5432.0 | \n
| \ndouble if any a is double, else integer | \nlargest value among arguments | \ngreatest(5, 4, 3, 2) | \n5 | \n
| \ninteger | \ncast to int | \nint(5.4 + 3.8) | \n9 | \n
| \ndouble if any a is double, else integer | \nsmallest value among arguments | \nleast(5, 4, 3, 2.1) | \n2.1 | \n
| \ndouble | \nvalue of the constant PI | \npi() | \n3.14159265358979323846 | \n
| \ninteger | \nuniformly-distributed random integer in [lb, ub] | \nrandom(1, 10) | \nan integer between 1 and 10 | \n
| \ninteger | \nexponentially-distributed random integer in [lb, ub], see below | \nrandom_exponential(1, 10, 3.0) | \nan integer between 1 and 10 | \n
| \ninteger | \nGaussian-distributed random integer in [lb, ub], see below | \nrandom_gaussian(1, 10, 2.5) | \nan integer between 1 and 10 | \n
| \ndouble | \nsquare root | \nsqrt(2.0) | \n1.414213562 | \n
The random function generates values using a uniform distribution, that is all the values are drawn within the specified range with equal probability. The random_exponential and random_gaussian functions require an additional double parameter which determines the precise shape of the distribution.
For an exponential distribution, parameter controls the distribution by truncating a quickly-decreasing exponential distribution at parameter, and then projecting onto integers between the bounds. To be precise, with
f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0exp(-parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0min)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/\u00a0(1\u00a0-\u00a0exp(-parameter))
\nThen value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i) - f(i + 1).
Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to min are accessed, and the less frequently values close to max are accessed. The closer to 0 parameter is, the flatter (more uniform) the access distribution. A crude approximation of the distribution is that the most frequent 1% values in the range, close to min, are drawn parameter% of the time. The parameter value must be strictly positive.
For a Gaussian distribution, the interval is mapped onto a standard normal distribution (the classical bell-shaped Gaussian curve) truncated at -parameter on the left and +parameter on the right. Values in the middle of the interval are more likely to be drawn. To be precise, if PHI(x) is the cumulative distribution function of the standard normal distribution, with mean mu defined as (max + min) / 2.0, with
f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0PHI(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0mu)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0PHI(parameter)\u00a0-\u00a01)
then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i + 0.5) - f(i - 0.5). Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to the middle of the interval are drawn, and the less frequently values close to the min and max bounds. About 67% of values are drawn from the middle 1.0 / parameter, that is a relative 0.5 / parameter around the mean, and 95% in the middle 2.0 / parameter, that is a relative 1.0 / parameter around the mean; for instance, if parameter is 4.0, 67% of values are drawn from the middle quarter (1.0 / 4.0) of the interval (i.e., from 3.0 / 8.0 to 5.0 / 8.0) and 95% from the middle half (2.0 / 4.0) of the interval (second and third quartiles). The minimum parameter is 2.0 for performance of the Box-Muller transform.
As an example, the full definition of the built-in TPC-B-like transaction is:
\n\\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n\\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n\\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n\\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\nBEGIN;\nUPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\nSELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\nUPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\nUPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\nINSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\nEND;\n\n
This script allows each iteration of the transaction to reference different, randomly-chosen rows. (This example also shows why it's important for each client session to have its own variables \u2014 otherwise they'd not be independently touching different rows.)
\nWith the -l option (but without the --aggregate-interval option), pgbench writes information about each transaction to a log file. The log file will be named prefix.nnnprefix defaults to pgbench_log, and nnn is the PID of the pgbench process. The prefix can be changed by using the --log-prefix option. If the -j option is 2 or higher, so that there are multiple worker threads, each will have its own log file. The first worker will use the same name for its log file as in the standard single worker case. The additional log files for the other workers will be named prefix.nnn.mmmmmm is a sequential number for each worker starting with 1.
The format of the log is:
\n\nclient_idtransaction_notimescript_notime_epochtime_us[schedule_lag]\n
where client_id indicates which client session ran the transaction, transaction_no counts how many transactions have been run by that session, time is the total elapsed transaction time in microseconds, script_no identifies which script file was used (useful when multiple scripts were specified with -f or -b), and time_epoch/time_us are a Unix-epoch time stamp and an offset in microseconds (suitable for creating an ISO 8601 time stamp with fractional seconds) showing when the transaction completed. The schedule_lag field is the difference between the transaction's scheduled start time, and the time it actually started, in microseconds. It is only present when the --rate option is used. When both --rate and --latency-limit are used, the time for a skipped transaction will be reported as skipped.
Here is a snippet of a log file generated in a single-client run:
\n0 199 2241 0 1175850568 995598\n0 200 2465 0 1175850568 998079\n0 201 2513 0 1175850569 608\n0 202 2038 0 1175850569 2663\n\n
Another example with --rate=100 and --latency-limit=5 (note the additional schedule_lag column):
0 81 4621 0 1412881037 912698 3005\n0 82 6173 0 1412881037 914578 4304\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5217\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5099\n0 83 4722 0 1412881037 916203 3108\n0 84 4142 0 1412881037 918023 2333\n0 85 2465 0 1412881037 919759 740\n\n
In this example, transaction 82 was late, because its latency (6.173 ms) was over the 5 ms limit. The next two transactions were skipped, because they were already late before they were even started.
\nWhen running a long test on hardware that can handle a lot of transactions, the log files can become very large. The --sampling-rate option can be used to log only a random sample of transactions.
With the --aggregate-interval option, a different format is used for the log files:
\ninterval_startnum_transactionssum_latencysum_latency_2min_latencymax_latency[sum_lagsum_lag_2min_lagmax_lag[skipped] ]\n
where interval_start is the start of the interval (as a Unix epoch time stamp), num_transactions is the number of transactions within the interval, sum_latency is the sum of the transaction latencies within the interval, sum_latency_2 is the sum of squares of the transaction latencies within the interval, min_latency is the minimum latency within the interval, and max_latency is the maximum latency within the interval. The next fields, sum_lag, sum_lag_2, min_lag, and max_lag, are only present if the --rate option is used. They provide statistics about the time each transaction had to wait for the previous one to finish, i.e., the difference between each transaction's scheduled start time and the time it actually started. The very last field, skipped, is only present if the --latency-limit option is used, too. It counts the number of transactions skipped because they would have started too late. Each transaction is counted in the interval when it was committed.
Here is some example output:
\n1345828501 5601 1542744 483552416 61 2573\n1345828503 7884 1979812 565806736 60 1479\n1345828505 7208 1979422 567277552 59 1391\n1345828507 7685 1980268 569784714 60 1398\n1345828509 7073 1979779 573489941 236 1411\n\n
Notice that while the plain (unaggregated) log file shows which script was used for each transaction, the aggregated log does not. Therefore if you need per-script data, you need to aggregate the data on your own.
\nWith the -r option, pgbench collects the elapsed transaction time of each statement executed by every client. It then reports an average of those values, referred to as the latency for each statement, after the benchmark has finished.
For the default script, the output will look similar to this:
\nstarting vacuum...end.\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 1\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\nlatency average = 15.844 ms\nlatency stddev = 2.715 ms\ntps = 618.764555 (including connections establishing)\ntps = 622.977698 (excluding connections establishing)\nscript statistics:\n - statement latencies in milliseconds:\n 0.002 \\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n 0.005 \\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n 0.002 \\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n 0.001 \\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\n 0.326 BEGIN;\n 0.603 UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\n 0.454 SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\n 5.528 UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\n 7.335 UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\n 0.371 INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\n 1.212 END;\n\n
If multiple script files are specified, the averages are reported separately for each script file.
\nNote that collecting the additional timing information needed for per-statement latency computation adds some overhead. This will slow average execution speed and lower the computed TPS. The amount of slowdown varies significantly depending on platform and hardware. Comparing average TPS values with and without latency reporting enabled is a good way to measure if the timing overhead is significant.
\nIt is very easy to use pgbench to produce completely meaningless numbers. Here are some guidelines to help you get useful results.
\nIn the first place, never believe any test that runs for only a few seconds. Use the -t or -T option to make the run last at least a few minutes, so as to average out noise. In some cases you could need hours to get numbers that are reproducible. It's a good idea to try the test run a few times, to find out if your numbers are reproducible or not.
For the default TPC-B-like test scenario, the initialization scale factor (-s) should be at least as large as the largest number of clients you intend to test (-c); else you'll mostly be measuring update contention. There are only -s rows in the pgbench_branches table, and every transaction wants to update one of them, so -c values in excess of -s will undoubtedly result in lots of transactions blocked waiting for other transactions.
The default test scenario is also quite sensitive to how long it's been since the tables were initialized: accumulation of dead rows and dead space in the tables changes the results. To understand the results you must keep track of the total number of updates and when vacuuming happens. If autovacuum is enabled it can result in unpredictable changes in measured performance.
\nA limitation of pgbench is that it can itself become the bottleneck when trying to test a large number of client sessions. This can be alleviated by running pgbench on a different machine from the database server, although low network latency will be essential. It might even be useful to run several pgbench instances concurrently, on several client machines, against the same database server.
\nIf untrusted users have access to a database that has not adopted a secure schema usage pattern, do not run pgbench in that database. pgbench uses unqualified names and does not manipulate the search path.
\npgbench \u2014 run a benchmark test on PostgreSQL
\npgbench -i [option...] [dbname]
pgbench [option...] [dbname]
pgbench is a simple program for running benchmark tests on PostgreSQL. It runs the same sequence of SQL commands over and over, possibly in multiple concurrent database sessions, and then calculates the average transaction rate (transactions per second). By default, pgbench tests a scenario that is loosely based on TPC-B, involving five SELECT, UPDATE, and INSERT commands per transaction. However, it is easy to test other cases by writing your own transaction script files.
Typical output from pgbench looks like:
\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 10\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\ntps = 85.184871 (including connections establishing)\ntps = 85.296346 (excluding connections establishing)\n\n
The first six lines report some of the most important parameter settings. The next line reports the number of transactions completed and intended (the latter being just the product of number of clients and number of transactions per client); these will be equal unless the run failed before completion. (In -T mode, only the actual number of transactions is printed.) The last two lines report the number of transactions per second, figured with and without counting the time to start database sessions.
The default TPC-B-like transaction test requires specific tables to be set up beforehand. pgbench should be invoked with the -i (initialize) option to create and populate these tables. (When you are testing a custom script, you don't need this step, but will instead need to do whatever setup your test needs.) Initialization looks like:
pgbench -i [\nother-options]dbname\n
where dbname is the name of the already-created database to test in. (You may also need -h, -p, and/or -U options to specify how to connect to the database server.)
pgbench -i creates four tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers, destroying any existing tables of these names. Be very careful to use another database if you have tables having these names!
At the default \u201cscale factor\u201d of 1, the tables initially contain this many rows:
\ntable # of rows\n---------------------------------\npgbench_branches 1\npgbench_tellers 10\npgbench_accounts 100000\npgbench_history 0\n\n
You can (and, for most purposes, probably should) increase the number of rows by using the -s (scale factor) option. The -F (fillfactor) option might also be used at this point.
Once you have done the necessary setup, you can run your benchmark with a command that doesn't include -i, that is
pgbench [\noptions]dbname\n
In nearly all cases, you'll need some options to make a useful test. The most important options are -c (number of clients), -t (number of transactions), -T (time limit), and -f (specify a custom script file). See below for a full list.
The following is divided into three subsections. Different options are used during database initialization and while running benchmarks, but some options are useful in both cases.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line initialization arguments:
\n-i--initializeRequired to invoke initialization mode.
\n-I init_steps--init-steps=init_stepsPerform just a selected set of the normal initialization steps. init_steps specifies the initialization steps to be performed, using one character per step. Each step is invoked in the specified order. The default is dtgvp. The available steps are:
d (Drop)Drop any existing pgbench tables.
\nt (create Tables)Create the tables used by the standard pgbench scenario, namely pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
g (Generate data)Generate data and load it into the standard tables, replacing any data already present.
\nv (Vacuum)Invoke VACUUM on the standard tables.
p (create Primary keys)Create primary key indexes on the standard tables.
\nf (create Foreign keys)Create foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (Note that this step is not performed by default.)
\n-F fillfactor--fillfactor=fillfactorCreate the pgbench_accounts, pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables with the given fillfactor. Default is 100.
-n--no-vacuumPerform no vacuuming during initialization. (This option suppresses the v initialization step, even if it was specified in -I.)
-q--quietSwitch logging to quiet mode, producing only one progress message per 5 seconds. The default logging prints one message each 100000 rows, which often outputs many lines per second (especially on good hardware).
\n-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factorMultiply the number of rows generated by the scale factor. For example, -s 100 will create 10,000,000 rows in the pgbench_accounts table. Default is 1. When the scale is 20,000 or larger, the columns used to hold account identifiers (aid columns) will switch to using larger integers (bigint), in order to be big enough to hold the range of account identifiers.
--foreign-keysCreate foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (This option adds the f step to the initialization step sequence, if it is not already present.)
--index-tablespace=index_tablespaceCreate indexes in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--tablespace=tablespaceCreate tables in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--unlogged-tablesCreate all tables as unlogged tables, rather than permanent tables.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line benchmarking arguments:
\n-b scriptname[@weight]--builtin=scriptname[@weight]Add the specified built-in script to the list of scripts to be executed. Available built-in scripts are: tpcb-like, simple-update and select-only. Unambiguous prefixes of built-in names are accepted. With the special name list, show the list of built-in scripts and exit immediately.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. See below for details.
-c clients--client=clientsNumber of clients simulated, that is, number of concurrent database sessions. Default is 1.
\n-C--connectEstablish a new connection for each transaction, rather than doing it just once per client session. This is useful to measure the connection overhead.
\n-d--debugPrint debugging output.
\n-D varname=value--define=varname=valueDefine a variable for use by a custom script (see below). Multiple -D options are allowed.
-f filename[@weight]--file=filename[@weight]Add a transaction script read from filename to the list of scripts to be executed.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. (To use a script file name that includes an @ character, append a weight so that there is no ambiguity, for example filen@me@1.) See below for details.
-j threads--jobs=threadsNumber of worker threads within pgbench. Using more than one thread can be helpful on multi-CPU machines. Clients are distributed as evenly as possible among available threads. Default is 1.
\n-l--logWrite information about each transaction to a log file. See below for details.
\n-L limit--latency-limit=limitTransactions that last more than limit milliseconds are counted and reported separately, as late.
When throttling is used (--rate=...), transactions that lag behind schedule by more than limit ms, and thus have no hope of meeting the latency limit, are not sent to the server at all. They are counted and reported separately as skipped.
-M querymode--protocol=querymodeProtocol to use for submitting queries to the server:
\nsimple: use simple query protocol.
extended: use extended query protocol.
prepared: use extended query protocol with prepared statements.
The default is simple query protocol. (See Chapter\u00a053 for more information.)
\n-n--no-vacuumPerform no vacuuming before running the test. This option is necessary if you are running a custom test scenario that does not include the standard tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
-N--skip-some-updatesRun built-in simple-update script. Shorthand for -b simple-update.
-P sec--progress=secShow progress report every sec seconds. The report includes the time since the beginning of the run, the TPS since the last report, and the transaction latency average and standard deviation since the last report. Under throttling (-R), the latency is computed with respect to the transaction scheduled start time, not the actual transaction beginning time, thus it also includes the average schedule lag time.
-r--report-latenciesReport the average per-statement latency (execution time from the perspective of the client) of each command after the benchmark finishes. See below for details.
\n-R rate--rate=rateExecute transactions targeting the specified rate instead of running as fast as possible (the default). The rate is given in transactions per second. If the targeted rate is above the maximum possible rate, the rate limit won't impact the results.
\nThe rate is targeted by starting transactions along a Poisson-distributed schedule time line. The expected start time schedule moves forward based on when the client first started, not when the previous transaction ended. That approach means that when transactions go past their original scheduled end time, it is possible for later ones to catch up again.
\nWhen throttling is active, the transaction latency reported at the end of the run is calculated from the scheduled start times, so it includes the time each transaction had to wait for the previous transaction to finish. The wait time is called the schedule lag time, and its average and maximum are also reported separately. The transaction latency with respect to the actual transaction start time, i.e., the time spent executing the transaction in the database, can be computed by subtracting the schedule lag time from the reported latency.
\nIf --latency-limit is used together with --rate, a transaction can lag behind so much that it is already over the latency limit when the previous transaction ends, because the latency is calculated from the scheduled start time. Such transactions are not sent to the server, but are skipped altogether and counted separately.
A high schedule lag time is an indication that the system cannot process transactions at the specified rate, with the chosen number of clients and threads. When the average transaction execution time is longer than the scheduled interval between each transaction, each successive transaction will fall further behind, and the schedule lag time will keep increasing the longer the test run is. When that happens, you will have to reduce the specified transaction rate.
\n-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factorReport the specified scale factor in pgbench's output. With the built-in tests, this is not necessary; the correct scale factor will be detected by counting the number of rows in the pgbench_branches table. However, when testing only custom benchmarks (-f option), the scale factor will be reported as 1 unless this option is used.
-S--select-onlyRun built-in select-only script. Shorthand for -b select-only.
-t transactions--transactions=transactionsNumber of transactions each client runs. Default is 10.
\n-T seconds--time=secondsRun the test for this many seconds, rather than a fixed number of transactions per client. -t and -T are mutually exclusive.
-v--vacuum-allVacuum all four standard tables before running the test. With neither -n nor -v, pgbench will vacuum the pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables, and will truncate pgbench_history.
--aggregate-interval=secondsLength of aggregation interval (in seconds). May be used only with -l option. With this option, the log contains per-interval summary data, as described below.
--log-prefix=prefixSet the filename prefix for the log files created by --log. The default is pgbench_log.
--progress-timestampWhen showing progress (option -P), use a timestamp (Unix epoch) instead of the number of seconds since the beginning of the run. The unit is in seconds, with millisecond precision after the dot. This helps compare logs generated by various tools.
--random-seed=SEEDSet random generator seed. Seeds the system random number generator, which then produces a sequence of initial generator states, one for each thread. Values for SEED may be: time (the default, the seed is based on the current time), rand (use a strong random source, failing if none is available), or an unsigned decimal integer value. The random generator is invoked explicitly from a pgbench script (random... functions) or implicitly (for instance option --rate uses it to schedule transactions). When explicitly set, the value used for seeding is shown on the terminal. Any value allowed for SEED may also be provided through the environment variable PGBENCH_RANDOM_SEED. To ensure that the provided seed impacts all possible uses, put this option first or use the environment variable.
Setting the seed explicitly allows to reproduce a pgbench run exactly, as far as random numbers are concerned. As the random state is managed per thread, this means the exact same pgbench run for an identical invocation if there is one client per thread and there are no external or data dependencies. From a statistical viewpoint reproducing runs exactly is a bad idea because it can hide the performance variability or improve performance unduly, e.g., by hitting the same pages as a previous run. However, it may also be of great help for debugging, for instance re-running a tricky case which leads to an error. Use wisely.
--sampling-rate=rateSampling rate, used when writing data into the log, to reduce the amount of log generated. If this option is given, only the specified fraction of transactions are logged. 1.0 means all transactions will be logged, 0.05 means only 5% of the transactions will be logged.
\nRemember to take the sampling rate into account when processing the log file. For example, when computing TPS values, you need to multiply the numbers accordingly (e.g., with 0.01 sample rate, you'll only get 1/100 of the actual TPS).
\npgbench accepts the following command-line common arguments:
\n-h hostname--host=hostnameThe database server's host name
\n-p port--port=portThe database server's port number
\n-U login--username=loginThe user name to connect as
\n-V--versionPrint the pgbench version and exit.
\n-?--helpShow help about pgbench command line arguments, and exit.
\npgbench executes test scripts chosen randomly from a specified list. The scripts may include built-in scripts specified with -b and user-provided scripts specified with -f. Each script may be given a relative weight specified after an @ so as to change its selection probability. The default weight is 1. Scripts with a weight of 0 are ignored.
The default built-in transaction script (also invoked with -b tpcb-like) issues seven commands per transaction over randomly chosen aid, tid, bid and delta. The scenario is inspired by the TPC-B benchmark, but is not actually TPC-B, hence the name.
BEGIN;
UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;
SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;
UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;
UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;
INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);
END;
If you select the simple-update built-in (also -N), steps 4 and 5 aren't included in the transaction. This will avoid update contention on these tables, but it makes the test case even less like TPC-B.
If you select the select-only built-in (also -S), only the SELECT is issued.
pgbench has support for running custom benchmark scenarios by replacing the default transaction script (described above) with a transaction script read from a file (-f option). In this case a \u201ctransaction\u201d counts as one execution of a script file.
A script file contains one or more SQL commands terminated by semicolons. Empty lines and lines beginning with -- are ignored. Script files can also contain \u201cmeta commands\u201d, which are interpreted by pgbench itself, as described below.
Before PostgreSQL 9.6, SQL commands in script files were terminated by newlines, and so they could not be continued across lines. Now a semicolon is required to separate consecutive SQL commands (though a SQL command does not need one if it is followed by a meta command). If you need to create a script file that works with both old and new versions of pgbench, be sure to write each SQL command on a single line ending with a semicolon.
\nThere is a simple variable-substitution facility for script files. Variable names must consist of letters (including non-Latin letters), digits, and underscores, with the first character not being a digit. Variables can be set by the command-line -D option, explained above, or by the meta commands explained below. In addition to any variables preset by -D command-line options, there are a few variables that are preset automatically, listed in Table\u00a0242. A value specified for these variables using -D takes precedence over the automatic presets. Once set, a variable's value can be inserted into a SQL command by writing :variablename. When running more than one client session, each session has its own set of variables.
Table\u00a0242.\u00a0Automatic Variables
\n| Variable | \nDescription | \n
|---|---|
client_id | \nunique number identifying the client session (starts from zero) | \n
default_seed | \nseed used in hash functions by default | \n
random_seed | \nrandom generator seed (unless overwritten with -D) | \n
scale | \ncurrent scale factor | \n
Script file meta commands begin with a backslash (\\) and normally extend to the end of the line, although they can be continued to additional lines by writing backslash-return. Arguments to a meta command are separated by white space. These meta commands are supported:
\\if expression\\elif expression\\else\\endifThis group of commands implements nestable conditional blocks, similarly to psql's \\if expression. Conditional expressions are identical to those with \\set, with non-zero values interpreted as true.
\\set varname expressionSets variable varname to a value calculated from expression. The expression may contain the NULL constant, Boolean constants TRUE and FALSE, integer constants such as 5432, double constants such as 3.14159, references to variables :variablename, operators with their usual SQL precedence and associativity, function calls, SQL CASE generic conditional expressions and parentheses.
Functions and most operators return NULL on NULL input.
For conditional purposes, non zero numerical values are TRUE, zero numerical values and NULL are FALSE.
When no final ELSE clause is provided to a CASE, the default value is NULL.
Examples:
\n\\set ntellers 10 * :scale\n\\set aid (1021 * random(1, 100000 * :scale)) % \\\n (100000 * :scale) + 1\n\\set divx CASE WHEN :x <> 0 THEN :y/:x ELSE NULL END\n\n
\\sleep number [ us | ms | s ]Causes script execution to sleep for the specified duration in microseconds (us), milliseconds (ms) or seconds (s). If the unit is omitted then seconds are the default. number can be either an integer constant or a :variablename reference to a variable having an integer value.
Example:
\n\\sleep 10 ms\n\n
\\setshell varname command [ argument ... ]Sets variable varname to the result of the shell command command with the given argument(s). The command must return an integer value through its standard output.
command and each argument can be either a text constant or a :variablename reference to a variable. If you want to use an argument starting with a colon, write an additional colon at the beginning of argument.
Example:
\n\\setshell variable_to_be_assigned command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
\\shell command [ argument ... ]Same as \\setshell, but the result of the command is discarded.
Example:
\n\\shell command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
The arithmetic, bitwise, comparison and logical operators listed in Table\u00a0243 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set.
Table\u00a0243.\u00a0pgbench Operators by increasing precedence
\n| Operator | \nDescription | \nExample | \nResult | \n
|---|---|---|---|
OR | \nlogical or | \n5 or 0 | \nTRUE | \n
AND | \nlogical and | \n3 and 0 | \nFALSE | \n
NOT | \nlogical not | \nnot false | \nTRUE | \n
IS [NOT] (NULL|TRUE|FALSE) | \nvalue tests | \n1 is null | \nFALSE | \n
ISNULL|NOTNULL | \nnull tests | \n1 notnull | \nTRUE | \n
= | \nis equal | \n5 = 4 | \nFALSE | \n
<> | \nis not equal | \n5 <> 4 | \nTRUE | \n
!= | \nis not equal | \n5 != 5 | \nFALSE | \n
< | \nlower than | \n5 < 4 | \nFALSE | \n
<= | \nlower or equal | \n5 <= 4 | \nFALSE | \n
> | \ngreater than | \n5 > 4 | \nTRUE | \n
>= | \ngreater or equal | \n5 >= 4 | \nTRUE | \n
| | \ninteger bitwise OR | \n1 | 2 | \n3 | \n
# | \ninteger bitwise XOR | \n1 # 3 | \n2 | \n
& | \ninteger bitwise AND | \n1 & 3 | \n1 | \n
~ | \ninteger bitwise NOT | \n~ 1 | \n-2 | \n
<< | \ninteger bitwise shift left | \n1 << 2 | \n4 | \n
>> | \ninteger bitwise shift right | \n8 >> 2 | \n2 | \n
+ | \naddition | \n5 + 4 | \n9 | \n
- | \nsubtraction | \n3 - 2.0 | \n1.0 | \n
* | \nmultiplication | \n5 * 4 | \n20 | \n
/ | \ndivision (integer truncates the results) | \n5 / 3 | \n1 | \n
% | \nmodulo | \n3 % 2 | \n1 | \n
- | \nopposite | \n- 2.0 | \n-2.0 | \n
The functions listed in Table\u00a0244 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set.
Table\u00a0244.\u00a0pgbench Functions
\n| Function | \nReturn Type | \nDescription | \nExample | \nResult | \n
|---|---|---|---|---|
| \nsame as a | \nabsolute value | \nabs(-17) | \n17 | \n
| \nsame as a | \nprint a to stderr, and return a | \ndebug(5432.1) | \n5432.1 | \n
| \ndouble | \ncast to double | \ndouble(5432) | \n5432.0 | \n
| \ndouble | \nexponential | \nexp(1.0) | \n2.718281828459045 | \n
| \ndouble if any a is double, else integer | \nlargest value among arguments | \ngreatest(5, 4, 3, 2) | \n5 | \n
| \ninteger | \nalias for hash_murmur2() | \nhash(10, 5432) | \n-5817877081768721676 | \n
| \ninteger | \nFNV-1a hash | \nhash_fnv1a(10, 5432) | \n-7793829335365542153 | \n
| \ninteger | \nMurmurHash2 hash | \nhash_murmur2(10, 5432) | \n-5817877081768721676 | \n
| \ninteger | \ncast to int | \nint(5.4 + 3.8) | \n9 | \n
| \ndouble if any a is double, else integer | \nsmallest value among arguments | \nleast(5, 4, 3, 2.1) | \n2.1 | \n
| \ndouble | \nnatural logarithm | \nln(2.718281828459045) | \n1.0 | \n
| \ninteger | \nmodulo | \nmod(54, 32) | \n22 | \n
| \ndouble | \nvalue of the constant PI | \npi() | \n3.14159265358979323846 | \n
| \ndouble | \nexponentiation | \npow(2.0, 10), power(2.0, 10) | \n1024.0 | \n
| \ninteger | \nuniformly-distributed random integer in [lb, ub] | \nrandom(1, 10) | \nan integer between 1 and 10 | \n
| \ninteger | \nexponentially-distributed random integer in [lb, ub], see below | \nrandom_exponential(1, 10, 3.0) | \nan integer between 1 and 10 | \n
| \ninteger | \nGaussian-distributed random integer in [lb, ub], see below | \nrandom_gaussian(1, 10, 2.5) | \nan integer between 1 and 10 | \n
| \ninteger | \nZipfian-distributed random integer in [lb, ub], see below | \nrandom_zipfian(1, 10, 1.5) | \nan integer between 1 and 10 | \n
| \ndouble | \nsquare root | \nsqrt(2.0) | \n1.414213562 | \n
The random function generates values using a uniform distribution, that is all the values are drawn within the specified range with equal probability. The random_exponential, random_gaussian and random_zipfian functions require an additional double parameter which determines the precise shape of the distribution.
For an exponential distribution, parameter controls the distribution by truncating a quickly-decreasing exponential distribution at parameter, and then projecting onto integers between the bounds. To be precise, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0exp(-parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0min)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/\u00a0(1\u00a0-\u00a0exp(-parameter))
Then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i) - f(i + 1).
Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to min are accessed, and the less frequently values close to max are accessed. The closer to 0 parameter is, the flatter (more uniform) the access distribution. A crude approximation of the distribution is that the most frequent 1% values in the range, close to min, are drawn parameter% of the time. The parameter value must be strictly positive.
For a Gaussian distribution, the interval is mapped onto a standard normal distribution (the classical bell-shaped Gaussian curve) truncated at -parameter on the left and +parameter on the right. Values in the middle of the interval are more likely to be drawn. To be precise, if PHI(x) is the cumulative distribution function of the standard normal distribution, with mean mu defined as (max + min) / 2.0, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0PHI(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0mu)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/
\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0PHI(parameter)\u00a0-\u00a01)
then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i + 0.5) - f(i - 0.5). Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to the middle of the interval are drawn, and the less frequently values close to the min and max bounds. About 67% of values are drawn from the middle 1.0 / parameter, that is a relative 0.5 / parameter around the mean, and 95% in the middle 2.0 / parameter, that is a relative 1.0 / parameter around the mean; for instance, if parameter is 4.0, 67% of values are drawn from the middle quarter (1.0 / 4.0) of the interval (i.e., from 3.0 / 8.0 to 5.0 / 8.0) and 95% from the middle half (2.0 / 4.0) of the interval (second and third quartiles). The minimum parameter is 2.0 for performance of the Box-Muller transform.
random_zipfian generates an approximated bounded Zipfian distribution. For parameter in (0, 1), an approximated algorithm is taken from \"Quickly Generating Billion-Record Synthetic Databases\", Jim Gray et al, SIGMOD 1994. For parameter in (1, 1000), a rejection method is used, based on \"Non-Uniform Random Variate Generation\", Luc Devroye, p. 550-551, Springer 1986. The distribution is not defined when the parameter's value is 1.0. The function's performance is poor for parameter values close and above 1.0 and on a small range.
parameter defines how skewed the distribution is. The larger the parameter, the more frequently values closer to the beginning of the interval are drawn. The closer to 0 parameter is, the flatter (more uniform) the output distribution. The distribution is such that, assuming the range starts from 1, the ratio of the probability of drawing k versus drawing k+1 is ((. For example, k+1)/k)**parameterrandom_zipfian(1, ..., 2.5) produces the value 1 about (2/1)**2.5 = 5.66 times more frequently than 2, which itself is produced (3/2)**2.5 = 2.76 times more frequently than 3, and so on.
Hash functions hash, hash_murmur2 and hash_fnv1a accept an input value and an optional seed parameter. In case the seed isn't provided the value of :default_seed is used, which is initialized randomly unless set by the command-line -D option. Hash functions can be used to scatter the distribution of random functions such as random_zipfian or random_exponential. For instance, the following pgbench script simulates possible real world workload typical for social media and blogging platforms where few accounts generate excessive load:
\\set r random_zipfian(0, 100000000, 1.07)\n\\set k abs(hash(:r)) % 1000000\n\n
In some cases several distinct distributions are needed which don't correlate with each other and this is when implicit seed parameter comes in handy:
\n\\set k1 abs(hash(:r, :default_seed + 123)) % 1000000\n\\set k2 abs(hash(:r, :default_seed + 321)) % 1000000\n\n
As an example, the full definition of the built-in TPC-B-like transaction is:
\n\\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n\\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n\\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n\\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\nBEGIN;\nUPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\nSELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\nUPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\nUPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\nINSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\nEND;\n\n
This script allows each iteration of the transaction to reference different, randomly-chosen rows. (This example also shows why it's important for each client session to have its own variables \u2014 otherwise they'd not be independently touching different rows.)
\nWith the -l option (but without the --aggregate-interval option), pgbench writes information about each transaction to a log file. The log file will be named prefix.nnnprefix defaults to pgbench_log, and nnn is the PID of the pgbench process. The prefix can be changed by using the --log-prefix option. If the -j option is 2 or higher, so that there are multiple worker threads, each will have its own log file. The first worker will use the same name for its log file as in the standard single worker case. The additional log files for the other workers will be named prefix.nnn.mmmmmm is a sequential number for each worker starting with 1.
The format of the log is:
\n\nclient_idtransaction_notimescript_notime_epochtime_us[schedule_lag]\n
where client_id indicates which client session ran the transaction, transaction_no counts how many transactions have been run by that session, time is the total elapsed transaction time in microseconds, script_no identifies which script file was used (useful when multiple scripts were specified with -f or -b), and time_epoch/time_us are a Unix-epoch time stamp and an offset in microseconds (suitable for creating an ISO 8601 time stamp with fractional seconds) showing when the transaction completed. The schedule_lag field is the difference between the transaction's scheduled start time, and the time it actually started, in microseconds. It is only present when the --rate option is used. When both --rate and --latency-limit are used, the time for a skipped transaction will be reported as skipped.
Here is a snippet of a log file generated in a single-client run:
\n0 199 2241 0 1175850568 995598\n0 200 2465 0 1175850568 998079\n0 201 2513 0 1175850569 608\n0 202 2038 0 1175850569 2663\n\n
Another example with --rate=100 and --latency-limit=5 (note the additional schedule_lag column):
0 81 4621 0 1412881037 912698 3005\n0 82 6173 0 1412881037 914578 4304\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5217\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5099\n0 83 4722 0 1412881037 916203 3108\n0 84 4142 0 1412881037 918023 2333\n0 85 2465 0 1412881037 919759 740\n\n
In this example, transaction 82 was late, because its latency (6.173 ms) was over the 5 ms limit. The next two transactions were skipped, because they were already late before they were even started.
\nWhen running a long test on hardware that can handle a lot of transactions, the log files can become very large. The --sampling-rate option can be used to log only a random sample of transactions.
With the --aggregate-interval option, a different format is used for the log files:
\ninterval_startnum_transactionssum_latencysum_latency_2min_latencymax_latency[sum_lagsum_lag_2min_lagmax_lag[skipped] ]\n
where interval_start is the start of the interval (as a Unix epoch time stamp), num_transactions is the number of transactions within the interval, sum_latency is the sum of the transaction latencies within the interval, sum_latency_2 is the sum of squares of the transaction latencies within the interval, min_latency is the minimum latency within the interval, and max_latency is the maximum latency within the interval. The next fields, sum_lag, sum_lag_2, min_lag, and max_lag, are only present if the --rate option is used. They provide statistics about the time each transaction had to wait for the previous one to finish, i.e., the difference between each transaction's scheduled start time and the time it actually started. The very last field, skipped, is only present if the --latency-limit option is used, too. It counts the number of transactions skipped because they would have started too late. Each transaction is counted in the interval when it was committed.
Here is some example output:
\n1345828501 5601 1542744 483552416 61 2573\n1345828503 7884 1979812 565806736 60 1479\n1345828505 7208 1979422 567277552 59 1391\n1345828507 7685 1980268 569784714 60 1398\n1345828509 7073 1979779 573489941 236 1411\n\n
Notice that while the plain (unaggregated) log file shows which script was used for each transaction, the aggregated log does not. Therefore if you need per-script data, you need to aggregate the data on your own.
\nWith the -r option, pgbench collects the elapsed transaction time of each statement executed by every client. It then reports an average of those values, referred to as the latency for each statement, after the benchmark has finished.
For the default script, the output will look similar to this:
\nstarting vacuum...end.\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 1\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\nlatency average = 15.844 ms\nlatency stddev = 2.715 ms\ntps = 618.764555 (including connections establishing)\ntps = 622.977698 (excluding connections establishing)\nstatement latencies in milliseconds:\n 0.002 \\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n 0.005 \\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n 0.002 \\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n 0.001 \\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\n 0.326 BEGIN;\n 0.603 UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\n 0.454 SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\n 5.528 UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\n 7.335 UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\n 0.371 INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\n 1.212 END;\n\n
If multiple script files are specified, the averages are reported separately for each script file.
\nNote that collecting the additional timing information needed for per-statement latency computation adds some overhead. This will slow average execution speed and lower the computed TPS. The amount of slowdown varies significantly depending on platform and hardware. Comparing average TPS values with and without latency reporting enabled is a good way to measure if the timing overhead is significant.
\nIt is very easy to use pgbench to produce completely meaningless numbers. Here are some guidelines to help you get useful results.
\nIn the first place, never believe any test that runs for only a few seconds. Use the -t or -T option to make the run last at least a few minutes, so as to average out noise. In some cases you could need hours to get numbers that are reproducible. It's a good idea to try the test run a few times, to find out if your numbers are reproducible or not.
For the default TPC-B-like test scenario, the initialization scale factor (-s) should be at least as large as the largest number of clients you intend to test (-c); else you'll mostly be measuring update contention. There are only -s rows in the pgbench_branches table, and every transaction wants to update one of them, so -c values in excess of -s will undoubtedly result in lots of transactions blocked waiting for other transactions.
The default test scenario is also quite sensitive to how long it's been since the tables were initialized: accumulation of dead rows and dead space in the tables changes the results. To understand the results you must keep track of the total number of updates and when vacuuming happens. If autovacuum is enabled it can result in unpredictable changes in measured performance.
\nA limitation of pgbench is that it can itself become the bottleneck when trying to test a large number of client sessions. This can be alleviated by running pgbench on a different machine from the database server, although low network latency will be essential. It might even be useful to run several pgbench instances concurrently, on several client machines, against the same database server.
\nIf untrusted users have access to a database that has not adopted a secure schema usage pattern, do not run pgbench in that database. pgbench uses unqualified names and does not manipulate the search path.
\npgbench \u2014 run a benchmark test on PostgreSQL
\npgbench -i [option...] [dbname]
pgbench [option...] [dbname]
pgbench is a simple program for running benchmark tests on PostgreSQL. It runs the same sequence of SQL commands over and over, possibly in multiple concurrent database sessions, and then calculates the average transaction rate (transactions per second). By default, pgbench tests a scenario that is loosely based on TPC-B, involving five SELECT, UPDATE, and INSERT commands per transaction. However, it is easy to test other cases by writing your own transaction script files.
Typical output from pgbench looks like:
\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 10\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\ntps = 85.184871 (including connections establishing)\ntps = 85.296346 (excluding connections establishing)\n\n
The first six lines report some of the most important parameter settings. The next line reports the number of transactions completed and intended (the latter being just the product of number of clients and number of transactions per client); these will be equal unless the run failed before completion. (In -T mode, only the actual number of transactions is printed.) The last two lines report the number of transactions per second, figured with and without counting the time to start database sessions.
The default TPC-B-like transaction test requires specific tables to be set up beforehand. pgbench should be invoked with the -i (initialize) option to create and populate these tables. (When you are testing a custom script, you don't need this step, but will instead need to do whatever setup your test needs.) Initialization looks like:
pgbench -i [\nother-options]dbname\n
where dbname is the name of the already-created database to test in. (You may also need -h, -p, and/or -U options to specify how to connect to the database server.)
pgbench -i creates four tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers, destroying any existing tables of these names. Be very careful to use another database if you have tables having these names!
At the default \u201cscale factor\u201d of 1, the tables initially contain this many rows:
\ntable # of rows\n---------------------------------\npgbench_branches 1\npgbench_tellers 10\npgbench_accounts 100000\npgbench_history 0\n\n
You can (and, for most purposes, probably should) increase the number of rows by using the -s (scale factor) option. The -F (fillfactor) option might also be used at this point.
Once you have done the necessary setup, you can run your benchmark with a command that doesn't include -i, that is
pgbench [\noptions]dbname\n
In nearly all cases, you'll need some options to make a useful test. The most important options are -c (number of clients), -t (number of transactions), -T (time limit), and -f (specify a custom script file). See below for a full list.
The following is divided into three subsections. Different options are used during database initialization and while running benchmarks, but some options are useful in both cases.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line initialization arguments:
\ndbnameSpecifies the name of the database to test in. If this is not specified, the environment variable PGDATABASE is used. If that is not set, the user name specified for the connection is used.
-i--initializeRequired to invoke initialization mode.
\n-I init_steps--init-steps=init_stepsPerform just a selected set of the normal initialization steps. init_steps specifies the initialization steps to be performed, using one character per step. Each step is invoked in the specified order. The default is dtgvp. The available steps are:
d (Drop)Drop any existing pgbench tables.
\nt (create Tables)Create the tables used by the standard pgbench scenario, namely pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
g (Generate data)Generate data and load it into the standard tables, replacing any data already present.
\nv (Vacuum)Invoke VACUUM on the standard tables.
p (create Primary keys)Create primary key indexes on the standard tables.
\nf (create Foreign keys)Create foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (Note that this step is not performed by default.)
\n-F fillfactor--fillfactor=fillfactorCreate the pgbench_accounts, pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables with the given fillfactor. Default is 100.
-n--no-vacuumPerform no vacuuming during initialization. (This option suppresses the v initialization step, even if it was specified in -I.)
-q--quietSwitch logging to quiet mode, producing only one progress message per 5 seconds. The default logging prints one message each 100000 rows, which often outputs many lines per second (especially on good hardware).
\n-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factorMultiply the number of rows generated by the scale factor. For example, -s 100 will create 10,000,000 rows in the pgbench_accounts table. Default is 1. When the scale is 20,000 or larger, the columns used to hold account identifiers (aid columns) will switch to using larger integers (bigint), in order to be big enough to hold the range of account identifiers.
--foreign-keysCreate foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (This option adds the f step to the initialization step sequence, if it is not already present.)
--index-tablespace=index_tablespaceCreate indexes in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--tablespace=tablespaceCreate tables in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--unlogged-tablesCreate all tables as unlogged tables, rather than permanent tables.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line benchmarking arguments:
\n-b scriptname[@weight]--builtin=scriptname[@weight]Add the specified built-in script to the list of scripts to be executed. Available built-in scripts are: tpcb-like, simple-update and select-only. Unambiguous prefixes of built-in names are accepted. With the special name list, show the list of built-in scripts and exit immediately.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. See below for details.
-c clients--client=clientsNumber of clients simulated, that is, number of concurrent database sessions. Default is 1.
\n-C--connectEstablish a new connection for each transaction, rather than doing it just once per client session. This is useful to measure the connection overhead.
\n-d--debugPrint debugging output.
\n-D varname=value--define=varname=valueDefine a variable for use by a custom script (see below). Multiple -D options are allowed.
-f filename[@weight]--file=filename[@weight]Add a transaction script read from filename to the list of scripts to be executed.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. (To use a script file name that includes an @ character, append a weight so that there is no ambiguity, for example filen@me@1.) See below for details.
-j threads--jobs=threadsNumber of worker threads within pgbench. Using more than one thread can be helpful on multi-CPU machines. Clients are distributed as evenly as possible among available threads. Default is 1.
\n-l--logWrite information about each transaction to a log file. See below for details.
\n-L limit--latency-limit=limitTransactions that last more than limit milliseconds are counted and reported separately, as late.
When throttling is used (--rate=...), transactions that lag behind schedule by more than limit ms, and thus have no hope of meeting the latency limit, are not sent to the server at all. They are counted and reported separately as skipped.
-M querymode--protocol=querymodeProtocol to use for submitting queries to the server:
\nsimple: use simple query protocol.
extended: use extended query protocol.
prepared: use extended query protocol with prepared statements.
In the prepared mode, pgbench reuses the parse analysis result starting from the second query iteration, so pgbench runs faster than in other modes.
The default is simple query protocol. (See Chapter\u00a052 for more information.)
\n-n--no-vacuumPerform no vacuuming before running the test. This option is necessary if you are running a custom test scenario that does not include the standard tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
-N--skip-some-updatesRun built-in simple-update script. Shorthand for -b simple-update.
-P sec--progress=secShow progress report every sec seconds. The report includes the time since the beginning of the run, the TPS since the last report, and the transaction latency average and standard deviation since the last report. Under throttling (-R), the latency is computed with respect to the transaction scheduled start time, not the actual transaction beginning time, thus it also includes the average schedule lag time.
-r--report-latenciesReport the average per-statement latency (execution time from the perspective of the client) of each command after the benchmark finishes. See below for details.
\n-R rate--rate=rateExecute transactions targeting the specified rate instead of running as fast as possible (the default). The rate is given in transactions per second. If the targeted rate is above the maximum possible rate, the rate limit won't impact the results.
\nThe rate is targeted by starting transactions along a Poisson-distributed schedule time line. The expected start time schedule moves forward based on when the client first started, not when the previous transaction ended. That approach means that when transactions go past their original scheduled end time, it is possible for later ones to catch up again.
\nWhen throttling is active, the transaction latency reported at the end of the run is calculated from the scheduled start times, so it includes the time each transaction had to wait for the previous transaction to finish. The wait time is called the schedule lag time, and its average and maximum are also reported separately. The transaction latency with respect to the actual transaction start time, i.e., the time spent executing the transaction in the database, can be computed by subtracting the schedule lag time from the reported latency.
\nIf --latency-limit is used together with --rate, a transaction can lag behind so much that it is already over the latency limit when the previous transaction ends, because the latency is calculated from the scheduled start time. Such transactions are not sent to the server, but are skipped altogether and counted separately.
A high schedule lag time is an indication that the system cannot process transactions at the specified rate, with the chosen number of clients and threads. When the average transaction execution time is longer than the scheduled interval between each transaction, each successive transaction will fall further behind, and the schedule lag time will keep increasing the longer the test run is. When that happens, you will have to reduce the specified transaction rate.
\n-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factorReport the specified scale factor in pgbench's output. With the built-in tests, this is not necessary; the correct scale factor will be detected by counting the number of rows in the pgbench_branches table. However, when testing only custom benchmarks (-f option), the scale factor will be reported as 1 unless this option is used.
-S--select-onlyRun built-in select-only script. Shorthand for -b select-only.
-t transactions--transactions=transactionsNumber of transactions each client runs. Default is 10.
\n-T seconds--time=secondsRun the test for this many seconds, rather than a fixed number of transactions per client. -t and -T are mutually exclusive.
-v--vacuum-allVacuum all four standard tables before running the test. With neither -n nor -v, pgbench will vacuum the pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables, and will truncate pgbench_history.
--aggregate-interval=secondsLength of aggregation interval (in seconds). May be used only with -l option. With this option, the log contains per-interval summary data, as described below.
--log-prefix=prefixSet the filename prefix for the log files created by --log. The default is pgbench_log.
--progress-timestampWhen showing progress (option -P), use a timestamp (Unix epoch) instead of the number of seconds since the beginning of the run. The unit is in seconds, with millisecond precision after the dot. This helps compare logs generated by various tools.
--random-seed=SEEDSet random generator seed. Seeds the system random number generator, which then produces a sequence of initial generator states, one for each thread. Values for SEED may be: time (the default, the seed is based on the current time), rand (use a strong random source, failing if none is available), or an unsigned decimal integer value. The random generator is invoked explicitly from a pgbench script (random... functions) or implicitly (for instance option --rate uses it to schedule transactions). When explicitly set, the value used for seeding is shown on the terminal. Any value allowed for SEED may also be provided through the environment variable PGBENCH_RANDOM_SEED. To ensure that the provided seed impacts all possible uses, put this option first or use the environment variable.
Setting the seed explicitly allows to reproduce a pgbench run exactly, as far as random numbers are concerned. As the random state is managed per thread, this means the exact same pgbench run for an identical invocation if there is one client per thread and there are no external or data dependencies. From a statistical viewpoint reproducing runs exactly is a bad idea because it can hide the performance variability or improve performance unduly, e.g., by hitting the same pages as a previous run. However, it may also be of great help for debugging, for instance re-running a tricky case which leads to an error. Use wisely.
--sampling-rate=rateSampling rate, used when writing data into the log, to reduce the amount of log generated. If this option is given, only the specified fraction of transactions are logged. 1.0 means all transactions will be logged, 0.05 means only 5% of the transactions will be logged.
\nRemember to take the sampling rate into account when processing the log file. For example, when computing TPS values, you need to multiply the numbers accordingly (e.g., with 0.01 sample rate, you'll only get 1/100 of the actual TPS).
\npgbench accepts the following command-line common arguments:
\n-h hostname--host=hostnameThe database server's host name
\n-p port--port=portThe database server's port number
\n-U login--username=loginThe user name to connect as
\n-V--versionPrint the pgbench version and exit.
\n-?--helpShow help about pgbench command line arguments, and exit.
\nA successful run will exit with status 0. Exit status 1 indicates static problems such as invalid command-line options. Errors during the run such as database errors or problems in the script will result in exit status 2. In the latter case, pgbench will print partial results.
\nPGDATABASEPGHOSTPGPORTPGUSERDefault connection parameters.
\nThis utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, uses the environment variables supported by libpq (see Section\u00a033.14).
\npgbench executes test scripts chosen randomly from a specified list. The scripts may include built-in scripts specified with -b and user-provided scripts specified with -f. Each script may be given a relative weight specified after an @ so as to change its selection probability. The default weight is 1. Scripts with a weight of 0 are ignored.
The default built-in transaction script (also invoked with -b tpcb-like) issues seven commands per transaction over randomly chosen aid, tid, bid and delta. The scenario is inspired by the TPC-B benchmark, but is not actually TPC-B, hence the name.
BEGIN;
UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;
SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;
UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;
UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;
INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);
END;
If you select the simple-update built-in (also -N), steps 4 and 5 aren't included in the transaction. This will avoid update contention on these tables, but it makes the test case even less like TPC-B.
If you select the select-only built-in (also -S), only the SELECT is issued.
pgbench has support for running custom benchmark scenarios by replacing the default transaction script (described above) with a transaction script read from a file (-f option). In this case a \u201ctransaction\u201d counts as one execution of a script file.
A script file contains one or more SQL commands terminated by semicolons. Empty lines and lines beginning with -- are ignored. Script files can also contain \u201cmeta commands\u201d, which are interpreted by pgbench itself, as described below.
Before PostgreSQL 9.6, SQL commands in script files were terminated by newlines, and so they could not be continued across lines. Now a semicolon is required to separate consecutive SQL commands (though a SQL command does not need one if it is followed by a meta command). If you need to create a script file that works with both old and new versions of pgbench, be sure to write each SQL command on a single line ending with a semicolon.
\nThere is a simple variable-substitution facility for script files. Variable names must consist of letters (including non-Latin letters), digits, and underscores, with the first character not being a digit. Variables can be set by the command-line -D option, explained above, or by the meta commands explained below. In addition to any variables preset by -D command-line options, there are a few variables that are preset automatically, listed in Table\u00a0258. A value specified for these variables using -D takes precedence over the automatic presets. Once set, a variable's value can be inserted into a SQL command by writing :variablename. When running more than one client session, each session has its own set of variables. pgbench supports up to 255 variable uses in one statement.
Table\u00a0258.\u00a0Automatic Variables
\n| Variable | \nDescription | \n
|---|---|
client_id | \nunique number identifying the client session (starts from zero) | \n
default_seed | \nseed used in hash functions by default | \n
random_seed | \nrandom generator seed (unless overwritten with -D) | \n
scale | \ncurrent scale factor | \n
Script file meta commands begin with a backslash (\\) and normally extend to the end of the line, although they can be continued to additional lines by writing backslash-return. Arguments to a meta command are separated by white space. These meta commands are supported:
\\gset [prefix]This command may be used to end SQL queries, taking the place of the terminating semicolon (;).
When this command is used, the preceding SQL query is expected to return one row, the columns of which are stored into variables named after column names, and prefixed with prefix if provided.
The following example puts the final account balance from the first query into variable abalance, and fills variables p_two and p_three with integers from the third query. The result of the second query is discarded.
UPDATE pgbench_accounts\n SET abalance = abalance + :delta\n WHERE aid = :aid\n RETURNING abalance \\gset\n-- compound of two queries\nSELECT 1 \\;\nSELECT 2 AS two, 3 AS three \\gset p_\n\n
\\if expression\\elif expression\\else\\endifThis group of commands implements nestable conditional blocks, similarly to psql's \\if expression. Conditional expressions are identical to those with \\set, with non-zero values interpreted as true.
\\set varname expressionSets variable varname to a value calculated from expression. The expression may contain the NULL constant, Boolean constants TRUE and FALSE, integer constants such as 5432, double constants such as 3.14159, references to variables :variablename, operators with their usual SQL precedence and associativity, function calls, SQL CASE generic conditional expressions and parentheses.
Functions and most operators return NULL on NULL input.
For conditional purposes, non zero numerical values are TRUE, zero numerical values and NULL are FALSE.
Too large or small integer and double constants, as well as integer arithmetic operators (+, -, * and /) raise errors on overflows.
When no final ELSE clause is provided to a CASE, the default value is NULL.
Examples:
\n\\set ntellers 10 * :scale\n\\set aid (1021 * random(1, 100000 * :scale)) % \\\n (100000 * :scale) + 1\n\\set divx CASE WHEN :x <> 0 THEN :y/:x ELSE NULL END\n\n
\\sleep number [ us | ms | s ]Causes script execution to sleep for the specified duration in microseconds (us), milliseconds (ms) or seconds (s). If the unit is omitted then seconds are the default. number can be either an integer constant or a :variablename reference to a variable having an integer value.
Example:
\n\\sleep 10 ms\n\n
\\setshell varname command [ argument ... ]Sets variable varname to the result of the shell command command with the given argument(s). The command must return an integer value through its standard output.
command and each argument can be either a text constant or a :variablename reference to a variable. If you want to use an argument starting with a colon, write an additional colon at the beginning of argument.
Example:
\n\\setshell variable_to_be_assigned command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
\\shell command [ argument ... ]Same as \\setshell, but the result of the command is discarded.
Example:
\n\\shell command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
The arithmetic, bitwise, comparison and logical operators listed in Table\u00a0259 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set.
Table\u00a0259.\u00a0pgbench Operators by Increasing Precedence
\n| Operator | \nDescription | \nExample | \nResult | \n
|---|---|---|---|
OR | \nlogical or | \n5 or 0 | \nTRUE | \n
AND | \nlogical and | \n3 and 0 | \nFALSE | \n
NOT | \nlogical not | \nnot false | \nTRUE | \n
IS [NOT] (NULL|TRUE|FALSE) | \nvalue tests | \n1 is null | \nFALSE | \n
ISNULL|NOTNULL | \nnull tests | \n1 notnull | \nTRUE | \n
= | \nis equal | \n5 = 4 | \nFALSE | \n
<> | \nis not equal | \n5 <> 4 | \nTRUE | \n
!= | \nis not equal | \n5 != 5 | \nFALSE | \n
< | \nlower than | \n5 < 4 | \nFALSE | \n
<= | \nlower or equal | \n5 <= 4 | \nFALSE | \n
> | \ngreater than | \n5 > 4 | \nTRUE | \n
>= | \ngreater or equal | \n5 >= 4 | \nTRUE | \n
| | \ninteger bitwise OR | \n1 | 2 | \n3 | \n
# | \ninteger bitwise XOR | \n1 # 3 | \n2 | \n
& | \ninteger bitwise AND | \n1 & 3 | \n1 | \n
~ | \ninteger bitwise NOT | \n~ 1 | \n-2 | \n
<< | \ninteger bitwise shift left | \n1 << 2 | \n4 | \n
>> | \ninteger bitwise shift right | \n8 >> 2 | \n2 | \n
+ | \naddition | \n5 + 4 | \n9 | \n
- | \nsubtraction | \n3 - 2.0 | \n1.0 | \n
* | \nmultiplication | \n5 * 4 | \n20 | \n
/ | \ndivision (integer truncates the results) | \n5 / 3 | \n1 | \n
% | \nmodulo | \n3 % 2 | \n1 | \n
- | \nopposite | \n- 2.0 | \n-2.0 | \n
The functions listed in Table\u00a0260 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set.
Table\u00a0260.\u00a0pgbench Functions
\n| Function | \nReturn Type | \nDescription | \nExample | \nResult | \n
|---|---|---|---|---|
| \nsame as a | \nabsolute value | \nabs(-17) | \n17 | \n
| \nsame as a | \nprint a to stderr, and return a | \ndebug(5432.1) | \n5432.1 | \n
| \ndouble | \ncast to double | \ndouble(5432) | \n5432.0 | \n
| \ndouble | \nexponential | \nexp(1.0) | \n2.718281828459045 | \n
| \ndouble if any a is double, else integer | \nlargest value among arguments | \ngreatest(5, 4, 3, 2) | \n5 | \n
| \ninteger | \nalias for hash_murmur2() | \nhash(10, 5432) | \n-5817877081768721676 | \n
| \ninteger | \nFNV-1a hash | \nhash_fnv1a(10, 5432) | \n-7793829335365542153 | \n
| \ninteger | \nMurmurHash2 hash | \nhash_murmur2(10, 5432) | \n-5817877081768721676 | \n
| \ninteger | \ncast to int | \nint(5.4 + 3.8) | \n9 | \n
| \ndouble if any a is double, else integer | \nsmallest value among arguments | \nleast(5, 4, 3, 2.1) | \n2.1 | \n
| \ndouble | \nnatural logarithm | \nln(2.718281828459045) | \n1.0 | \n
| \ninteger | \nmodulo | \nmod(54, 32) | \n22 | \n
| \ndouble | \nvalue of the constant PI | \npi() | \n3.14159265358979323846 | \n
| \ndouble | \nexponentiation | \npow(2.0, 10), power(2.0, 10) | \n1024.0 | \n
| \ninteger | \nuniformly-distributed random integer in [lb, ub] | \nrandom(1, 10) | \nan integer between 1 and 10 | \n
| \ninteger | \nexponentially-distributed random integer in [lb, ub], see below | \nrandom_exponential(1, 10, 3.0) | \nan integer between 1 and 10 | \n
| \ninteger | \nGaussian-distributed random integer in [lb, ub], see below | \nrandom_gaussian(1, 10, 2.5) | \nan integer between 1 and 10 | \n
| \ninteger | \nZipfian-distributed random integer in [lb, ub], see below | \nrandom_zipfian(1, 10, 1.5) | \nan integer between 1 and 10 | \n
| \ndouble | \nsquare root | \nsqrt(2.0) | \n1.414213562 | \n
The random function generates values using a uniform distribution, that is all the values are drawn within the specified range with equal probability. The random_exponential, random_gaussian and random_zipfian functions require an additional double parameter which determines the precise shape of the distribution.
For an exponential distribution, parameter controls the distribution by truncating a quickly-decreasing exponential distribution at parameter, and then projecting onto integers between the bounds. To be precise, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0exp(-parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0min)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/\u00a0(1\u00a0-\u00a0exp(-parameter))
Then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i) - f(i + 1).
Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to min are accessed, and the less frequently values close to max are accessed. The closer to 0 parameter is, the flatter (more uniform) the access distribution. A crude approximation of the distribution is that the most frequent 1% values in the range, close to min, are drawn parameter% of the time. The parameter value must be strictly positive.
For a Gaussian distribution, the interval is mapped onto a standard normal distribution (the classical bell-shaped Gaussian curve) truncated at -parameter on the left and +parameter on the right. Values in the middle of the interval are more likely to be drawn. To be precise, if PHI(x) is the cumulative distribution function of the standard normal distribution, with mean mu defined as (max + min) / 2.0, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0PHI(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0mu)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/
\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0PHI(parameter)\u00a0-\u00a01)
then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i + 0.5) - f(i - 0.5). Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to the middle of the interval are drawn, and the less frequently values close to the min and max bounds. About 67% of values are drawn from the middle 1.0 / parameter, that is a relative 0.5 / parameter around the mean, and 95% in the middle 2.0 / parameter, that is a relative 1.0 / parameter around the mean; for instance, if parameter is 4.0, 67% of values are drawn from the middle quarter (1.0 / 4.0) of the interval (i.e., from 3.0 / 8.0 to 5.0 / 8.0) and 95% from the middle half (2.0 / 4.0) of the interval (second and third quartiles). The minimum allowed parameter value is 2.0.
random_zipfian generates a bounded Zipfian distribution. parameter defines how skewed the distribution is. The larger the parameter, the more frequently values closer to the beginning of the interval are drawn. The distribution is such that, assuming the range starts from 1, the ratio of the probability of drawing k versus drawing k+1 is ((. For example, k+1)/k)**parameterrandom_zipfian(1, ..., 2.5) produces the value 1 about (2/1)**2.5 = 5.66 times more frequently than 2, which itself is produced (3/2)**2.5 = 2.76 times more frequently than 3, and so on.
pgbench's implementation is based on \"Non-Uniform Random Variate Generation\", Luc Devroye, p. 550-551, Springer 1986. Due to limitations of that algorithm, the parameter value is restricted to the range [1.001, 1000].
Hash functions hash, hash_murmur2 and hash_fnv1a accept an input value and an optional seed parameter. In case the seed isn't provided the value of :default_seed is used, which is initialized randomly unless set by the command-line -D option. Hash functions can be used to scatter the distribution of random functions such as random_zipfian or random_exponential. For instance, the following pgbench script simulates possible real world workload typical for social media and blogging platforms where few accounts generate excessive load:
\\set r random_zipfian(0, 100000000, 1.07)\n\\set k abs(hash(:r)) % 1000000\n\n
In some cases several distinct distributions are needed which don't correlate with each other and this is when implicit seed parameter comes in handy:
\n\\set k1 abs(hash(:r, :default_seed + 123)) % 1000000\n\\set k2 abs(hash(:r, :default_seed + 321)) % 1000000\n\n
As an example, the full definition of the built-in TPC-B-like transaction is:
\n\\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n\\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n\\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n\\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\nBEGIN;\nUPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\nSELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\nUPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\nUPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\nINSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\nEND;\n\n
This script allows each iteration of the transaction to reference different, randomly-chosen rows. (This example also shows why it's important for each client session to have its own variables \u2014 otherwise they'd not be independently touching different rows.)
\nWith the -l option (but without the --aggregate-interval option), pgbench writes information about each transaction to a log file. The log file will be named prefix.nnnprefix defaults to pgbench_log, and nnn is the PID of the pgbench process. The prefix can be changed by using the --log-prefix option. If the -j option is 2 or higher, so that there are multiple worker threads, each will have its own log file. The first worker will use the same name for its log file as in the standard single worker case. The additional log files for the other workers will be named prefix.nnn.mmmmmm is a sequential number for each worker starting with 1.
The format of the log is:
\n\nclient_idtransaction_notimescript_notime_epochtime_us[schedule_lag]\n
where client_id indicates which client session ran the transaction, transaction_no counts how many transactions have been run by that session, time is the total elapsed transaction time in microseconds, script_no identifies which script file was used (useful when multiple scripts were specified with -f or -b), and time_epoch/time_us are a Unix-epoch time stamp and an offset in microseconds (suitable for creating an ISO 8601 time stamp with fractional seconds) showing when the transaction completed. The schedule_lag field is the difference between the transaction's scheduled start time, and the time it actually started, in microseconds. It is only present when the --rate option is used. When both --rate and --latency-limit are used, the time for a skipped transaction will be reported as skipped.
Here is a snippet of a log file generated in a single-client run:
\n0 199 2241 0 1175850568 995598\n0 200 2465 0 1175850568 998079\n0 201 2513 0 1175850569 608\n0 202 2038 0 1175850569 2663\n\n
Another example with --rate=100 and --latency-limit=5 (note the additional schedule_lag column):
0 81 4621 0 1412881037 912698 3005\n0 82 6173 0 1412881037 914578 4304\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5217\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5099\n0 83 4722 0 1412881037 916203 3108\n0 84 4142 0 1412881037 918023 2333\n0 85 2465 0 1412881037 919759 740\n\n
In this example, transaction 82 was late, because its latency (6.173 ms) was over the 5 ms limit. The next two transactions were skipped, because they were already late before they were even started.
\nWhen running a long test on hardware that can handle a lot of transactions, the log files can become very large. The --sampling-rate option can be used to log only a random sample of transactions.
With the --aggregate-interval option, a different format is used for the log files:
\ninterval_startnum_transactionssum_latencysum_latency_2min_latencymax_latency[sum_lagsum_lag_2min_lagmax_lag[skipped] ]\n
where interval_start is the start of the interval (as a Unix epoch time stamp), num_transactions is the number of transactions within the interval, sum_latency is the sum of the transaction latencies within the interval, sum_latency_2 is the sum of squares of the transaction latencies within the interval, min_latency is the minimum latency within the interval, and max_latency is the maximum latency within the interval. The next fields, sum_lag, sum_lag_2, min_lag, and max_lag, are only present if the --rate option is used. They provide statistics about the time each transaction had to wait for the previous one to finish, i.e., the difference between each transaction's scheduled start time and the time it actually started. The very last field, skipped, is only present if the --latency-limit option is used, too. It counts the number of transactions skipped because they would have started too late. Each transaction is counted in the interval when it was committed.
Here is some example output:
\n1345828501 5601 1542744 483552416 61 2573\n1345828503 7884 1979812 565806736 60 1479\n1345828505 7208 1979422 567277552 59 1391\n1345828507 7685 1980268 569784714 60 1398\n1345828509 7073 1979779 573489941 236 1411\n\n
Notice that while the plain (unaggregated) log file shows which script was used for each transaction, the aggregated log does not. Therefore if you need per-script data, you need to aggregate the data on your own.
\nWith the -r option, pgbench collects the elapsed transaction time of each statement executed by every client. It then reports an average of those values, referred to as the latency for each statement, after the benchmark has finished.
For the default script, the output will look similar to this:
\nstarting vacuum...end.\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 1\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\nlatency average = 15.844 ms\nlatency stddev = 2.715 ms\ntps = 618.764555 (including connections establishing)\ntps = 622.977698 (excluding connections establishing)\nstatement latencies in milliseconds:\n 0.002 \\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n 0.005 \\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n 0.002 \\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n 0.001 \\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\n 0.326 BEGIN;\n 0.603 UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\n 0.454 SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\n 5.528 UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\n 7.335 UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\n 0.371 INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\n 1.212 END;\n\n
If multiple script files are specified, the averages are reported separately for each script file.
\nNote that collecting the additional timing information needed for per-statement latency computation adds some overhead. This will slow average execution speed and lower the computed TPS. The amount of slowdown varies significantly depending on platform and hardware. Comparing average TPS values with and without latency reporting enabled is a good way to measure if the timing overhead is significant.
\nIt is very easy to use pgbench to produce completely meaningless numbers. Here are some guidelines to help you get useful results.
\nIn the first place, never believe any test that runs for only a few seconds. Use the -t or -T option to make the run last at least a few minutes, so as to average out noise. In some cases you could need hours to get numbers that are reproducible. It's a good idea to try the test run a few times, to find out if your numbers are reproducible or not.
For the default TPC-B-like test scenario, the initialization scale factor (-s) should be at least as large as the largest number of clients you intend to test (-c); else you'll mostly be measuring update contention. There are only -s rows in the pgbench_branches table, and every transaction wants to update one of them, so -c values in excess of -s will undoubtedly result in lots of transactions blocked waiting for other transactions.
The default test scenario is also quite sensitive to how long it's been since the tables were initialized: accumulation of dead rows and dead space in the tables changes the results. To understand the results you must keep track of the total number of updates and when vacuuming happens. If autovacuum is enabled it can result in unpredictable changes in measured performance.
\nA limitation of pgbench is that it can itself become the bottleneck when trying to test a large number of client sessions. This can be alleviated by running pgbench on a different machine from the database server, although low network latency will be essential. It might even be useful to run several pgbench instances concurrently, on several client machines, against the same database server.
\nIf untrusted users have access to a database that has not adopted a secure schema usage pattern, do not run pgbench in that database. pgbench uses unqualified names and does not manipulate the search path.
\npgbench \u2014 run a benchmark test on PostgreSQL
\npgbench -i [option...] [dbname]
pgbench [option...] [dbname]
pgbench is a simple program for running benchmark tests on PostgreSQL. It runs the same sequence of SQL commands over and over, possibly in multiple concurrent database sessions, and then calculates the average transaction rate (transactions per second). By default, pgbench tests a scenario that is loosely based on TPC-B, involving five SELECT, UPDATE, and INSERT commands per transaction. However, it is easy to test other cases by writing your own transaction script files.
Typical output from pgbench looks like:
\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 10\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\ntps = 85.184871 (including connections establishing)\ntps = 85.296346 (excluding connections establishing)\n\n
The first six lines report some of the most important parameter settings. The next line reports the number of transactions completed and intended (the latter being just the product of number of clients and number of transactions per client); these will be equal unless the run failed before completion. (In -T mode, only the actual number of transactions is printed.) The last two lines report the number of transactions per second, figured with and without counting the time to start database sessions.
The default TPC-B-like transaction test requires specific tables to be set up beforehand. pgbench should be invoked with the -i (initialize) option to create and populate these tables. (When you are testing a custom script, you don't need this step, but will instead need to do whatever setup your test needs.) Initialization looks like:
pgbench -i [\nother-options]dbname\n
where dbname is the name of the already-created database to test in. (You may also need -h, -p, and/or -U options to specify how to connect to the database server.)
pgbench -i creates four tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers, destroying any existing tables of these names. Be very careful to use another database if you have tables having these names!
At the default \u201cscale factor\u201d of 1, the tables initially contain this many rows:
\ntable # of rows\n---------------------------------\npgbench_branches 1\npgbench_tellers 10\npgbench_accounts 100000\npgbench_history 0\n\n
You can (and, for most purposes, probably should) increase the number of rows by using the -s (scale factor) option. The -F (fillfactor) option might also be used at this point.
Once you have done the necessary setup, you can run your benchmark with a command that doesn't include -i, that is
pgbench [\noptions]dbname\n
In nearly all cases, you'll need some options to make a useful test. The most important options are -c (number of clients), -t (number of transactions), -T (time limit), and -f (specify a custom script file). See below for a full list.
The following is divided into three subsections. Different options are used during database initialization and while running benchmarks, but some options are useful in both cases.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line initialization arguments:
\ndbnameSpecifies the name of the database to test in. If this is not specified, the environment variable PGDATABASE is used. If that is not set, the user name specified for the connection is used.
-i--initializeRequired to invoke initialization mode.
\n-I init_steps--init-steps=init_stepsPerform just a selected set of the normal initialization steps. init_steps specifies the initialization steps to be performed, using one character per step. Each step is invoked in the specified order. The default is dtgvp. The available steps are:
d (Drop)Drop any existing pgbench tables.
\nt (create Tables)Create the tables used by the standard pgbench scenario, namely pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
g or G (Generate data, client-side or server-side)Generate data and load it into the standard tables, replacing any data already present.
\nWith g (client-side data generation), data is generated in pgbench client and then sent to the server. This uses the client/server bandwidth extensively through a COPY. Using g causes logging to print one message every 100,000 rows while generating data for the pgbench_accounts table.
With G (server-side data generation), only small queries are sent from the pgbench client and then data is actually generated in the server. No significant bandwidth is required for this variant, but the server will do more work. Using G causes logging not to print any progress message while generating data.
The default initialization behavior uses client-side data generation (equivalent to g).
v (Vacuum)Invoke VACUUM on the standard tables.
p (create Primary keys)Create primary key indexes on the standard tables.
\nf (create Foreign keys)Create foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (Note that this step is not performed by default.)
\n-F fillfactor--fillfactor=fillfactorCreate the pgbench_accounts, pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables with the given fillfactor. Default is 100.
-n--no-vacuumPerform no vacuuming during initialization. (This option suppresses the v initialization step, even if it was specified in -I.)
-q--quietSwitch logging to quiet mode, producing only one progress message per 5 seconds. The default logging prints one message each 100,000 rows, which often outputs many lines per second (especially on good hardware).
\nThis setting has no effect if G is specified in -I.
-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factorMultiply the number of rows generated by the scale factor. For example, -s 100 will create 10,000,000 rows in the pgbench_accounts table. Default is 1. When the scale is 20,000 or larger, the columns used to hold account identifiers (aid columns) will switch to using larger integers (bigint), in order to be big enough to hold the range of account identifiers.
--foreign-keysCreate foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (This option adds the f step to the initialization step sequence, if it is not already present.)
--index-tablespace=index_tablespaceCreate indexes in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--partition-method=NAMECreate a partitioned pgbench_accounts table with NAME method. Expected values are range or hash. This option requires that --partitions is set to non-zero. If unspecified, default is range.
--partitions=NUMCreate a partitioned pgbench_accounts table with NUM partitions of nearly equal size for the scaled number of accounts. Default is 0, meaning no partitioning.
--tablespace=tablespaceCreate tables in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--unlogged-tablesCreate all tables as unlogged tables, rather than permanent tables.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line benchmarking arguments:
\n-b scriptname[@weight]--builtin=scriptname[@weight]Add the specified built-in script to the list of scripts to be executed. Available built-in scripts are: tpcb-like, simple-update and select-only. Unambiguous prefixes of built-in names are accepted. With the special name list, show the list of built-in scripts and exit immediately.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. See below for details.
-c clients--client=clientsNumber of clients simulated, that is, number of concurrent database sessions. Default is 1.
\n-C--connectEstablish a new connection for each transaction, rather than doing it just once per client session. This is useful to measure the connection overhead.
\n-d--debugPrint debugging output.
\n-D varname=value--define=varname=valueDefine a variable for use by a custom script (see below). Multiple -D options are allowed.
-f filename[@weight]--file=filename[@weight]Add a transaction script read from filename to the list of scripts to be executed.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. (To use a script file name that includes an @ character, append a weight so that there is no ambiguity, for example filen@me@1.) See below for details.
-j threads--jobs=threadsNumber of worker threads within pgbench. Using more than one thread can be helpful on multi-CPU machines. Clients are distributed as evenly as possible among available threads. Default is 1.
\n-l--logWrite information about each transaction to a log file. See below for details.
\n-L limit--latency-limit=limitTransactions that last more than limit milliseconds are counted and reported separately, as late.
When throttling is used (--rate=...), transactions that lag behind schedule by more than limit ms, and thus have no hope of meeting the latency limit, are not sent to the server at all. They are counted and reported separately as skipped.
-M querymode--protocol=querymodeProtocol to use for submitting queries to the server:
\nsimple: use simple query protocol.
extended: use extended query protocol.
prepared: use extended query protocol with prepared statements.
In the prepared mode, pgbench reuses the parse analysis result starting from the second query iteration, so pgbench runs faster than in other modes.
The default is simple query protocol. (See Chapter\u00a052 for more information.)
\n-n--no-vacuumPerform no vacuuming before running the test. This option is necessary if you are running a custom test scenario that does not include the standard tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
-N--skip-some-updatesRun built-in simple-update script. Shorthand for -b simple-update.
-P sec--progress=secShow progress report every sec seconds. The report includes the time since the beginning of the run, the TPS since the last report, and the transaction latency average and standard deviation since the last report. Under throttling (-R), the latency is computed with respect to the transaction scheduled start time, not the actual transaction beginning time, thus it also includes the average schedule lag time.
-r--report-latenciesReport the average per-statement latency (execution time from the perspective of the client) of each command after the benchmark finishes. See below for details.
\n-R rate--rate=rateExecute transactions targeting the specified rate instead of running as fast as possible (the default). The rate is given in transactions per second. If the targeted rate is above the maximum possible rate, the rate limit won't impact the results.
\nThe rate is targeted by starting transactions along a Poisson-distributed schedule time line. The expected start time schedule moves forward based on when the client first started, not when the previous transaction ended. That approach means that when transactions go past their original scheduled end time, it is possible for later ones to catch up again.
\nWhen throttling is active, the transaction latency reported at the end of the run is calculated from the scheduled start times, so it includes the time each transaction had to wait for the previous transaction to finish. The wait time is called the schedule lag time, and its average and maximum are also reported separately. The transaction latency with respect to the actual transaction start time, i.e., the time spent executing the transaction in the database, can be computed by subtracting the schedule lag time from the reported latency.
\nIf --latency-limit is used together with --rate, a transaction can lag behind so much that it is already over the latency limit when the previous transaction ends, because the latency is calculated from the scheduled start time. Such transactions are not sent to the server, but are skipped altogether and counted separately.
A high schedule lag time is an indication that the system cannot process transactions at the specified rate, with the chosen number of clients and threads. When the average transaction execution time is longer than the scheduled interval between each transaction, each successive transaction will fall further behind, and the schedule lag time will keep increasing the longer the test run is. When that happens, you will have to reduce the specified transaction rate.
\n-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factorReport the specified scale factor in pgbench's output. With the built-in tests, this is not necessary; the correct scale factor will be detected by counting the number of rows in the pgbench_branches table. However, when testing only custom benchmarks (-f option), the scale factor will be reported as 1 unless this option is used.
-S--select-onlyRun built-in select-only script. Shorthand for -b select-only.
-t transactions--transactions=transactionsNumber of transactions each client runs. Default is 10.
\n-T seconds--time=secondsRun the test for this many seconds, rather than a fixed number of transactions per client. -t and -T are mutually exclusive.
-v--vacuum-allVacuum all four standard tables before running the test. With neither -n nor -v, pgbench will vacuum the pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables, and will truncate pgbench_history.
--aggregate-interval=secondsLength of aggregation interval (in seconds). May be used only with -l option. With this option, the log contains per-interval summary data, as described below.
--log-prefix=prefixSet the filename prefix for the log files created by --log. The default is pgbench_log.
--progress-timestampWhen showing progress (option -P), use a timestamp (Unix epoch) instead of the number of seconds since the beginning of the run. The unit is in seconds, with millisecond precision after the dot. This helps compare logs generated by various tools.
--random-seed=seedSet random generator seed. Seeds the system random number generator, which then produces a sequence of initial generator states, one for each thread. Values for seed may be: time (the default, the seed is based on the current time), rand (use a strong random source, failing if none is available), or an unsigned decimal integer value. The random generator is invoked explicitly from a pgbench script (random... functions) or implicitly (for instance option --rate uses it to schedule transactions). When explicitly set, the value used for seeding is shown on the terminal. Any value allowed for seed may also be provided through the environment variable PGBENCH_RANDOM_SEED. To ensure that the provided seed impacts all possible uses, put this option first or use the environment variable.
Setting the seed explicitly allows to reproduce a pgbench run exactly, as far as random numbers are concerned. As the random state is managed per thread, this means the exact same pgbench run for an identical invocation if there is one client per thread and there are no external or data dependencies. From a statistical viewpoint reproducing runs exactly is a bad idea because it can hide the performance variability or improve performance unduly, e.g., by hitting the same pages as a previous run. However, it may also be of great help for debugging, for instance re-running a tricky case which leads to an error. Use wisely.
--sampling-rate=rateSampling rate, used when writing data into the log, to reduce the amount of log generated. If this option is given, only the specified fraction of transactions are logged. 1.0 means all transactions will be logged, 0.05 means only 5% of the transactions will be logged.
\nRemember to take the sampling rate into account when processing the log file. For example, when computing TPS values, you need to multiply the numbers accordingly (e.g., with 0.01 sample rate, you'll only get 1/100 of the actual TPS).
\n--show-script=scriptnameShow the actual code of builtin script scriptname on stderr, and exit immediately.
pgbench also accepts the following common command-line arguments for connection parameters:
\n-h hostname--host=hostnameThe database server's host name
\n-p port--port=portThe database server's port number
\n-U login--username=loginThe user name to connect as
\n-V--versionPrint the pgbench version and exit.
\n-?--helpShow help about pgbench command line arguments, and exit.
\nA successful run will exit with status 0. Exit status 1 indicates static problems such as invalid command-line options. Errors during the run such as database errors or problems in the script will result in exit status 2. In the latter case, pgbench will print partial results.
\nPGDATABASEPGHOSTPGPORTPGUSERDefault connection parameters.
\nThis utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, uses the environment variables supported by libpq (see Section\u00a033.14).
\nThe environment variable PG_COLOR specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. Possible values are always, auto and never.
pgbench executes test scripts chosen randomly from a specified list. The scripts may include built-in scripts specified with -b and user-provided scripts specified with -f. Each script may be given a relative weight specified after an @ so as to change its selection probability. The default weight is 1. Scripts with a weight of 0 are ignored.
The default built-in transaction script (also invoked with -b tpcb-like) issues seven commands per transaction over randomly chosen aid, tid, bid and delta. The scenario is inspired by the TPC-B benchmark, but is not actually TPC-B, hence the name.
BEGIN;
UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;
SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;
UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;
UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;
INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);
END;
If you select the simple-update built-in (also -N), steps 4 and 5 aren't included in the transaction. This will avoid update contention on these tables, but it makes the test case even less like TPC-B.
If you select the select-only built-in (also -S), only the SELECT is issued.
pgbench has support for running custom benchmark scenarios by replacing the default transaction script (described above) with a transaction script read from a file (-f option). In this case a \u201ctransaction\u201d counts as one execution of a script file.
A script file contains one or more SQL commands terminated by semicolons. Empty lines and lines beginning with -- are ignored. Script files can also contain \u201cmeta commands\u201d, which are interpreted by pgbench itself, as described below.
Before PostgreSQL 9.6, SQL commands in script files were terminated by newlines, and so they could not be continued across lines. Now a semicolon is required to separate consecutive SQL commands (though a SQL command does not need one if it is followed by a meta command). If you need to create a script file that works with both old and new versions of pgbench, be sure to write each SQL command on a single line ending with a semicolon.
\nThere is a simple variable-substitution facility for script files. Variable names must consist of letters (including non-Latin letters), digits, and underscores, with the first character not being a digit. Variables can be set by the command-line -D option, explained above, or by the meta commands explained below. In addition to any variables preset by -D command-line options, there are a few variables that are preset automatically, listed in Table\u00a0273. A value specified for these variables using -D takes precedence over the automatic presets. Once set, a variable's value can be inserted into a SQL command by writing :variablename. When running more than one client session, each session has its own set of variables. pgbench supports up to 255 variable uses in one statement.
Table\u00a0273.\u00a0pgbench Automatic Variables
\n| Variable | \nDescription | \n
|---|---|
client_id | \nunique number identifying the client session (starts from zero) | \n
default_seed | \nseed used in hash functions by default | \n
random_seed | \nrandom generator seed (unless overwritten with -D) | \n
scale | \ncurrent scale factor | \n
Script file meta commands begin with a backslash (\\) and normally extend to the end of the line, although they can be continued to additional lines by writing backslash-return. Arguments to a meta command are separated by white space. These meta commands are supported:
\\gset [prefix] \\aset [prefix]These commands may be used to end SQL queries, taking the place of the terminating semicolon (;).
When the \\gset command is used, the preceding SQL query is expected to return one row, the columns of which are stored into variables named after column names, and prefixed with prefix if provided.
When the \\aset command is used, all combined SQL queries (separated by \\;) have their columns stored into variables named after column names, and prefixed with prefix if provided. If a query returns no row, no assignment is made and the variable can be tested for existence to detect this. If a query returns more than one row, the last value is kept.
The following example puts the final account balance from the first query into variable abalance, and fills variables p_two and p_three with integers from the third query. The result of the second query is discarded. The result of the two last combined queries are stored in variables four and five.
UPDATE pgbench_accounts\n SET abalance = abalance + :delta\n WHERE aid = :aid\n RETURNING abalance \\gset\n-- compound of two queries\nSELECT 1 \\;\nSELECT 2 AS two, 3 AS three \\gset p_\nSELECT 4 AS four \\; SELECT 5 AS five \\aset\n\n
\\if expression\\elif expression\\else\\endifThis group of commands implements nestable conditional blocks, similarly to psql's \\if expression. Conditional expressions are identical to those with \\set, with non-zero values interpreted as true.
\\set varname expressionSets variable varname to a value calculated from expression. The expression may contain the NULL constant, Boolean constants TRUE and FALSE, integer constants such as 5432, double constants such as 3.14159, references to variables :variablename, operators with their usual SQL precedence and associativity, function calls, SQL CASE generic conditional expressions and parentheses.
Functions and most operators return NULL on NULL input.
For conditional purposes, non zero numerical values are TRUE, zero numerical values and NULL are FALSE.
Too large or small integer and double constants, as well as integer arithmetic operators (+, -, * and /) raise errors on overflows.
When no final ELSE clause is provided to a CASE, the default value is NULL.
Examples:
\n\\set ntellers 10 * :scale\n\\set aid (1021 * random(1, 100000 * :scale)) % \\\n (100000 * :scale) + 1\n\\set divx CASE WHEN :x <> 0 THEN :y/:x ELSE NULL END\n\n
\\sleep number [ us | ms | s ]Causes script execution to sleep for the specified duration in microseconds (us), milliseconds (ms) or seconds (s). If the unit is omitted then seconds are the default. number can be either an integer constant or a :variablename reference to a variable having an integer value.
Example:
\n\\sleep 10 ms\n\n
\\setshell varname command [ argument ... ]Sets variable varname to the result of the shell command command with the given argument(s). The command must return an integer value through its standard output.
command and each argument can be either a text constant or a :variablename reference to a variable. If you want to use an argument starting with a colon, write an additional colon at the beginning of argument.
Example:
\n\\setshell variable_to_be_assigned command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
\\shell command [ argument ... ]Same as \\setshell, but the result of the command is discarded.
Example:
\n\\shell command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
The arithmetic, bitwise, comparison and logical operators listed in Table\u00a0274 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set. The operators are listed in increasing precedence order. Except as noted, operators taking two numeric inputs will produce a double value if either input is double, otherwise they produce an integer result.
Table\u00a0274.\u00a0pgbench Operators
\n| \n Operator \nDescription \nExample(s) \n | \n
|---|
| \n
Logical OR \n
| \n
| \n
Logical AND \n
| \n
| \n
Logical NOT \n
| \n
| \n
Boolean value tests \n
| \n
| \n
Nullness tests \n
| \n
| \n
Equal \n
| \n
| \n
Not equal \n
| \n
| \n
Not equal \n
| \n
| \n
Less than \n
| \n
| \n
Less than or equal to \n
| \n
| \n
Greater than \n
| \n
| \n
Greater than or equal to \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise OR \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise XOR \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise AND \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise NOT \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise shift left \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise shift right \n
| \n
| \n
Addition \n
| \n
| \n
Subtraction \n
| \n
| \n
Multiplication \n
| \n
| \n
Division (truncates the result towards zero if both inputs are integers) \n
| \n
| \n
Modulo (remainder) \n
| \n
| \n
Negation \n
| \n
The functions listed in Table\u00a0275 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set.
Table\u00a0275.\u00a0pgbench Functions
\n| \n Function \nDescription \nExample(s) \n | \n
|---|
| \n
Absolute value \n
| \n
| \n
Prints the argument to stderr, and returns the argument. \n
| \n
| \n
Casts to double. \n
| \n
| \n
Exponential (
| \n
| \n
Selects the largest value among the arguments. \n
| \n
| \n
This is an alias for
| \n
| \n
Computes FNV-1a hash. \n
| \n
| \n
Computes MurmurHash2 hash. \n
| \n
| \n
Casts to integer. \n
| \n
| \n
Selects the smallest value among the arguments. \n
| \n
| \n
Natural logarithm \n
| \n
| \n
Modulo (remainder) \n
| \n
| \n
Approximate value of \u03c0 \n
| \n
| \n
| \n
| \n
Computes a uniformly-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes an exponentially-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes a Gaussian-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes a Zipfian-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Square root \n
| \n
The random function generates values using a uniform distribution, that is all the values are drawn within the specified range with equal probability. The random_exponential, random_gaussian and random_zipfian functions require an additional double parameter which determines the precise shape of the distribution.
For an exponential distribution, parameter controls the distribution by truncating a quickly-decreasing exponential distribution at parameter, and then projecting onto integers between the bounds. To be precise, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0exp(-parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0min)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/\u00a0(1\u00a0-\u00a0exp(-parameter))
Then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i) - f(i + 1).
Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to min are accessed, and the less frequently values close to max are accessed. The closer to 0 parameter is, the flatter (more uniform) the access distribution. A crude approximation of the distribution is that the most frequent 1% values in the range, close to min, are drawn parameter% of the time. The parameter value must be strictly positive.
For a Gaussian distribution, the interval is mapped onto a standard normal distribution (the classical bell-shaped Gaussian curve) truncated at -parameter on the left and +parameter on the right. Values in the middle of the interval are more likely to be drawn. To be precise, if PHI(x) is the cumulative distribution function of the standard normal distribution, with mean mu defined as (max + min) / 2.0, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0PHI(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0mu)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/
\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0PHI(parameter)\u00a0-\u00a01)
then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i + 0.5) - f(i - 0.5). Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to the middle of the interval are drawn, and the less frequently values close to the min and max bounds. About 67% of values are drawn from the middle 1.0 / parameter, that is a relative 0.5 / parameter around the mean, and 95% in the middle 2.0 / parameter, that is a relative 1.0 / parameter around the mean; for instance, if parameter is 4.0, 67% of values are drawn from the middle quarter (1.0 / 4.0) of the interval (i.e., from 3.0 / 8.0 to 5.0 / 8.0) and 95% from the middle half (2.0 / 4.0) of the interval (second and third quartiles). The minimum allowed parameter value is 2.0.
random_zipfian generates a bounded Zipfian distribution. parameter defines how skewed the distribution is. The larger the parameter, the more frequently values closer to the beginning of the interval are drawn. The distribution is such that, assuming the range starts from 1, the ratio of the probability of drawing k versus drawing k+1 is ((. For example, k+1)/k)**parameterrandom_zipfian(1, ..., 2.5) produces the value 1 about (2/1)**2.5 = 5.66 times more frequently than 2, which itself is produced (3/2)**2.5 = 2.76 times more frequently than 3, and so on.
pgbench's implementation is based on \"Non-Uniform Random Variate Generation\", Luc Devroye, p. 550-551, Springer 1986. Due to limitations of that algorithm, the parameter value is restricted to the range [1.001, 1000].
Hash functions hash, hash_murmur2 and hash_fnv1a accept an input value and an optional seed parameter. In case the seed isn't provided the value of :default_seed is used, which is initialized randomly unless set by the command-line -D option. Hash functions can be used to scatter the distribution of random functions such as random_zipfian or random_exponential. For instance, the following pgbench script simulates possible real world workload typical for social media and blogging platforms where few accounts generate excessive load:
\\set r random_zipfian(0, 100000000, 1.07)\n\\set k abs(hash(:r)) % 1000000\n\n
In some cases several distinct distributions are needed which don't correlate with each other and this is when implicit seed parameter comes in handy:
\n\\set k1 abs(hash(:r, :default_seed + 123)) % 1000000\n\\set k2 abs(hash(:r, :default_seed + 321)) % 1000000\n\n
As an example, the full definition of the built-in TPC-B-like transaction is:
\n\\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n\\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n\\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n\\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\nBEGIN;\nUPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\nSELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\nUPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\nUPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\nINSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\nEND;\n\n
This script allows each iteration of the transaction to reference different, randomly-chosen rows. (This example also shows why it's important for each client session to have its own variables \u2014 otherwise they'd not be independently touching different rows.)
\nWith the -l option (but without the --aggregate-interval option), pgbench writes information about each transaction to a log file. The log file will be named prefix.nnnprefix defaults to pgbench_log, and nnn is the PID of the pgbench process. The prefix can be changed by using the --log-prefix option. If the -j option is 2 or higher, so that there are multiple worker threads, each will have its own log file. The first worker will use the same name for its log file as in the standard single worker case. The additional log files for the other workers will be named prefix.nnn.mmmmmm is a sequential number for each worker starting with 1.
The format of the log is:
\n\nclient_idtransaction_notimescript_notime_epochtime_us[schedule_lag]\n
where client_id indicates which client session ran the transaction, transaction_no counts how many transactions have been run by that session, time is the total elapsed transaction time in microseconds, script_no identifies which script file was used (useful when multiple scripts were specified with -f or -b), and time_epoch/time_us are a Unix-epoch time stamp and an offset in microseconds (suitable for creating an ISO 8601 time stamp with fractional seconds) showing when the transaction completed. The schedule_lag field is the difference between the transaction's scheduled start time, and the time it actually started, in microseconds. It is only present when the --rate option is used. When both --rate and --latency-limit are used, the time for a skipped transaction will be reported as skipped.
Here is a snippet of a log file generated in a single-client run:
\n0 199 2241 0 1175850568 995598\n0 200 2465 0 1175850568 998079\n0 201 2513 0 1175850569 608\n0 202 2038 0 1175850569 2663\n\n
Another example with --rate=100 and --latency-limit=5 (note the additional schedule_lag column):
0 81 4621 0 1412881037 912698 3005\n0 82 6173 0 1412881037 914578 4304\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5217\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5099\n0 83 4722 0 1412881037 916203 3108\n0 84 4142 0 1412881037 918023 2333\n0 85 2465 0 1412881037 919759 740\n\n
In this example, transaction 82 was late, because its latency (6.173 ms) was over the 5 ms limit. The next two transactions were skipped, because they were already late before they were even started.
\nWhen running a long test on hardware that can handle a lot of transactions, the log files can become very large. The --sampling-rate option can be used to log only a random sample of transactions.
With the --aggregate-interval option, a different format is used for the log files:
\ninterval_startnum_transactions\u200bsum_latencysum_latency_2min_latencymax_latency\u200b [sum_lagsum_lag_2min_lagmax_lag[skipped] ]\n
where interval_start is the start of the interval (as a Unix epoch time stamp), num_transactions is the number of transactions within the interval, sum_latency is the sum of the transaction latencies within the interval, sum_latency_2 is the sum of squares of the transaction latencies within the interval, min_latency is the minimum latency within the interval, and max_latency is the maximum latency within the interval. The next fields, sum_lag, sum_lag_2, min_lag, and max_lag, are only present if the --rate option is used. They provide statistics about the time each transaction had to wait for the previous one to finish, i.e., the difference between each transaction's scheduled start time and the time it actually started. The very last field, skipped, is only present if the --latency-limit option is used, too. It counts the number of transactions skipped because they would have started too late. Each transaction is counted in the interval when it was committed.
Here is some example output:
\n1345828501 5601 1542744 483552416 61 2573\n1345828503 7884 1979812 565806736 60 1479\n1345828505 7208 1979422 567277552 59 1391\n1345828507 7685 1980268 569784714 60 1398\n1345828509 7073 1979779 573489941 236 1411\n\n
Notice that while the plain (unaggregated) log file shows which script was used for each transaction, the aggregated log does not. Therefore if you need per-script data, you need to aggregate the data on your own.
\nWith the -r option, pgbench collects the elapsed transaction time of each statement executed by every client. It then reports an average of those values, referred to as the latency for each statement, after the benchmark has finished.
For the default script, the output will look similar to this:
\nstarting vacuum...end.\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 1\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\nlatency average = 15.844 ms\nlatency stddev = 2.715 ms\ntps = 618.764555 (including connections establishing)\ntps = 622.977698 (excluding connections establishing)\nstatement latencies in milliseconds:\n 0.002 \\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n 0.005 \\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n 0.002 \\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n 0.001 \\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\n 0.326 BEGIN;\n 0.603 UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\n 0.454 SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\n 5.528 UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\n 7.335 UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\n 0.371 INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\n 1.212 END;\n\n
If multiple script files are specified, the averages are reported separately for each script file.
\nNote that collecting the additional timing information needed for per-statement latency computation adds some overhead. This will slow average execution speed and lower the computed TPS. The amount of slowdown varies significantly depending on platform and hardware. Comparing average TPS values with and without latency reporting enabled is a good way to measure if the timing overhead is significant.
\nIt is very easy to use pgbench to produce completely meaningless numbers. Here are some guidelines to help you get useful results.
\nIn the first place, never believe any test that runs for only a few seconds. Use the -t or -T option to make the run last at least a few minutes, so as to average out noise. In some cases you could need hours to get numbers that are reproducible. It's a good idea to try the test run a few times, to find out if your numbers are reproducible or not.
For the default TPC-B-like test scenario, the initialization scale factor (-s) should be at least as large as the largest number of clients you intend to test (-c); else you'll mostly be measuring update contention. There are only -s rows in the pgbench_branches table, and every transaction wants to update one of them, so -c values in excess of -s will undoubtedly result in lots of transactions blocked waiting for other transactions.
The default test scenario is also quite sensitive to how long it's been since the tables were initialized: accumulation of dead rows and dead space in the tables changes the results. To understand the results you must keep track of the total number of updates and when vacuuming happens. If autovacuum is enabled it can result in unpredictable changes in measured performance.
\nA limitation of pgbench is that it can itself become the bottleneck when trying to test a large number of client sessions. This can be alleviated by running pgbench on a different machine from the database server, although low network latency will be essential. It might even be useful to run several pgbench instances concurrently, on several client machines, against the same database server.
\nIf untrusted users have access to a database that has not adopted a secure schema usage pattern, do not run pgbench in that database. pgbench uses unqualified names and does not manipulate the search path.
\npgbench \u2014 run a benchmark test on PostgreSQL
\npgbench -i [option...] [dbname]
pgbench [option...] [dbname]
pgbench is a simple program for running benchmark tests on PostgreSQL. It runs the same sequence of SQL commands over and over, possibly in multiple concurrent database sessions, and then calculates the average transaction rate (transactions per second). By default, pgbench tests a scenario that is loosely based on TPC-B, involving five SELECT, UPDATE, and INSERT commands per transaction. However, it is easy to test other cases by writing your own transaction script files.
Typical output from pgbench looks like:
\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 10\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\nlatency average = 11.013 ms\nlatency stddev = 7.351 ms\ninitial connection time = 45.758 ms\ntps = 896.967014 (without initial connection time)\n\n
The first six lines report some of the most important parameter settings. The next line reports the number of transactions completed and intended (the latter being just the product of number of clients and number of transactions per client); these will be equal unless the run failed before completion. (In -T mode, only the actual number of transactions is printed.) The last line reports the number of transactions per second.
The default TPC-B-like transaction test requires specific tables to be set up beforehand. pgbench should be invoked with the -i (initialize) option to create and populate these tables. (When you are testing a custom script, you don't need this step, but will instead need to do whatever setup your test needs.) Initialization looks like:
pgbench -i [\nother-options]dbname\n
where dbname is the name of the already-created database to test in. (You may also need -h, -p, and/or -U options to specify how to connect to the database server.)
pgbench -i creates four tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers, destroying any existing tables of these names. Be very careful to use another database if you have tables having these names!
At the default \u201cscale factor\u201d of 1, the tables initially contain this many rows:
\ntable # of rows\n---------------------------------\npgbench_branches 1\npgbench_tellers 10\npgbench_accounts 100000\npgbench_history 0\n\n
You can (and, for most purposes, probably should) increase the number of rows by using the -s (scale factor) option. The -F (fillfactor) option might also be used at this point.
Once you have done the necessary setup, you can run your benchmark with a command that doesn't include -i, that is
pgbench [\noptions]dbname\n
In nearly all cases, you'll need some options to make a useful test. The most important options are -c (number of clients), -t (number of transactions), -T (time limit), and -f (specify a custom script file). See below for a full list.
The following is divided into three subsections. Different options are used during database initialization and while running benchmarks, but some options are useful in both cases.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line initialization arguments:
\ndbnameSpecifies the name of the database to test in. If this is not specified, the environment variable PGDATABASE is used. If that is not set, the user name specified for the connection is used.
-i--initializeRequired to invoke initialization mode.
\n-I init_steps--init-steps=init_stepsPerform just a selected set of the normal initialization steps. init_steps specifies the initialization steps to be performed, using one character per step. Each step is invoked in the specified order. The default is dtgvp. The available steps are:
d (Drop)Drop any existing pgbench tables.
\nt (create Tables)Create the tables used by the standard pgbench scenario, namely pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
g or G (Generate data, client-side or server-side)Generate data and load it into the standard tables, replacing any data already present.
\nWith g (client-side data generation), data is generated in pgbench client and then sent to the server. This uses the client/server bandwidth extensively through a COPY. Using g causes logging to print one message every 100,000 rows while generating data for the pgbench_accounts table.
With G (server-side data generation), only small queries are sent from the pgbench client and then data is actually generated in the server. No significant bandwidth is required for this variant, but the server will do more work. Using G causes logging not to print any progress message while generating data.
The default initialization behavior uses client-side data generation (equivalent to g).
v (Vacuum)Invoke VACUUM on the standard tables.
p (create Primary keys)Create primary key indexes on the standard tables.
\nf (create Foreign keys)Create foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (Note that this step is not performed by default.)
\n-F fillfactor--fillfactor=fillfactorCreate the pgbench_accounts, pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables with the given fillfactor. Default is 100.
-n--no-vacuumPerform no vacuuming during initialization. (This option suppresses the v initialization step, even if it was specified in -I.)
-q--quietSwitch logging to quiet mode, producing only one progress message per 5 seconds. The default logging prints one message each 100,000 rows, which often outputs many lines per second (especially on good hardware).
\nThis setting has no effect if G is specified in -I.
-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factorMultiply the number of rows generated by the scale factor. For example, -s 100 will create 10,000,000 rows in the pgbench_accounts table. Default is 1. When the scale is 20,000 or larger, the columns used to hold account identifiers (aid columns) will switch to using larger integers (bigint), in order to be big enough to hold the range of account identifiers.
--foreign-keysCreate foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (This option adds the f step to the initialization step sequence, if it is not already present.)
--index-tablespace=index_tablespaceCreate indexes in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--partition-method=NAMECreate a partitioned pgbench_accounts table with NAME method. Expected values are range or hash. This option requires that --partitions is set to non-zero. If unspecified, default is range.
--partitions=NUMCreate a partitioned pgbench_accounts table with NUM partitions of nearly equal size for the scaled number of accounts. Default is 0, meaning no partitioning.
--tablespace=tablespaceCreate tables in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--unlogged-tablesCreate all tables as unlogged tables, rather than permanent tables.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line benchmarking arguments:
\n-b scriptname[@weight]--builtin=scriptname[@weight]Add the specified built-in script to the list of scripts to be executed. Available built-in scripts are: tpcb-like, simple-update and select-only. Unambiguous prefixes of built-in names are accepted. With the special name list, show the list of built-in scripts and exit immediately.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. See below for details.
-c clients--client=clientsNumber of clients simulated, that is, number of concurrent database sessions. Default is 1.
\n-C--connectEstablish a new connection for each transaction, rather than doing it just once per client session. This is useful to measure the connection overhead.
\n-d--debugPrint debugging output.
\n-D varname=value--define=varname=valueDefine a variable for use by a custom script (see below). Multiple -D options are allowed.
-f filename[@weight]--file=filename[@weight]Add a transaction script read from filename to the list of scripts to be executed.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. (To use a script file name that includes an @ character, append a weight so that there is no ambiguity, for example filen@me@1.) See below for details.
-j threads--jobs=threadsNumber of worker threads within pgbench. Using more than one thread can be helpful on multi-CPU machines. Clients are distributed as evenly as possible among available threads. Default is 1.
\n-l--logWrite information about each transaction to a log file. See below for details.
\n-L limit--latency-limit=limitTransactions that last more than limit milliseconds are counted and reported separately, as late.
When throttling is used (--rate=...), transactions that lag behind schedule by more than limit ms, and thus have no hope of meeting the latency limit, are not sent to the server at all. They are counted and reported separately as skipped.
-M querymode--protocol=querymodeProtocol to use for submitting queries to the server:
\nsimple: use simple query protocol.
extended: use extended query protocol.
prepared: use extended query protocol with prepared statements.
In the prepared mode, pgbench reuses the parse analysis result starting from the second query iteration, so pgbench runs faster than in other modes.
The default is simple query protocol. (See Chapter\u00a053 for more information.)
\n-n--no-vacuumPerform no vacuuming before running the test. This option is necessary if you are running a custom test scenario that does not include the standard tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
-N--skip-some-updatesRun built-in simple-update script. Shorthand for -b simple-update.
-P sec--progress=secShow progress report every sec seconds. The report includes the time since the beginning of the run, the TPS since the last report, and the transaction latency average and standard deviation since the last report. Under throttling (-R), the latency is computed with respect to the transaction scheduled start time, not the actual transaction beginning time, thus it also includes the average schedule lag time.
-r--report-latenciesReport the average per-statement latency (execution time from the perspective of the client) of each command after the benchmark finishes. See below for details.
\n-R rate--rate=rateExecute transactions targeting the specified rate instead of running as fast as possible (the default). The rate is given in transactions per second. If the targeted rate is above the maximum possible rate, the rate limit won't impact the results.
\nThe rate is targeted by starting transactions along a Poisson-distributed schedule time line. The expected start time schedule moves forward based on when the client first started, not when the previous transaction ended. That approach means that when transactions go past their original scheduled end time, it is possible for later ones to catch up again.
\nWhen throttling is active, the transaction latency reported at the end of the run is calculated from the scheduled start times, so it includes the time each transaction had to wait for the previous transaction to finish. The wait time is called the schedule lag time, and its average and maximum are also reported separately. The transaction latency with respect to the actual transaction start time, i.e., the time spent executing the transaction in the database, can be computed by subtracting the schedule lag time from the reported latency.
\nIf --latency-limit is used together with --rate, a transaction can lag behind so much that it is already over the latency limit when the previous transaction ends, because the latency is calculated from the scheduled start time. Such transactions are not sent to the server, but are skipped altogether and counted separately.
A high schedule lag time is an indication that the system cannot process transactions at the specified rate, with the chosen number of clients and threads. When the average transaction execution time is longer than the scheduled interval between each transaction, each successive transaction will fall further behind, and the schedule lag time will keep increasing the longer the test run is. When that happens, you will have to reduce the specified transaction rate.
\n-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factorReport the specified scale factor in pgbench's output. With the built-in tests, this is not necessary; the correct scale factor will be detected by counting the number of rows in the pgbench_branches table. However, when testing only custom benchmarks (-f option), the scale factor will be reported as 1 unless this option is used.
-S--select-onlyRun built-in select-only script. Shorthand for -b select-only.
-t transactions--transactions=transactionsNumber of transactions each client runs. Default is 10.
\n-T seconds--time=secondsRun the test for this many seconds, rather than a fixed number of transactions per client. -t and -T are mutually exclusive.
-v--vacuum-allVacuum all four standard tables before running the test. With neither -n nor -v, pgbench will vacuum the pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables, and will truncate pgbench_history.
--aggregate-interval=secondsLength of aggregation interval (in seconds). May be used only with -l option. With this option, the log contains per-interval summary data, as described below.
--log-prefix=prefixSet the filename prefix for the log files created by --log. The default is pgbench_log.
--progress-timestampWhen showing progress (option -P), use a timestamp (Unix epoch) instead of the number of seconds since the beginning of the run. The unit is in seconds, with millisecond precision after the dot. This helps compare logs generated by various tools.
--random-seed=seedSet random generator seed. Seeds the system random number generator, which then produces a sequence of initial generator states, one for each thread. Values for seed may be: time (the default, the seed is based on the current time), rand (use a strong random source, failing if none is available), or an unsigned decimal integer value. The random generator is invoked explicitly from a pgbench script (random... functions) or implicitly (for instance option --rate uses it to schedule transactions). When explicitly set, the value used for seeding is shown on the terminal. Any value allowed for seed may also be provided through the environment variable PGBENCH_RANDOM_SEED. To ensure that the provided seed impacts all possible uses, put this option first or use the environment variable.
Setting the seed explicitly allows to reproduce a pgbench run exactly, as far as random numbers are concerned. As the random state is managed per thread, this means the exact same pgbench run for an identical invocation if there is one client per thread and there are no external or data dependencies. From a statistical viewpoint reproducing runs exactly is a bad idea because it can hide the performance variability or improve performance unduly, e.g., by hitting the same pages as a previous run. However, it may also be of great help for debugging, for instance re-running a tricky case which leads to an error. Use wisely.
--sampling-rate=rateSampling rate, used when writing data into the log, to reduce the amount of log generated. If this option is given, only the specified fraction of transactions are logged. 1.0 means all transactions will be logged, 0.05 means only 5% of the transactions will be logged.
\nRemember to take the sampling rate into account when processing the log file. For example, when computing TPS values, you need to multiply the numbers accordingly (e.g., with 0.01 sample rate, you'll only get 1/100 of the actual TPS).
\n--show-script=scriptnameShow the actual code of builtin script scriptname on stderr, and exit immediately.
pgbench also accepts the following common command-line arguments for connection parameters:
\n-h hostname--host=hostnameThe database server's host name
\n-p port--port=portThe database server's port number
\n-U login--username=loginThe user name to connect as
\n-V--versionPrint the pgbench version and exit.
\n-?--helpShow help about pgbench command line arguments, and exit.
\nA successful run will exit with status 0. Exit status 1 indicates static problems such as invalid command-line options. Errors during the run such as database errors or problems in the script will result in exit status 2. In the latter case, pgbench will print partial results.
\nPGDATABASEPGHOSTPGPORTPGUSERDefault connection parameters.
\nThis utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, uses the environment variables supported by libpq (see Section\u00a034.15).
\nThe environment variable PG_COLOR specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. Possible values are always, auto and never.
pgbench executes test scripts chosen randomly from a specified list. The scripts may include built-in scripts specified with -b and user-provided scripts specified with -f. Each script may be given a relative weight specified after an @ so as to change its selection probability. The default weight is 1. Scripts with a weight of 0 are ignored.
The default built-in transaction script (also invoked with -b tpcb-like) issues seven commands per transaction over randomly chosen aid, tid, bid and delta. The scenario is inspired by the TPC-B benchmark, but is not actually TPC-B, hence the name.
BEGIN;
UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;
SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;
UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;
UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;
INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);
END;
If you select the simple-update built-in (also -N), steps 4 and 5 aren't included in the transaction. This will avoid update contention on these tables, but it makes the test case even less like TPC-B.
If you select the select-only built-in (also -S), only the SELECT is issued.
pgbench has support for running custom benchmark scenarios by replacing the default transaction script (described above) with a transaction script read from a file (-f option). In this case a \u201ctransaction\u201d counts as one execution of a script file.
A script file contains one or more SQL commands terminated by semicolons. Empty lines and lines beginning with -- are ignored. Script files can also contain \u201cmeta commands\u201d, which are interpreted by pgbench itself, as described below.
Before PostgreSQL 9.6, SQL commands in script files were terminated by newlines, and so they could not be continued across lines. Now a semicolon is required to separate consecutive SQL commands (though an SQL command does not need one if it is followed by a meta command). If you need to create a script file that works with both old and new versions of pgbench, be sure to write each SQL command on a single line ending with a semicolon.
\nThere is a simple variable-substitution facility for script files. Variable names must consist of letters (including non-Latin letters), digits, and underscores, with the first character not being a digit. Variables can be set by the command-line -D option, explained above, or by the meta commands explained below. In addition to any variables preset by -D command-line options, there are a few variables that are preset automatically, listed in Table\u00a0282. A value specified for these variables using -D takes precedence over the automatic presets. Once set, a variable's value can be inserted into an SQL command by writing :variablename. When running more than one client session, each session has its own set of variables. pgbench supports up to 255 variable uses in one statement.
Table\u00a0282.\u00a0pgbench Automatic Variables
\n| Variable | \nDescription | \n
|---|---|
client_id | \nunique number identifying the client session (starts from zero) | \n
default_seed | \nseed used in hash and pseudorandom permutation functions by default | \n
random_seed | \nrandom generator seed (unless overwritten with -D) | \n
scale | \ncurrent scale factor | \n
Script file meta commands begin with a backslash (\\) and normally extend to the end of the line, although they can be continued to additional lines by writing backslash-return. Arguments to a meta command are separated by white space. These meta commands are supported:
\\gset [prefix] \\aset [prefix]These commands may be used to end SQL queries, taking the place of the terminating semicolon (;).
When the \\gset command is used, the preceding SQL query is expected to return one row, the columns of which are stored into variables named after column names, and prefixed with prefix if provided.
When the \\aset command is used, all combined SQL queries (separated by \\;) have their columns stored into variables named after column names, and prefixed with prefix if provided. If a query returns no row, no assignment is made and the variable can be tested for existence to detect this. If a query returns more than one row, the last value is kept.
\\gset and \\aset cannot be used in pipeline mode, since the query results are not yet available by the time the commands would need them.
The following example puts the final account balance from the first query into variable abalance, and fills variables p_two and p_three with integers from the third query. The result of the second query is discarded. The result of the two last combined queries are stored in variables four and five.
UPDATE pgbench_accounts\n SET abalance = abalance + :delta\n WHERE aid = :aid\n RETURNING abalance \\gset\n-- compound of two queries\nSELECT 1 \\;\nSELECT 2 AS two, 3 AS three \\gset p_\nSELECT 4 AS four \\; SELECT 5 AS five \\aset\n\n
\\if expression\\elif expression\\else\\endifThis group of commands implements nestable conditional blocks, similarly to psql's \\if expression. Conditional expressions are identical to those with \\set, with non-zero values interpreted as true.
\\set varname expressionSets variable varname to a value calculated from expression. The expression may contain the NULL constant, Boolean constants TRUE and FALSE, integer constants such as 5432, double constants such as 3.14159, references to variables :variablename, operators with their usual SQL precedence and associativity, function calls, SQL CASE generic conditional expressions and parentheses.
Functions and most operators return NULL on NULL input.
For conditional purposes, non zero numerical values are TRUE, zero numerical values and NULL are FALSE.
Too large or small integer and double constants, as well as integer arithmetic operators (+, -, * and /) raise errors on overflows.
When no final ELSE clause is provided to a CASE, the default value is NULL.
Examples:
\n\\set ntellers 10 * :scale\n\\set aid (1021 * random(1, 100000 * :scale)) % \\\n (100000 * :scale) + 1\n\\set divx CASE WHEN :x <> 0 THEN :y/:x ELSE NULL END\n\n
\\sleep number [ us | ms | s ]Causes script execution to sleep for the specified duration in microseconds (us), milliseconds (ms) or seconds (s). If the unit is omitted then seconds are the default. number can be either an integer constant or a :variablename reference to a variable having an integer value.
Example:
\n\\sleep 10 ms\n\n
\\setshell varname command [ argument ... ]Sets variable varname to the result of the shell command command with the given argument(s). The command must return an integer value through its standard output.
command and each argument can be either a text constant or a :variablename reference to a variable. If you want to use an argument starting with a colon, write an additional colon at the beginning of argument.
Example:
\n\\setshell variable_to_be_assigned command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
\\shell command [ argument ... ]Same as \\setshell, but the result of the command is discarded.
Example:
\n\\shell command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
\\startpipeline\\endpipelineThese commands delimit the start and end of a pipeline of SQL statements. In pipeline mode, statements are sent to the server without waiting for the results of previous statements. See Section\u00a034.5 for more details. Pipeline mode requires the use of extended query protocol.
\nThe arithmetic, bitwise, comparison and logical operators listed in Table\u00a0283 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set. The operators are listed in increasing precedence order. Except as noted, operators taking two numeric inputs will produce a double value if either input is double, otherwise they produce an integer result.
Table\u00a0283.\u00a0pgbench Operators
\n| \n Operator \nDescription \nExample(s) \n | \n
|---|
| \n
Logical OR \n
| \n
| \n
Logical AND \n
| \n
| \n
Logical NOT \n
| \n
| \n
Boolean value tests \n
| \n
| \n
Nullness tests \n
| \n
| \n
Equal \n
| \n
| \n
Not equal \n
| \n
| \n
Not equal \n
| \n
| \n
Less than \n
| \n
| \n
Less than or equal to \n
| \n
| \n
Greater than \n
| \n
| \n
Greater than or equal to \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise OR \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise XOR \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise AND \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise NOT \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise shift left \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise shift right \n
| \n
| \n
Addition \n
| \n
| \n
Subtraction \n
| \n
| \n
Multiplication \n
| \n
| \n
Division (truncates the result towards zero if both inputs are integers) \n
| \n
| \n
Modulo (remainder) \n
| \n
| \n
Negation \n
| \n
The functions listed in Table\u00a0284 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set.
Table\u00a0284.\u00a0pgbench Functions
\n| \n Function \nDescription \nExample(s) \n | \n
|---|
| \n
Absolute value \n
| \n
| \n
Prints the argument to stderr, and returns the argument. \n
| \n
| \n
Casts to double. \n
| \n
| \n
Exponential (
| \n
| \n
Selects the largest value among the arguments. \n
| \n
| \n
This is an alias for
| \n
| \n
Computes FNV-1a hash. \n
| \n
| \n
Computes MurmurHash2 hash. \n
| \n
| \n
Casts to integer. \n
| \n
| \n
Selects the smallest value among the arguments. \n
| \n
| \n
Natural logarithm \n
| \n
| \n
Modulo (remainder) \n
| \n
| \n
Permuted value of
| \n
| \n
Approximate value of \u03c0 \n
| \n
| \n
| \n
| \n
Computes a uniformly-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes an exponentially-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes a Gaussian-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes a Zipfian-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Square root \n
| \n
The random function generates values using a uniform distribution, that is all the values are drawn within the specified range with equal probability. The random_exponential, random_gaussian and random_zipfian functions require an additional double parameter which determines the precise shape of the distribution.
For an exponential distribution, parameter controls the distribution by truncating a quickly-decreasing exponential distribution at parameter, and then projecting onto integers between the bounds. To be precise, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0exp(-parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0min)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/\u00a0(1\u00a0-\u00a0exp(-parameter))
Then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i) - f(i + 1).
Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to min are accessed, and the less frequently values close to max are accessed. The closer to 0 parameter is, the flatter (more uniform) the access distribution. A crude approximation of the distribution is that the most frequent 1% values in the range, close to min, are drawn parameter% of the time. The parameter value must be strictly positive.
For a Gaussian distribution, the interval is mapped onto a standard normal distribution (the classical bell-shaped Gaussian curve) truncated at -parameter on the left and +parameter on the right. Values in the middle of the interval are more likely to be drawn. To be precise, if PHI(x) is the cumulative distribution function of the standard normal distribution, with mean mu defined as (max + min) / 2.0, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0PHI(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0mu)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/
\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0PHI(parameter)\u00a0-\u00a01)
then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i + 0.5) - f(i - 0.5). Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to the middle of the interval are drawn, and the less frequently values close to the min and max bounds. About 67% of values are drawn from the middle 1.0 / parameter, that is a relative 0.5 / parameter around the mean, and 95% in the middle 2.0 / parameter, that is a relative 1.0 / parameter around the mean; for instance, if parameter is 4.0, 67% of values are drawn from the middle quarter (1.0 / 4.0) of the interval (i.e., from 3.0 / 8.0 to 5.0 / 8.0) and 95% from the middle half (2.0 / 4.0) of the interval (second and third quartiles). The minimum allowed parameter value is 2.0.
random_zipfian generates a bounded Zipfian distribution. parameter defines how skewed the distribution is. The larger the parameter, the more frequently values closer to the beginning of the interval are drawn. The distribution is such that, assuming the range starts from 1, the ratio of the probability of drawing k versus drawing k+1 is ((. For example, k+1)/k)**parameterrandom_zipfian(1, ..., 2.5) produces the value 1 about (2/1)**2.5 = 5.66 times more frequently than 2, which itself is produced (3/2)**2.5 = 2.76 times more frequently than 3, and so on.
pgbench's implementation is based on \"Non-Uniform Random Variate Generation\", Luc Devroye, p. 550-551, Springer 1986. Due to limitations of that algorithm, the parameter value is restricted to the range [1.001, 1000].
When designing a benchmark which selects rows non-uniformly, be aware that the rows chosen may be correlated with other data such as IDs from a sequence or the physical row ordering, which may skew performance measurements.
\nTo avoid this, you may wish to use the permute function, or some other additional step with similar effect, to shuffle the selected rows and remove such correlations.
Hash functions hash, hash_murmur2 and hash_fnv1a accept an input value and an optional seed parameter. In case the seed isn't provided the value of :default_seed is used, which is initialized randomly unless set by the command-line -D option.
permute accepts an input value, a size, and an optional seed parameter. It generates a pseudorandom permutation of integers in the range [0, size), and returns the index of the input value in the permuted values. The permutation chosen is parameterized by the seed, which defaults to :default_seed, if not specified. Unlike the hash functions, permute ensures that there are no collisions or holes in the output values. Input values outside the interval are interpreted modulo the size. The function raises an error if the size is not positive. permute can be used to scatter the distribution of non-uniform random functions such as random_zipfian or random_exponential so that values drawn more often are not trivially correlated. For instance, the following pgbench script simulates a possible real world workload typical for social media and blogging platforms where a few accounts generate excessive load:
\\set size 1000000\n\\set r random_zipfian(1, :size, 1.07)\n\\set k 1 + permute(:r, :size)\n\n
In some cases several distinct distributions are needed which don't correlate with each other and this is when the optional seed parameter comes in handy:
\n\\set k1 1 + permute(:r, :size, :default_seed + 123)\n\\set k2 1 + permute(:r, :size, :default_seed + 321)\n\n
A similar behavior can also be approximated with hash:
\\set size 1000000\n\\set r random_zipfian(1, 100 * :size, 1.07)\n\\set k 1 + abs(hash(:r)) % :size\n\n
However, since hash generates collisions, some values will not be reachable and others will be more frequent than expected from the original distribution.
As an example, the full definition of the built-in TPC-B-like transaction is:
\n\\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n\\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n\\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n\\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\nBEGIN;\nUPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\nSELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\nUPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\nUPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\nINSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\nEND;\n\n
This script allows each iteration of the transaction to reference different, randomly-chosen rows. (This example also shows why it's important for each client session to have its own variables \u2014 otherwise they'd not be independently touching different rows.)
\nWith the -l option (but without the --aggregate-interval option), pgbench writes information about each transaction to a log file. The log file will be named prefix.nnnprefix defaults to pgbench_log, and nnn is the PID of the pgbench process. The prefix can be changed by using the --log-prefix option. If the -j option is 2 or higher, so that there are multiple worker threads, each will have its own log file. The first worker will use the same name for its log file as in the standard single worker case. The additional log files for the other workers will be named prefix.nnn.mmmmmm is a sequential number for each worker starting with 1.
The format of the log is:
\n\nclient_idtransaction_notimescript_notime_epochtime_us[schedule_lag]\n
where client_id indicates which client session ran the transaction, transaction_no counts how many transactions have been run by that session, time is the total elapsed transaction time in microseconds, script_no identifies which script file was used (useful when multiple scripts were specified with -f or -b), and time_epoch/time_us are a Unix-epoch time stamp and an offset in microseconds (suitable for creating an ISO 8601 time stamp with fractional seconds) showing when the transaction completed. The schedule_lag field is the difference between the transaction's scheduled start time, and the time it actually started, in microseconds. It is only present when the --rate option is used. When both --rate and --latency-limit are used, the time for a skipped transaction will be reported as skipped.
Here is a snippet of a log file generated in a single-client run:
\n0 199 2241 0 1175850568 995598\n0 200 2465 0 1175850568 998079\n0 201 2513 0 1175850569 608\n0 202 2038 0 1175850569 2663\n\n
Another example with --rate=100 and --latency-limit=5 (note the additional schedule_lag column):
0 81 4621 0 1412881037 912698 3005\n0 82 6173 0 1412881037 914578 4304\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5217\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5099\n0 83 4722 0 1412881037 916203 3108\n0 84 4142 0 1412881037 918023 2333\n0 85 2465 0 1412881037 919759 740\n\n
In this example, transaction 82 was late, because its latency (6.173 ms) was over the 5 ms limit. The next two transactions were skipped, because they were already late before they were even started.
\nWhen running a long test on hardware that can handle a lot of transactions, the log files can become very large. The --sampling-rate option can be used to log only a random sample of transactions.
With the --aggregate-interval option, a different format is used for the log files:
\ninterval_startnum_transactions\u200bsum_latencysum_latency_2min_latencymax_latency\u200b [sum_lagsum_lag_2min_lagmax_lag[skipped] ]\n
where interval_start is the start of the interval (as a Unix epoch time stamp), num_transactions is the number of transactions within the interval, sum_latency is the sum of the transaction latencies within the interval, sum_latency_2 is the sum of squares of the transaction latencies within the interval, min_latency is the minimum latency within the interval, and max_latency is the maximum latency within the interval. The next fields, sum_lag, sum_lag_2, min_lag, and max_lag, are only present if the --rate option is used. They provide statistics about the time each transaction had to wait for the previous one to finish, i.e., the difference between each transaction's scheduled start time and the time it actually started. The very last field, skipped, is only present if the --latency-limit option is used, too. It counts the number of transactions skipped because they would have started too late. Each transaction is counted in the interval when it was committed.
Here is some example output:
\n1345828501 5601 1542744 483552416 61 2573\n1345828503 7884 1979812 565806736 60 1479\n1345828505 7208 1979422 567277552 59 1391\n1345828507 7685 1980268 569784714 60 1398\n1345828509 7073 1979779 573489941 236 1411\n\n
Notice that while the plain (unaggregated) log file shows which script was used for each transaction, the aggregated log does not. Therefore if you need per-script data, you need to aggregate the data on your own.
\nWith the -r option, pgbench collects the elapsed transaction time of each statement executed by every client. It then reports an average of those values, referred to as the latency for each statement, after the benchmark has finished.
For the default script, the output will look similar to this:
\nstarting vacuum...end.\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 1\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\nlatency average = 10.870 ms\nlatency stddev = 7.341 ms\ninitial connection time = 30.954 ms\ntps = 907.949122 (without initial connection time)\nstatement latencies in milliseconds:\n 0.001 \\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n 0.001 \\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n 0.001 \\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n 0.000 \\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\n 0.046 BEGIN;\n 0.151 UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\n 0.107 SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\n 4.241 UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\n 5.245 UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\n 0.102 INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\n 0.974 END;\n\n
If multiple script files are specified, the averages are reported separately for each script file.
\nNote that collecting the additional timing information needed for per-statement latency computation adds some overhead. This will slow average execution speed and lower the computed TPS. The amount of slowdown varies significantly depending on platform and hardware. Comparing average TPS values with and without latency reporting enabled is a good way to measure if the timing overhead is significant.
\nIt is very easy to use pgbench to produce completely meaningless numbers. Here are some guidelines to help you get useful results.
\nIn the first place, never believe any test that runs for only a few seconds. Use the -t or -T option to make the run last at least a few minutes, so as to average out noise. In some cases you could need hours to get numbers that are reproducible. It's a good idea to try the test run a few times, to find out if your numbers are reproducible or not.
For the default TPC-B-like test scenario, the initialization scale factor (-s) should be at least as large as the largest number of clients you intend to test (-c); else you'll mostly be measuring update contention. There are only -s rows in the pgbench_branches table, and every transaction wants to update one of them, so -c values in excess of -s will undoubtedly result in lots of transactions blocked waiting for other transactions.
The default test scenario is also quite sensitive to how long it's been since the tables were initialized: accumulation of dead rows and dead space in the tables changes the results. To understand the results you must keep track of the total number of updates and when vacuuming happens. If autovacuum is enabled it can result in unpredictable changes in measured performance.
\nA limitation of pgbench is that it can itself become the bottleneck when trying to test a large number of client sessions. This can be alleviated by running pgbench on a different machine from the database server, although low network latency will be essential. It might even be useful to run several pgbench instances concurrently, on several client machines, against the same database server.
\nIf untrusted users have access to a database that has not adopted a secure schema usage pattern, do not run pgbench in that database. pgbench uses unqualified names and does not manipulate the search path.
\npgbench \u2014 run a benchmark test on PostgreSQL
\npgbench -i [option...] [dbname]
pgbench [option...] [dbname]
pgbench is a simple program for running benchmark tests on PostgreSQL. It runs the same sequence of SQL commands over and over, possibly in multiple concurrent database sessions, and then calculates the average transaction rate (transactions per second). By default, pgbench tests a scenario that is loosely based on TPC-B, involving five SELECT, UPDATE, and INSERT commands per transaction. However, it is easy to test other cases by writing your own transaction script files.
Typical output from pgbench looks like:
\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 10\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 0 (0.000%)\nlatency average = 11.013 ms\nlatency stddev = 7.351 ms\ninitial connection time = 45.758 ms\ntps = 896.967014 (without initial connection time)\n\n
The first seven lines report some of the most important parameter settings. The sixth line reports the maximum number of tries for transactions with serialization or deadlock errors (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information). The eighth line reports the number of transactions completed and intended (the latter being just the product of number of clients and number of transactions per client); these will be equal unless the run failed before completion or some SQL command(s) failed. (In -T mode, only the actual number of transactions is printed.) The next line reports the number of failed transactions due to serialization or deadlock errors (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information). The last line reports the number of transactions per second.
The default TPC-B-like transaction test requires specific tables to be set up beforehand. pgbench should be invoked with the -i (initialize) option to create and populate these tables. (When you are testing a custom script, you don't need this step, but will instead need to do whatever setup your test needs.) Initialization looks like:
pgbench -i [\nother-options]dbname\n
where dbname is the name of the already-created database to test in. (You may also need -h, -p, and/or -U options to specify how to connect to the database server.)
pgbench -i creates four tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers, destroying any existing tables of these names. Be very careful to use another database if you have tables having these names!
At the default \u201cscale factor\u201d of 1, the tables initially contain this many rows:
\ntable # of rows\n---------------------------------\npgbench_branches 1\npgbench_tellers 10\npgbench_accounts 100000\npgbench_history 0\n\n
You can (and, for most purposes, probably should) increase the number of rows by using the -s (scale factor) option. The -F (fillfactor) option might also be used at this point.
Once you have done the necessary setup, you can run your benchmark with a command that doesn't include -i, that is
pgbench [\noptions]dbname\n
In nearly all cases, you'll need some options to make a useful test. The most important options are -c (number of clients), -t (number of transactions), -T (time limit), and -f (specify a custom script file). See below for a full list.
The following is divided into three subsections. Different options are used during database initialization and while running benchmarks, but some options are useful in both cases.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line initialization arguments:
\ndbnameSpecifies the name of the database to test in. If this is not specified, the environment variable PGDATABASE is used. If that is not set, the user name specified for the connection is used.
-i--initializeRequired to invoke initialization mode.
\n-I init_steps--init-steps=init_stepsPerform just a selected set of the normal initialization steps. init_steps specifies the initialization steps to be performed, using one character per step. Each step is invoked in the specified order. The default is dtgvp. The available steps are:
d (Drop)Drop any existing pgbench tables.
\nt (create Tables)Create the tables used by the standard pgbench scenario, namely pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
g or G (Generate data, client-side or server-side)Generate data and load it into the standard tables, replacing any data already present.
\nWith g (client-side data generation), data is generated in pgbench client and then sent to the server. This uses the client/server bandwidth extensively through a COPY. pgbench uses the FREEZE option with version 14 or later of PostgreSQL to speed up subsequent VACUUM, unless partitions are enabled. Using g causes logging to print one message every 100,000 rows while generating data for the pgbench_accounts table.
With G (server-side data generation), only small queries are sent from the pgbench client and then data is actually generated in the server. No significant bandwidth is required for this variant, but the server will do more work. Using G causes logging not to print any progress message while generating data.
The default initialization behavior uses client-side data generation (equivalent to g).
v (Vacuum)Invoke VACUUM on the standard tables.
p (create Primary keys)Create primary key indexes on the standard tables.
\nf (create Foreign keys)Create foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (Note that this step is not performed by default.)
\n-F fillfactor--fillfactor=fillfactorCreate the pgbench_accounts, pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables with the given fillfactor. Default is 100.
-n--no-vacuumPerform no vacuuming during initialization. (This option suppresses the v initialization step, even if it was specified in -I.)
-q--quietSwitch logging to quiet mode, producing only one progress message per 5 seconds. The default logging prints one message each 100,000 rows, which often outputs many lines per second (especially on good hardware).
\nThis setting has no effect if G is specified in -I.
-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factorMultiply the number of rows generated by the scale factor. For example, -s 100 will create 10,000,000 rows in the pgbench_accounts table. Default is 1. When the scale is 20,000 or larger, the columns used to hold account identifiers (aid columns) will switch to using larger integers (bigint), in order to be big enough to hold the range of account identifiers.
--foreign-keysCreate foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (This option adds the f step to the initialization step sequence, if it is not already present.)
--index-tablespace=index_tablespaceCreate indexes in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--partition-method=NAMECreate a partitioned pgbench_accounts table with NAME method. Expected values are range or hash. This option requires that --partitions is set to non-zero. If unspecified, default is range.
--partitions=NUMCreate a partitioned pgbench_accounts table with NUM partitions of nearly equal size for the scaled number of accounts. Default is 0, meaning no partitioning.
--tablespace=tablespaceCreate tables in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--unlogged-tablesCreate all tables as unlogged tables, rather than permanent tables.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line benchmarking arguments:
\n-b scriptname[@weight]--builtin=scriptname[@weight]Add the specified built-in script to the list of scripts to be executed. Available built-in scripts are: tpcb-like, simple-update and select-only. Unambiguous prefixes of built-in names are accepted. With the special name list, show the list of built-in scripts and exit immediately.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. See below for details.
-c clients--client=clientsNumber of clients simulated, that is, number of concurrent database sessions. Default is 1.
\n-C--connectEstablish a new connection for each transaction, rather than doing it just once per client session. This is useful to measure the connection overhead.
\n-d--debugPrint debugging output.
\n-D varname=value--define=varname=valueDefine a variable for use by a custom script (see below). Multiple -D options are allowed.
-f filename[@weight]--file=filename[@weight]Add a transaction script read from filename to the list of scripts to be executed.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. (To use a script file name that includes an @ character, append a weight so that there is no ambiguity, for example filen@me@1.) See below for details.
-j threads--jobs=threadsNumber of worker threads within pgbench. Using more than one thread can be helpful on multi-CPU machines. Clients are distributed as evenly as possible among available threads. Default is 1.
\n-l--logWrite information about each transaction to a log file. See below for details.
\n-L limit--latency-limit=limitTransactions that last more than limit milliseconds are counted and reported separately, as late.
When throttling is used (--rate=...), transactions that lag behind schedule by more than limit ms, and thus have no hope of meeting the latency limit, are not sent to the server at all. They are counted and reported separately as skipped.
When the --max-tries option is used, a transaction which fails due to a serialization anomaly or from a deadlock will not be retried if the total time of all its tries is greater than limit ms. To limit only the time of tries and not their number, use --max-tries=0. By default, the option --max-tries is set to 1 and transactions with serialization/deadlock errors are not retried. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information about retrying such transactions.
-M querymode--protocol=querymodeProtocol to use for submitting queries to the server:
\nsimple: use simple query protocol.
extended: use extended query protocol.
prepared: use extended query protocol with prepared statements.
In the prepared mode, pgbench reuses the parse analysis result starting from the second query iteration, so pgbench runs faster than in other modes.
The default is simple query protocol. (See Chapter\u00a055 for more information.)
\n-n--no-vacuumPerform no vacuuming before running the test. This option is necessary if you are running a custom test scenario that does not include the standard tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
-N--skip-some-updatesRun built-in simple-update script. Shorthand for -b simple-update.
-P sec--progress=secShow progress report every sec seconds. The report includes the time since the beginning of the run, the TPS since the last report, and the transaction latency average, standard deviation, and the number of failed transactions since the last report. Under throttling (-R), the latency is computed with respect to the transaction scheduled start time, not the actual transaction beginning time, thus it also includes the average schedule lag time. When --max-tries is used to enable transaction retries after serialization/deadlock errors, the report includes the number of retried transactions and the sum of all retries.
-r--report-per-commandReport the following statistics for each command after the benchmark finishes: the average per-statement latency (execution time from the perspective of the client), the number of failures, and the number of retries after serialization or deadlock errors in this command. The report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
-R rate--rate=rateExecute transactions targeting the specified rate instead of running as fast as possible (the default). The rate is given in transactions per second. If the targeted rate is above the maximum possible rate, the rate limit won't impact the results.
\nThe rate is targeted by starting transactions along a Poisson-distributed schedule time line. The expected start time schedule moves forward based on when the client first started, not when the previous transaction ended. That approach means that when transactions go past their original scheduled end time, it is possible for later ones to catch up again.
\nWhen throttling is active, the transaction latency reported at the end of the run is calculated from the scheduled start times, so it includes the time each transaction had to wait for the previous transaction to finish. The wait time is called the schedule lag time, and its average and maximum are also reported separately. The transaction latency with respect to the actual transaction start time, i.e., the time spent executing the transaction in the database, can be computed by subtracting the schedule lag time from the reported latency.
\nIf --latency-limit is used together with --rate, a transaction can lag behind so much that it is already over the latency limit when the previous transaction ends, because the latency is calculated from the scheduled start time. Such transactions are not sent to the server, but are skipped altogether and counted separately.
A high schedule lag time is an indication that the system cannot process transactions at the specified rate, with the chosen number of clients and threads. When the average transaction execution time is longer than the scheduled interval between each transaction, each successive transaction will fall further behind, and the schedule lag time will keep increasing the longer the test run is. When that happens, you will have to reduce the specified transaction rate.
\n-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factorReport the specified scale factor in pgbench's output. With the built-in tests, this is not necessary; the correct scale factor will be detected by counting the number of rows in the pgbench_branches table. However, when testing only custom benchmarks (-f option), the scale factor will be reported as 1 unless this option is used.
-S--select-onlyRun built-in select-only script. Shorthand for -b select-only.
-t transactions--transactions=transactionsNumber of transactions each client runs. Default is 10.
\n-T seconds--time=secondsRun the test for this many seconds, rather than a fixed number of transactions per client. -t and -T are mutually exclusive.
-v--vacuum-allVacuum all four standard tables before running the test. With neither -n nor -v, pgbench will vacuum the pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables, and will truncate pgbench_history.
--aggregate-interval=secondsLength of aggregation interval (in seconds). May be used only with -l option. With this option, the log contains per-interval summary data, as described below.
--failures-detailedReport failures in per-transaction and aggregation logs, as well as in the main and per-script reports, grouped by the following types:
\nserialization failures;
\ndeadlock failures;
\nSee Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\n--log-prefix=prefixSet the filename prefix for the log files created by --log. The default is pgbench_log.
--max-tries=number_of_triesEnable retries for transactions with serialization/deadlock errors and set the maximum number of these tries. This option can be combined with the --latency-limit option which limits the total time of all transaction tries; moreover, you cannot use an unlimited number of tries (--max-tries=0) without --latency-limit or --time. The default value is 1 and transactions with serialization/deadlock errors are not retried. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information about retrying such transactions.
--progress-timestampWhen showing progress (option -P), use a timestamp (Unix epoch) instead of the number of seconds since the beginning of the run. The unit is in seconds, with millisecond precision after the dot. This helps compare logs generated by various tools.
--random-seed=seedSet random generator seed. Seeds the system random number generator, which then produces a sequence of initial generator states, one for each thread. Values for seed may be: time (the default, the seed is based on the current time), rand (use a strong random source, failing if none is available), or an unsigned decimal integer value. The random generator is invoked explicitly from a pgbench script (random... functions) or implicitly (for instance option --rate uses it to schedule transactions). When explicitly set, the value used for seeding is shown on the terminal. Any value allowed for seed may also be provided through the environment variable PGBENCH_RANDOM_SEED. To ensure that the provided seed impacts all possible uses, put this option first or use the environment variable.
Setting the seed explicitly allows to reproduce a pgbench run exactly, as far as random numbers are concerned. As the random state is managed per thread, this means the exact same pgbench run for an identical invocation if there is one client per thread and there are no external or data dependencies. From a statistical viewpoint reproducing runs exactly is a bad idea because it can hide the performance variability or improve performance unduly, e.g., by hitting the same pages as a previous run. However, it may also be of great help for debugging, for instance re-running a tricky case which leads to an error. Use wisely.
--sampling-rate=rateSampling rate, used when writing data into the log, to reduce the amount of log generated. If this option is given, only the specified fraction of transactions are logged. 1.0 means all transactions will be logged, 0.05 means only 5% of the transactions will be logged.
\nRemember to take the sampling rate into account when processing the log file. For example, when computing TPS values, you need to multiply the numbers accordingly (e.g., with 0.01 sample rate, you'll only get 1/100 of the actual TPS).
\n--show-script=scriptnameShow the actual code of builtin script scriptname on stderr, and exit immediately.
--verbose-errorsPrint messages about all errors and failures (errors without retrying) including which limit for retries was exceeded and how far it was exceeded for the serialization/deadlock failures. (Note that in this case the output can be significantly increased.) See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\npgbench also accepts the following common command-line arguments for connection parameters:
\n-h hostname--host=hostnameThe database server's host name
\n-p port--port=portThe database server's port number
\n-U login--username=loginThe user name to connect as
\n-V--versionPrint the pgbench version and exit.
\n-?--helpShow help about pgbench command line arguments, and exit.
\nA successful run will exit with status 0. Exit status 1 indicates static problems such as invalid command-line options or internal errors which are supposed to never occur. Early errors that occur when starting benchmark such as initial connection failures also exit with status 1. Errors during the run such as database errors or problems in the script will result in exit status 2. In the latter case, pgbench will print partial results.
\nPGDATABASEPGHOSTPGPORTPGUSERDefault connection parameters.
\nThis utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, uses the environment variables supported by libpq (see Section\u00a034.15).
\nThe environment variable PG_COLOR specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. Possible values are always, auto and never.
pgbench executes test scripts chosen randomly from a specified list. The scripts may include built-in scripts specified with -b and user-provided scripts specified with -f. Each script may be given a relative weight specified after an @ so as to change its selection probability. The default weight is 1. Scripts with a weight of 0 are ignored.
The default built-in transaction script (also invoked with -b tpcb-like) issues seven commands per transaction over randomly chosen aid, tid, bid and delta. The scenario is inspired by the TPC-B benchmark, but is not actually TPC-B, hence the name.
BEGIN;
UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;
SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;
UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;
UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;
INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);
END;
If you select the simple-update built-in (also -N), steps 4 and 5 aren't included in the transaction. This will avoid update contention on these tables, but it makes the test case even less like TPC-B.
If you select the select-only built-in (also -S), only the SELECT is issued.
pgbench has support for running custom benchmark scenarios by replacing the default transaction script (described above) with a transaction script read from a file (-f option). In this case a \u201ctransaction\u201d counts as one execution of a script file.
A script file contains one or more SQL commands terminated by semicolons. Empty lines and lines beginning with -- are ignored. Script files can also contain \u201cmeta commands\u201d, which are interpreted by pgbench itself, as described below.
Before PostgreSQL 9.6, SQL commands in script files were terminated by newlines, and so they could not be continued across lines. Now a semicolon is required to separate consecutive SQL commands (though an SQL command does not need one if it is followed by a meta command). If you need to create a script file that works with both old and new versions of pgbench, be sure to write each SQL command on a single line ending with a semicolon.
\nIt is assumed that pgbench scripts do not contain incomplete blocks of SQL transactions. If at runtime the client reaches the end of the script without completing the last transaction block, it will be aborted.
\nThere is a simple variable-substitution facility for script files. Variable names must consist of letters (including non-Latin letters), digits, and underscores, with the first character not being a digit. Variables can be set by the command-line -D option, explained above, or by the meta commands explained below. In addition to any variables preset by -D command-line options, there are a few variables that are preset automatically, listed in Table\u00a0288. A value specified for these variables using -D takes precedence over the automatic presets. Once set, a variable's value can be inserted into an SQL command by writing :variablename. When running more than one client session, each session has its own set of variables. pgbench supports up to 255 variable uses in one statement.
Table\u00a0288.\u00a0pgbench Automatic Variables
\n| Variable | \nDescription | \n
|---|---|
client_id | \nunique number identifying the client session (starts from zero) | \n
default_seed | \nseed used in hash and pseudorandom permutation functions by default | \n
random_seed | \nrandom generator seed (unless overwritten with -D) | \n
scale | \ncurrent scale factor | \n
Script file meta commands begin with a backslash (\\) and normally extend to the end of the line, although they can be continued to additional lines by writing backslash-return. Arguments to a meta command are separated by white space. These meta commands are supported:
\\gset [prefix] \\aset [prefix]These commands may be used to end SQL queries, taking the place of the terminating semicolon (;).
When the \\gset command is used, the preceding SQL query is expected to return one row, the columns of which are stored into variables named after column names, and prefixed with prefix if provided.
When the \\aset command is used, all combined SQL queries (separated by \\;) have their columns stored into variables named after column names, and prefixed with prefix if provided. If a query returns no row, no assignment is made and the variable can be tested for existence to detect this. If a query returns more than one row, the last value is kept.
\\gset and \\aset cannot be used in pipeline mode, since the query results are not yet available by the time the commands would need them.
The following example puts the final account balance from the first query into variable abalance, and fills variables p_two and p_three with integers from the third query. The result of the second query is discarded. The result of the two last combined queries are stored in variables four and five.
UPDATE pgbench_accounts\n SET abalance = abalance + :delta\n WHERE aid = :aid\n RETURNING abalance \\gset\n-- compound of two queries\nSELECT 1 \\;\nSELECT 2 AS two, 3 AS three \\gset p_\nSELECT 4 AS four \\; SELECT 5 AS five \\aset\n\n
\\if expression\\elif expression\\else\\endifThis group of commands implements nestable conditional blocks, similarly to psql's \\if expression. Conditional expressions are identical to those with \\set, with non-zero values interpreted as true.
\\set varname expressionSets variable varname to a value calculated from expression. The expression may contain the NULL constant, Boolean constants TRUE and FALSE, integer constants such as 5432, double constants such as 3.14159, references to variables :variablename, operators with their usual SQL precedence and associativity, function calls, SQL CASE generic conditional expressions and parentheses.
Functions and most operators return NULL on NULL input.
For conditional purposes, non zero numerical values are TRUE, zero numerical values and NULL are FALSE.
Too large or small integer and double constants, as well as integer arithmetic operators (+, -, * and /) raise errors on overflows.
When no final ELSE clause is provided to a CASE, the default value is NULL.
Examples:
\n\\set ntellers 10 * :scale\n\\set aid (1021 * random(1, 100000 * :scale)) % \\\n (100000 * :scale) + 1\n\\set divx CASE WHEN :x <> 0 THEN :y/:x ELSE NULL END\n\n
\\sleep number [ us | ms | s ]Causes script execution to sleep for the specified duration in microseconds (us), milliseconds (ms) or seconds (s). If the unit is omitted then seconds are the default. number can be either an integer constant or a :variablename reference to a variable having an integer value.
Example:
\n\\sleep 10 ms\n\n
\\setshell varname command [ argument ... ]Sets variable varname to the result of the shell command command with the given argument(s). The command must return an integer value through its standard output.
command and each argument can be either a text constant or a :variablename reference to a variable. If you want to use an argument starting with a colon, write an additional colon at the beginning of argument.
Example:
\n\\setshell variable_to_be_assigned command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
\\shell command [ argument ... ]Same as \\setshell, but the result of the command is discarded.
Example:
\n\\shell command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
\\startpipeline\\endpipelineThese commands delimit the start and end of a pipeline of SQL statements. In pipeline mode, statements are sent to the server without waiting for the results of previous statements. See Section\u00a034.5 for more details. Pipeline mode requires the use of extended query protocol.
\nThe arithmetic, bitwise, comparison and logical operators listed in Table\u00a0289 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set. The operators are listed in increasing precedence order. Except as noted, operators taking two numeric inputs will produce a double value if either input is double, otherwise they produce an integer result.
Table\u00a0289.\u00a0pgbench Operators
\n| \n Operator \nDescription \nExample(s) \n | \n
|---|
| \n
Logical OR \n
| \n
| \n
Logical AND \n
| \n
| \n
Logical NOT \n
| \n
| \n
Boolean value tests \n
| \n
| \n
Nullness tests \n
| \n
| \n
Equal \n
| \n
| \n
Not equal \n
| \n
| \n
Not equal \n
| \n
| \n
Less than \n
| \n
| \n
Less than or equal to \n
| \n
| \n
Greater than \n
| \n
| \n
Greater than or equal to \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise OR \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise XOR \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise AND \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise NOT \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise shift left \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise shift right \n
| \n
| \n
Addition \n
| \n
| \n
Subtraction \n
| \n
| \n
Multiplication \n
| \n
| \n
Division (truncates the result towards zero if both inputs are integers) \n
| \n
| \n
Modulo (remainder) \n
| \n
| \n
Negation \n
| \n
The functions listed in Table\u00a0290 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set.
Table\u00a0290.\u00a0pgbench Functions
\n| \n Function \nDescription \nExample(s) \n | \n
|---|
| \n
Absolute value \n
| \n
| \n
Prints the argument to stderr, and returns the argument. \n
| \n
| \n
Casts to double. \n
| \n
| \n
Exponential (
| \n
| \n
Selects the largest value among the arguments. \n
| \n
| \n
This is an alias for
| \n
| \n
Computes FNV-1a hash. \n
| \n
| \n
Computes MurmurHash2 hash. \n
| \n
| \n
Casts to integer. \n
| \n
| \n
Selects the smallest value among the arguments. \n
| \n
| \n
Natural logarithm \n
| \n
| \n
Modulo (remainder) \n
| \n
| \n
Permuted value of
| \n
| \n
Approximate value of \u03c0 \n
| \n
| \n
| \n
| \n
Computes a uniformly-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes an exponentially-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes a Gaussian-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes a Zipfian-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Square root \n
| \n
The random function generates values using a uniform distribution, that is all the values are drawn within the specified range with equal probability. The random_exponential, random_gaussian and random_zipfian functions require an additional double parameter which determines the precise shape of the distribution.
For an exponential distribution, parameter controls the distribution by truncating a quickly-decreasing exponential distribution at parameter, and then projecting onto integers between the bounds. To be precise, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0exp(-parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0min)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/\u00a0(1\u00a0-\u00a0exp(-parameter))
Then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i) - f(i + 1).
Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to min are accessed, and the less frequently values close to max are accessed. The closer to 0 parameter is, the flatter (more uniform) the access distribution. A crude approximation of the distribution is that the most frequent 1% values in the range, close to min, are drawn parameter% of the time. The parameter value must be strictly positive.
For a Gaussian distribution, the interval is mapped onto a standard normal distribution (the classical bell-shaped Gaussian curve) truncated at -parameter on the left and +parameter on the right. Values in the middle of the interval are more likely to be drawn. To be precise, if PHI(x) is the cumulative distribution function of the standard normal distribution, with mean mu defined as (max + min) / 2.0, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0PHI(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0mu)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/
\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0PHI(parameter)\u00a0-\u00a01)
then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i + 0.5) - f(i - 0.5). Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to the middle of the interval are drawn, and the less frequently values close to the min and max bounds. About 67% of values are drawn from the middle 1.0 / parameter, that is a relative 0.5 / parameter around the mean, and 95% in the middle 2.0 / parameter, that is a relative 1.0 / parameter around the mean; for instance, if parameter is 4.0, 67% of values are drawn from the middle quarter (1.0 / 4.0) of the interval (i.e., from 3.0 / 8.0 to 5.0 / 8.0) and 95% from the middle half (2.0 / 4.0) of the interval (second and third quartiles). The minimum allowed parameter value is 2.0.
random_zipfian generates a bounded Zipfian distribution. parameter defines how skewed the distribution is. The larger the parameter, the more frequently values closer to the beginning of the interval are drawn. The distribution is such that, assuming the range starts from 1, the ratio of the probability of drawing k versus drawing k+1 is ((. For example, k+1)/k)**parameterrandom_zipfian(1, ..., 2.5) produces the value 1 about (2/1)**2.5 = 5.66 times more frequently than 2, which itself is produced (3/2)**2.5 = 2.76 times more frequently than 3, and so on.
pgbench's implementation is based on \"Non-Uniform Random Variate Generation\", Luc Devroye, p. 550-551, Springer 1986. Due to limitations of that algorithm, the parameter value is restricted to the range [1.001, 1000].
When designing a benchmark which selects rows non-uniformly, be aware that the rows chosen may be correlated with other data such as IDs from a sequence or the physical row ordering, which may skew performance measurements.
\nTo avoid this, you may wish to use the permute function, or some other additional step with similar effect, to shuffle the selected rows and remove such correlations.
Hash functions hash, hash_murmur2 and hash_fnv1a accept an input value and an optional seed parameter. In case the seed isn't provided the value of :default_seed is used, which is initialized randomly unless set by the command-line -D option.
permute accepts an input value, a size, and an optional seed parameter. It generates a pseudorandom permutation of integers in the range [0, size), and returns the index of the input value in the permuted values. The permutation chosen is parameterized by the seed, which defaults to :default_seed, if not specified. Unlike the hash functions, permute ensures that there are no collisions or holes in the output values. Input values outside the interval are interpreted modulo the size. The function raises an error if the size is not positive. permute can be used to scatter the distribution of non-uniform random functions such as random_zipfian or random_exponential so that values drawn more often are not trivially correlated. For instance, the following pgbench script simulates a possible real world workload typical for social media and blogging platforms where a few accounts generate excessive load:
\\set size 1000000\n\\set r random_zipfian(1, :size, 1.07)\n\\set k 1 + permute(:r, :size)\n\n
In some cases several distinct distributions are needed which don't correlate with each other and this is when the optional seed parameter comes in handy:
\n\\set k1 1 + permute(:r, :size, :default_seed + 123)\n\\set k2 1 + permute(:r, :size, :default_seed + 321)\n\n
A similar behavior can also be approximated with hash:
\\set size 1000000\n\\set r random_zipfian(1, 100 * :size, 1.07)\n\\set k 1 + abs(hash(:r)) % :size\n\n
However, since hash generates collisions, some values will not be reachable and others will be more frequent than expected from the original distribution.
As an example, the full definition of the built-in TPC-B-like transaction is:
\n\\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n\\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n\\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n\\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\nBEGIN;\nUPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\nSELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\nUPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\nUPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\nINSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\nEND;\n\n
This script allows each iteration of the transaction to reference different, randomly-chosen rows. (This example also shows why it's important for each client session to have its own variables \u2014 otherwise they'd not be independently touching different rows.)
\nWith the -l option (but without the --aggregate-interval option), pgbench writes information about each transaction to a log file. The log file will be named prefix.nnnprefix defaults to pgbench_log, and nnn is the PID of the pgbench process. The prefix can be changed by using the --log-prefix option. If the -j option is 2 or higher, so that there are multiple worker threads, each will have its own log file. The first worker will use the same name for its log file as in the standard single worker case. The additional log files for the other workers will be named prefix.nnn.mmmmmm is a sequential number for each worker starting with 1.
Each line in a log file describes one transaction. It contains the following space-separated fields:
\nclient_ididentifies the client session that ran the transaction
\ntransaction_nocounts how many transactions have been run by that session
\ntimetransaction's elapsed time, in microseconds
\nscript_noidentifies the script file that was used for the transaction (useful when multiple scripts are specified with -f or -b)
time_epochtransaction's completion time, as a Unix-epoch time stamp
\ntime_usfractional-second part of transaction's completion time, in microseconds
\nschedule_lagtransaction start delay, that is the difference between the transaction's scheduled start time and the time it actually started, in microseconds (present only if --rate is specified)
retriescount of retries after serialization or deadlock errors during the transaction (present only if --max-tries is not equal to one)
When both --rate and --latency-limit are used, the time for a skipped transaction will be reported as skipped. If the transaction ends with a failure, its time will be reported as failed. If you use the --failures-detailed option, the time of the failed transaction will be reported as serialization or deadlock depending on the type of failure (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information).
Here is a snippet of a log file generated in a single-client run:
\n0 199 2241 0 1175850568 995598\n0 200 2465 0 1175850568 998079\n0 201 2513 0 1175850569 608\n0 202 2038 0 1175850569 2663\n\n
Another example with --rate=100 and --latency-limit=5 (note the additional schedule_lag column):
0 81 4621 0 1412881037 912698 3005\n0 82 6173 0 1412881037 914578 4304\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5217\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5099\n0 83 4722 0 1412881037 916203 3108\n0 84 4142 0 1412881037 918023 2333\n0 85 2465 0 1412881037 919759 740\n\n
In this example, transaction 82 was late, because its latency (6.173 ms) was over the 5 ms limit. The next two transactions were skipped, because they were already late before they were even started.
\nThe following example shows a snippet of a log file with failures and retries, with the maximum number of tries set to 10 (note the additional retries column):
3 0 47423 0 1499414498 34501 3\n3 1 8333 0 1499414498 42848 0\n3 2 8358 0 1499414498 51219 0\n4 0 72345 0 1499414498 59433 6\n1 3 41718 0 1499414498 67879 4\n1 4 8416 0 1499414498 76311 0\n3 3 33235 0 1499414498 84469 3\n0 0 failed 0 1499414498 84905 9\n2 0 failed 0 1499414498 86248 9\n3 4 8307 0 1499414498 92788 0\n\n
If the --failures-detailed option is used, the type of failure is reported in the time like this:
3 0 47423 0 1499414498 34501 3\n3 1 8333 0 1499414498 42848 0\n3 2 8358 0 1499414498 51219 0\n4 0 72345 0 1499414498 59433 6\n1 3 41718 0 1499414498 67879 4\n1 4 8416 0 1499414498 76311 0\n3 3 33235 0 1499414498 84469 3\n0 0 serialization 0 1499414498 84905 9\n2 0 serialization 0 1499414498 86248 9\n3 4 8307 0 1499414498 92788 0\n\n
When running a long test on hardware that can handle a lot of transactions, the log files can become very large. The --sampling-rate option can be used to log only a random sample of transactions.
With the --aggregate-interval option, a different format is used for the log files. Each log line describes one aggregation interval. It contains the following space-separated fields:
interval_startstart time of the interval, as a Unix-epoch time stamp
\nnum_transactionsnumber of transactions within the interval
\nsum_latencysum of transaction latencies
\nsum_latency_2sum of squares of transaction latencies
\nmin_latencyminimum transaction latency
\nmax_latencymaximum transaction latency
\nsum_lagsum of transaction start delays (zero unless --rate is specified)
sum_lag_2sum of squares of transaction start delays (zero unless --rate is specified)
min_lagminimum transaction start delay (zero unless --rate is specified)
max_lagmaximum transaction start delay (zero unless --rate is specified)
skippednumber of transactions skipped because they would have started too late (zero unless --rate and --latency-limit are specified)
retriednumber of retried transactions (zero unless --max-tries is not equal to one)
retriesnumber of retries after serialization or deadlock errors (zero unless --max-tries is not equal to one)
serialization_failuresnumber of transactions that got a serialization error and were not retried afterwards (zero unless --failures-detailed is specified)
deadlock_failuresnumber of transactions that got a deadlock error and were not retried afterwards (zero unless --failures-detailed is specified)
Here is some example output generated with these options:
\npgbench --aggregate-interval=10 --time=20 --client=10 --log --rate=1000 --latency-limit=10 --failures-detailed --max-tries=10 test\n\n1650260552 5178 26171317 177284491527 1136 44462 2647617 7321113867 0 9866 64 7564 28340 4148 0\n1650260562 4808 25573984 220121792172 1171 62083 3037380 9666800914 0 9998 598 7392 26621 4527 0\nNotice that while the plain (unaggregated) log format shows which script was used for each transaction, the aggregated format does not. Therefore if you need per-script data, you need to aggregate the data on your own.
\nWith the -r option, pgbench collects the following statistics for each statement:
latency \u2014 elapsed transaction time for each statement. pgbench reports an average value of all successful runs of the statement.
The number of failures in this statement. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\nThe number of retries after a serialization or a deadlock error in this statement. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\nThe report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
All values are computed for each statement executed by every client and are reported after the benchmark has finished.
\nFor the default script, the output will look similar to this:
\nstarting vacuum...end.\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 1\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 0 (0.000%)\nnumber of transactions above the 50.0 ms latency limit: 1311/10000 (13.110 %)\nlatency average = 28.488 ms\nlatency stddev = 21.009 ms\ninitial connection time = 69.068 ms\ntps = 346.224794 (without initial connection time)\nstatement latencies in milliseconds and failures:\n 0.012 0 \\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\n 0.319 0 BEGIN;\n 0.834 0 UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\n 0.641 0 SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\n 11.126 0 UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\n 12.961 0 UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\n 0.634 0 INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\n 1.957 0 END;\n\n
Another example of output for the default script using serializable default transaction isolation level (PGOPTIONS='-c default_transaction_isolation=serializable' pgbench ...):
starting vacuum...end.\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 1\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 10\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 6317/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 3683 (36.830%)\nnumber of transactions retried: 7667 (76.670%)\ntotal number of retries: 45339\nnumber of transactions above the 50.0 ms latency limit: 106/6317 (1.678 %)\nlatency average = 17.016 ms\nlatency stddev = 13.283 ms\ninitial connection time = 45.017 ms\ntps = 186.792667 (without initial connection time)\nstatement latencies in milliseconds, failures and retries:\n 0.006 0 0 \\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\n 0.385 0 0 BEGIN;\n 0.773 0 1 UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\n 0.624 0 0 SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\n 1.098 320 3762 UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\n 0.582 3363 41576 UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\n 0.465 0 0 INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\n 1.933 0 0 END;\n\n
If multiple script files are specified, all statistics are reported separately for each script file.
\nNote that collecting the additional timing information needed for per-statement latency computation adds some overhead. This will slow average execution speed and lower the computed TPS. The amount of slowdown varies significantly depending on platform and hardware. Comparing average TPS values with and without latency reporting enabled is a good way to measure if the timing overhead is significant.
\nWhen executing pgbench, there are three main types of errors:
\nErrors of the main program. They are the most serious and always result in an immediate exit from pgbench with the corresponding error message. They include:
\nerrors at the beginning of pgbench (e.g. an invalid option value);
\nerrors in the initialization mode (e.g. the query to create tables for built-in scripts fails);
\nerrors before starting threads (e.g. could not connect to the database server, syntax error in the meta command, thread creation failure);
\ninternal pgbench errors (which are supposed to never occur...).
\nErrors when the thread manages its clients (e.g. the client could not start a connection to the database server / the socket for connecting the client to the database server has become invalid). In such cases all clients of this thread stop while other threads continue to work.
\nDirect client errors. They lead to immediate exit from pgbench with the corresponding error message only in the case of an internal pgbench error (which are supposed to never occur...). Otherwise in the worst case they only lead to the abortion of the failed client while other clients continue their run (but some client errors are handled without an abortion of the client and reported separately, see below). Later in this section it is assumed that the discussed errors are only the direct client errors and they are not internal pgbench errors.
\nA client's run is aborted in case of a serious error; for example, the connection with the database server was lost or the end of script was reached without completing the last transaction. In addition, if execution of an SQL or meta command fails for reasons other than serialization or deadlock errors, the client is aborted. Otherwise, if an SQL command fails with serialization or deadlock errors, the client is not aborted. In such cases, the current transaction is rolled back, which also includes setting the client variables as they were before the run of this transaction (it is assumed that one transaction script contains only one transaction; see What Is the \"Transaction\" Actually Performed in pgbench? for more information). Transactions with serialization or deadlock errors are repeated after rollbacks until they complete successfully or reach the maximum number of tries (specified by the --max-tries option) / the maximum time of retries (specified by the --latency-limit option) / the end of benchmark (specified by the --time option). If the last trial run fails, this transaction will be reported as failed but the client is not aborted and continues to work.
Without specifying the --max-tries option, a transaction will never be retried after a serialization or deadlock error because its default value is 1. Use an unlimited number of tries (--max-tries=0) and the --latency-limit option to limit only the maximum time of tries. You can also use the --time option to limit the benchmark duration under an unlimited number of tries.
Be careful when repeating scripts that contain multiple transactions: the script is always retried completely, so successful transactions can be performed several times.
\nBe careful when repeating transactions with shell commands. Unlike the results of SQL commands, the results of shell commands are not rolled back, except for the variable value of the \\setshell command.
The latency of a successful transaction includes the entire time of transaction execution with rollbacks and retries. The latency is measured only for successful transactions and commands but not for failed transactions or commands.
\nThe main report contains the number of failed transactions. If the --max-tries option is not equal to 1, the main report also contains statistics related to retries: the total number of retried transactions and total number of retries. The per-script report inherits all these fields from the main report. The per-statement report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
If you want to group failures by basic types in per-transaction and aggregation logs, as well as in the main and per-script reports, use the --failures-detailed option. If you also want to distinguish all errors and failures (errors without retrying) by type including which limit for retries was exceeded and how much it was exceeded by for the serialization/deadlock failures, use the --verbose-errors option.
It is very easy to use pgbench to produce completely meaningless numbers. Here are some guidelines to help you get useful results.
\nIn the first place, never believe any test that runs for only a few seconds. Use the -t or -T option to make the run last at least a few minutes, so as to average out noise. In some cases you could need hours to get numbers that are reproducible. It's a good idea to try the test run a few times, to find out if your numbers are reproducible or not.
For the default TPC-B-like test scenario, the initialization scale factor (-s) should be at least as large as the largest number of clients you intend to test (-c); else you'll mostly be measuring update contention. There are only -s rows in the pgbench_branches table, and every transaction wants to update one of them, so -c values in excess of -s will undoubtedly result in lots of transactions blocked waiting for other transactions.
The default test scenario is also quite sensitive to how long it's been since the tables were initialized: accumulation of dead rows and dead space in the tables changes the results. To understand the results you must keep track of the total number of updates and when vacuuming happens. If autovacuum is enabled it can result in unpredictable changes in measured performance.
\nA limitation of pgbench is that it can itself become the bottleneck when trying to test a large number of client sessions. This can be alleviated by running pgbench on a different machine from the database server, although low network latency will be essential. It might even be useful to run several pgbench instances concurrently, on several client machines, against the same database server.
\nIf untrusted users have access to a database that has not adopted a secure schema usage pattern, do not run pgbench in that database. pgbench uses unqualified names and does not manipulate the search path.
\npgbench \u2014 run a benchmark test on PostgreSQL
\npgbench -i [option...] [dbname]
pgbench [option...] [dbname]
pgbench is a simple program for running benchmark tests on PostgreSQL. It runs the same sequence of SQL commands over and over, possibly in multiple concurrent database sessions, and then calculates the average transaction rate (transactions per second). By default, pgbench tests a scenario that is loosely based on TPC-B, involving five SELECT, UPDATE, and INSERT commands per transaction. However, it is easy to test other cases by writing your own transaction script files.
Typical output from pgbench looks like:
\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 10\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 0 (0.000%)\nlatency average = 11.013 ms\nlatency stddev = 7.351 ms\ninitial connection time = 45.758 ms\ntps = 896.967014 (without initial connection time)\n\n
The first seven lines report some of the most important parameter settings. The sixth line reports the maximum number of tries for transactions with serialization or deadlock errors (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information). The eighth line reports the number of transactions completed and intended (the latter being just the product of number of clients and number of transactions per client); these will be equal unless the run failed before completion or some SQL command(s) failed. (In -T mode, only the actual number of transactions is printed.) The next line reports the number of failed transactions due to serialization or deadlock errors (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information). The last line reports the number of transactions per second.
The default TPC-B-like transaction test requires specific tables to be set up beforehand. pgbench should be invoked with the -i (initialize) option to create and populate these tables. (When you are testing a custom script, you don't need this step, but will instead need to do whatever setup your test needs.) Initialization looks like:
pgbench -i [\nother-options]dbname\n
where dbname is the name of the already-created database to test in. (You may also need -h, -p, and/or -U options to specify how to connect to the database server.)
pgbench -i creates four tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers, destroying any existing tables of these names. Be very careful to use another database if you have tables having these names!
At the default \u201cscale factor\u201d of 1, the tables initially contain this many rows:
\ntable # of rows\n---------------------------------\npgbench_branches 1\npgbench_tellers 10\npgbench_accounts 100000\npgbench_history 0\n\n
You can (and, for most purposes, probably should) increase the number of rows by using the -s (scale factor) option. The -F (fillfactor) option might also be used at this point.
Once you have done the necessary setup, you can run your benchmark with a command that doesn't include -i, that is
pgbench [\noptions]dbname\n
In nearly all cases, you'll need some options to make a useful test. The most important options are -c (number of clients), -t (number of transactions), -T (time limit), and -f (specify a custom script file). See below for a full list.
The following is divided into three subsections. Different options are used during database initialization and while running benchmarks, but some options are useful in both cases.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line initialization arguments:
\ndbname Specifies the name of the database to test in. If this is not specified, the environment variable PGDATABASE is used. If that is not set, the user name specified for the connection is used.
-i--initialize Required to invoke initialization mode.
\n-I init_steps--init-steps=init_steps Perform just a selected set of the normal initialization steps. init_steps specifies the initialization steps to be performed, using one character per step. Each step is invoked in the specified order. The default is dtgvp. The available steps are:
d (Drop) Drop any existing pgbench tables.
\nt (create Tables) Create the tables used by the standard pgbench scenario, namely pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
g or G (Generate data, client-side or server-side) Generate data and load it into the standard tables, replacing any data already present.
\nWith g (client-side data generation), data is generated in pgbench client and then sent to the server. This uses the client/server bandwidth extensively through a COPY. pgbench uses the FREEZE option with version 14 or later of PostgreSQL to speed up subsequent VACUUM, unless partitions are enabled. Using g causes logging to print one message every 100,000 rows while generating data for the pgbench_accounts table.
With G (server-side data generation), only small queries are sent from the pgbench client and then data is actually generated in the server. No significant bandwidth is required for this variant, but the server will do more work. Using G causes logging not to print any progress message while generating data.
The default initialization behavior uses client-side data generation (equivalent to g).
v (Vacuum) Invoke VACUUM on the standard tables.
p (create Primary keys) Create primary key indexes on the standard tables.
\nf (create Foreign keys) Create foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (Note that this step is not performed by default.)
\n-F fillfactor--fillfactor=fillfactor Create the pgbench_accounts, pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables with the given fillfactor. Default is 100.
-n--no-vacuum Perform no vacuuming during initialization. (This option suppresses the v initialization step, even if it was specified in -I.)
-q--quiet Switch logging to quiet mode, producing only one progress message per 5 seconds. The default logging prints one message each 100,000 rows, which often outputs many lines per second (especially on good hardware).
\nThis setting has no effect if G is specified in -I.
-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factor Multiply the number of rows generated by the scale factor. For example, -s 100 will create 10,000,000 rows in the pgbench_accounts table. Default is 1. When the scale is 20,000 or larger, the columns used to hold account identifiers (aid columns) will switch to using larger integers (bigint), in order to be big enough to hold the range of account identifiers.
--foreign-keys Create foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (This option adds the f step to the initialization step sequence, if it is not already present.)
--index-tablespace=index_tablespace Create indexes in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--partition-method=NAME Create a partitioned pgbench_accounts table with NAME method. Expected values are range or hash. This option requires that --partitions is set to non-zero. If unspecified, default is range.
--partitions=NUM Create a partitioned pgbench_accounts table with NUM partitions of nearly equal size for the scaled number of accounts. Default is 0, meaning no partitioning.
--tablespace=tablespace Create tables in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--unlogged-tables Create all tables as unlogged tables, rather than permanent tables.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line benchmarking arguments:
\n-b scriptname[@weight]--builtin=scriptname[@weight] Add the specified built-in script to the list of scripts to be executed. Available built-in scripts are: tpcb-like, simple-update and select-only. Unambiguous prefixes of built-in names are accepted. With the special name list, show the list of built-in scripts and exit immediately.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. See below for details.
-c clients--client=clients Number of clients simulated, that is, number of concurrent database sessions. Default is 1.
\n-C--connect Establish a new connection for each transaction, rather than doing it just once per client session. This is useful to measure the connection overhead.
\n-d--debug Print debugging output.
\n-D varname=value--define=varname=value Define a variable for use by a custom script (see below). Multiple -D options are allowed.
-f filename[@weight]--file=filename[@weight] Add a transaction script read from filename to the list of scripts to be executed.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. (To use a script file name that includes an @ character, append a weight so that there is no ambiguity, for example filen@me@1.) See below for details.
-j threads--jobs=threads Number of worker threads within pgbench. Using more than one thread can be helpful on multi-CPU machines. Clients are distributed as evenly as possible among available threads. Default is 1.
\n-l--log Write information about each transaction to a log file. See below for details.
\n-L limit--latency-limit=limit Transactions that last more than limit milliseconds are counted and reported separately, as late.
When throttling is used (--rate=...), transactions that lag behind schedule by more than limit ms, and thus have no hope of meeting the latency limit, are not sent to the server at all. They are counted and reported separately as skipped.
When the --max-tries option is used, a transaction which fails due to a serialization anomaly or from a deadlock will not be retried if the total time of all its tries is greater than limit ms. To limit only the time of tries and not their number, use --max-tries=0. By default, the option --max-tries is set to 1 and transactions with serialization/deadlock errors are not retried. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information about retrying such transactions.
-M querymode--protocol=querymode Protocol to use for submitting queries to the server:
\nsimple: use simple query protocol.
extended: use extended query protocol.
prepared: use extended query protocol with prepared statements.
In the prepared mode, pgbench reuses the parse analysis result starting from the second query iteration, so pgbench runs faster than in other modes.
The default is simple query protocol. (See Chapter\u00a055 for more information.)
\n-n--no-vacuum Perform no vacuuming before running the test. This option is necessary if you are running a custom test scenario that does not include the standard tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
-N--skip-some-updates Run built-in simple-update script. Shorthand for -b simple-update.
-P sec--progress=sec Show progress report every sec seconds. The report includes the time since the beginning of the run, the TPS since the last report, and the transaction latency average, standard deviation, and the number of failed transactions since the last report. Under throttling (-R), the latency is computed with respect to the transaction scheduled start time, not the actual transaction beginning time, thus it also includes the average schedule lag time. When --max-tries is used to enable transaction retries after serialization/deadlock errors, the report includes the number of retried transactions and the sum of all retries.
-r--report-per-command Report the following statistics for each command after the benchmark finishes: the average per-statement latency (execution time from the perspective of the client), the number of failures, and the number of retries after serialization or deadlock errors in this command. The report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
-R rate--rate=rate Execute transactions targeting the specified rate instead of running as fast as possible (the default). The rate is given in transactions per second. If the targeted rate is above the maximum possible rate, the rate limit won't impact the results.
\nThe rate is targeted by starting transactions along a Poisson-distributed schedule time line. The expected start time schedule moves forward based on when the client first started, not when the previous transaction ended. That approach means that when transactions go past their original scheduled end time, it is possible for later ones to catch up again.
\nWhen throttling is active, the transaction latency reported at the end of the run is calculated from the scheduled start times, so it includes the time each transaction had to wait for the previous transaction to finish. The wait time is called the schedule lag time, and its average and maximum are also reported separately. The transaction latency with respect to the actual transaction start time, i.e., the time spent executing the transaction in the database, can be computed by subtracting the schedule lag time from the reported latency.
\nIf --latency-limit is used together with --rate, a transaction can lag behind so much that it is already over the latency limit when the previous transaction ends, because the latency is calculated from the scheduled start time. Such transactions are not sent to the server, but are skipped altogether and counted separately.
A high schedule lag time is an indication that the system cannot process transactions at the specified rate, with the chosen number of clients and threads. When the average transaction execution time is longer than the scheduled interval between each transaction, each successive transaction will fall further behind, and the schedule lag time will keep increasing the longer the test run is. When that happens, you will have to reduce the specified transaction rate.
\n-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factor Report the specified scale factor in pgbench's output. With the built-in tests, this is not necessary; the correct scale factor will be detected by counting the number of rows in the pgbench_branches table. However, when testing only custom benchmarks (-f option), the scale factor will be reported as 1 unless this option is used.
-S--select-only Run built-in select-only script. Shorthand for -b select-only.
-t transactions--transactions=transactions Number of transactions each client runs. Default is 10.
\n-T seconds--time=seconds Run the test for this many seconds, rather than a fixed number of transactions per client. -t and -T are mutually exclusive.
-v--vacuum-all Vacuum all four standard tables before running the test. With neither -n nor -v, pgbench will vacuum the pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables, and will truncate pgbench_history.
--aggregate-interval=seconds Length of aggregation interval (in seconds). May be used only with -l option. With this option, the log contains per-interval summary data, as described below.
--failures-detailed Report failures in per-transaction and aggregation logs, as well as in the main and per-script reports, grouped by the following types:
\nserialization failures;
\ndeadlock failures;
\nSee Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\n--log-prefix=prefix Set the filename prefix for the log files created by --log. The default is pgbench_log.
--max-tries=number_of_tries Enable retries for transactions with serialization/deadlock errors and set the maximum number of these tries. This option can be combined with the --latency-limit option which limits the total time of all transaction tries; moreover, you cannot use an unlimited number of tries (--max-tries=0) without --latency-limit or --time. The default value is 1 and transactions with serialization/deadlock errors are not retried. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information about retrying such transactions.
--progress-timestamp When showing progress (option -P), use a timestamp (Unix epoch) instead of the number of seconds since the beginning of the run. The unit is in seconds, with millisecond precision after the dot. This helps compare logs generated by various tools.
--random-seed=seed Set random generator seed. Seeds the system random number generator, which then produces a sequence of initial generator states, one for each thread. Values for seed may be: time (the default, the seed is based on the current time), rand (use a strong random source, failing if none is available), or an unsigned decimal integer value. The random generator is invoked explicitly from a pgbench script (random... functions) or implicitly (for instance option --rate uses it to schedule transactions). When explicitly set, the value used for seeding is shown on the terminal. Any value allowed for seed may also be provided through the environment variable PGBENCH_RANDOM_SEED. To ensure that the provided seed impacts all possible uses, put this option first or use the environment variable.
Setting the seed explicitly allows to reproduce a pgbench run exactly, as far as random numbers are concerned. As the random state is managed per thread, this means the exact same pgbench run for an identical invocation if there is one client per thread and there are no external or data dependencies. From a statistical viewpoint reproducing runs exactly is a bad idea because it can hide the performance variability or improve performance unduly, e.g., by hitting the same pages as a previous run. However, it may also be of great help for debugging, for instance re-running a tricky case which leads to an error. Use wisely.
--sampling-rate=rate Sampling rate, used when writing data into the log, to reduce the amount of log generated. If this option is given, only the specified fraction of transactions are logged. 1.0 means all transactions will be logged, 0.05 means only 5% of the transactions will be logged.
\nRemember to take the sampling rate into account when processing the log file. For example, when computing TPS values, you need to multiply the numbers accordingly (e.g., with 0.01 sample rate, you'll only get 1/100 of the actual TPS).
\n--show-script=scriptname Show the actual code of builtin script scriptname on stderr, and exit immediately.
--verbose-errors Print messages about all errors and failures (errors without retrying) including which limit for retries was exceeded and how far it was exceeded for the serialization/deadlock failures. (Note that in this case the output can be significantly increased.) See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\npgbench also accepts the following common command-line arguments for connection parameters:
\n-h hostname--host=hostname The database server's host name
\n-p port--port=port The database server's port number
\n-U login--username=login The user name to connect as
\n-V--version Print the pgbench version and exit.
\n-?--help Show help about pgbench command line arguments, and exit.
\nA successful run will exit with status 0. Exit status 1 indicates static problems such as invalid command-line options or internal errors which are supposed to never occur. Early errors that occur when starting benchmark such as initial connection failures also exit with status 1. Errors during the run such as database errors or problems in the script will result in exit status 2. In the latter case, pgbench will print partial results.
\nPGDATABASEPGHOSTPGPORTPGUSER Default connection parameters.
\nThis utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, uses the environment variables supported by libpq (see Section\u00a034.15).
\nThe environment variable PG_COLOR specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. Possible values are always, auto and never.
pgbench executes test scripts chosen randomly from a specified list. The scripts may include built-in scripts specified with -b and user-provided scripts specified with -f. Each script may be given a relative weight specified after an @ so as to change its selection probability. The default weight is 1. Scripts with a weight of 0 are ignored.
The default built-in transaction script (also invoked with -b tpcb-like) issues seven commands per transaction over randomly chosen aid, tid, bid and delta. The scenario is inspired by the TPC-B benchmark, but is not actually TPC-B, hence the name.
BEGIN;
UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;
SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;
UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;
UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;
INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);
END;
If you select the simple-update built-in (also -N), steps 4 and 5 aren't included in the transaction. This will avoid update contention on these tables, but it makes the test case even less like TPC-B.
If you select the select-only built-in (also -S), only the SELECT is issued.
pgbench has support for running custom benchmark scenarios by replacing the default transaction script (described above) with a transaction script read from a file (-f option). In this case a \u201ctransaction\u201d counts as one execution of a script file.
A script file contains one or more SQL commands terminated by semicolons. Empty lines and lines beginning with -- are ignored. Script files can also contain \u201cmeta commands\u201d, which are interpreted by pgbench itself, as described below.
Before PostgreSQL 9.6, SQL commands in script files were terminated by newlines, and so they could not be continued across lines. Now a semicolon is required to separate consecutive SQL commands (though an SQL command does not need one if it is followed by a meta command). If you need to create a script file that works with both old and new versions of pgbench, be sure to write each SQL command on a single line ending with a semicolon.
\nIt is assumed that pgbench scripts do not contain incomplete blocks of SQL transactions. If at runtime the client reaches the end of the script without completing the last transaction block, it will be aborted.
\nThere is a simple variable-substitution facility for script files. Variable names must consist of letters (including non-Latin letters), digits, and underscores, with the first character not being a digit. Variables can be set by the command-line -D option, explained above, or by the meta commands explained below. In addition to any variables preset by -D command-line options, there are a few variables that are preset automatically, listed in Table\u00a0293. A value specified for these variables using -D takes precedence over the automatic presets. Once set, a variable's value can be inserted into an SQL command by writing :variablename. When running more than one client session, each session has its own set of variables. pgbench supports up to 255 variable uses in one statement.
Table\u00a0293.\u00a0pgbench Automatic Variables
\n| Variable | \nDescription | \n
|---|---|
client_id | \nunique number identifying the client session (starts from zero) | \n
default_seed | \nseed used in hash and pseudorandom permutation functions by default | \n
random_seed | \nrandom generator seed (unless overwritten with -D) | \n
scale | \ncurrent scale factor | \n
Script file meta commands begin with a backslash (\\) and normally extend to the end of the line, although they can be continued to additional lines by writing backslash-return. Arguments to a meta command are separated by white space. These meta commands are supported:
\\gset [prefix] \\aset [prefix] These commands may be used to end SQL queries, taking the place of the terminating semicolon (;).
When the \\gset command is used, the preceding SQL query is expected to return one row, the columns of which are stored into variables named after column names, and prefixed with prefix if provided.
When the \\aset command is used, all combined SQL queries (separated by \\;) have their columns stored into variables named after column names, and prefixed with prefix if provided. If a query returns no row, no assignment is made and the variable can be tested for existence to detect this. If a query returns more than one row, the last value is kept.
\\gset and \\aset cannot be used in pipeline mode, since the query results are not yet available by the time the commands would need them.
The following example puts the final account balance from the first query into variable abalance, and fills variables p_two and p_three with integers from the third query. The result of the second query is discarded. The result of the two last combined queries are stored in variables four and five.
UPDATE pgbench_accounts\n SET abalance = abalance + :delta\n WHERE aid = :aid\n RETURNING abalance \\gset\n-- compound of two queries\nSELECT 1 \\;\nSELECT 2 AS two, 3 AS three \\gset p_\nSELECT 4 AS four \\; SELECT 5 AS five \\aset\n\n
\\if expression\\elif expression\\else\\endif This group of commands implements nestable conditional blocks, similarly to psql's \\if expression. Conditional expressions are identical to those with \\set, with non-zero values interpreted as true.
\\set varname expression Sets variable varname to a value calculated from expression. The expression may contain the NULL constant, Boolean constants TRUE and FALSE, integer constants such as 5432, double constants such as 3.14159, references to variables :variablename, operators with their usual SQL precedence and associativity, function calls, SQL CASE generic conditional expressions and parentheses.
Functions and most operators return NULL on NULL input.
For conditional purposes, non zero numerical values are TRUE, zero numerical values and NULL are FALSE.
Too large or small integer and double constants, as well as integer arithmetic operators (+, -, * and /) raise errors on overflows.
When no final ELSE clause is provided to a CASE, the default value is NULL.
Examples:
\n\\set ntellers 10 * :scale\n\\set aid (1021 * random(1, 100000 * :scale)) % \\\n (100000 * :scale) + 1\n\\set divx CASE WHEN :x <> 0 THEN :y/:x ELSE NULL END\n\n
\\sleep number [ us | ms | s ] Causes script execution to sleep for the specified duration in microseconds (us), milliseconds (ms) or seconds (s). If the unit is omitted then seconds are the default. number can be either an integer constant or a :variablename reference to a variable having an integer value.
Example:
\n\\sleep 10 ms\n\n
\\setshell varname command [ argument ... ] Sets variable varname to the result of the shell command command with the given argument(s). The command must return an integer value through its standard output.
command and each argument can be either a text constant or a :variablename reference to a variable. If you want to use an argument starting with a colon, write an additional colon at the beginning of argument.
Example:
\n\\setshell variable_to_be_assigned command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
\\shell command [ argument ... ] Same as \\setshell, but the result of the command is discarded.
Example:
\n\\shell command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
\\startpipeline\\endpipeline These commands delimit the start and end of a pipeline of SQL statements. In pipeline mode, statements are sent to the server without waiting for the results of previous statements. See Section\u00a034.5 for more details. Pipeline mode requires the use of extended query protocol.
\nThe arithmetic, bitwise, comparison and logical operators listed in Table\u00a0294 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set. The operators are listed in increasing precedence order. Except as noted, operators taking two numeric inputs will produce a double value if either input is double, otherwise they produce an integer result.
Table\u00a0294.\u00a0pgbench Operators
\n| \n Operator \nDescription \nExample(s) \n | \n
|---|
| \n
Logical OR \n
| \n
| \n
Logical AND \n
| \n
| \n
Logical NOT \n
| \n
| \n
Boolean value tests \n
| \n
| \n
Nullness tests \n
| \n
| \n
Equal \n
| \n
| \n
Not equal \n
| \n
| \n
Not equal \n
| \n
| \n
Less than \n
| \n
| \n
Less than or equal to \n
| \n
| \n
Greater than \n
| \n
| \n
Greater than or equal to \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise OR \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise XOR \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise AND \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise NOT \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise shift left \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise shift right \n
| \n
| \n
Addition \n
| \n
| \n
Subtraction \n
| \n
| \n
Multiplication \n
| \n
| \n
Division (truncates the result towards zero if both inputs are integers) \n
| \n
| \n
Modulo (remainder) \n
| \n
| \n
Negation \n
| \n
The functions listed in Table\u00a0295 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set.
Table\u00a0295.\u00a0pgbench Functions
\n| \n Function \nDescription \nExample(s) \n | \n
|---|
| \n
Absolute value \n
| \n
| \n
Prints the argument to stderr, and returns the argument. \n
| \n
| \n
Casts to double. \n
| \n
| \n
Exponential (
| \n
| \n
Selects the largest value among the arguments. \n
| \n
| \n
This is an alias for
| \n
| \n
Computes FNV-1a hash. \n
| \n
| \n
Computes MurmurHash2 hash. \n
| \n
| \n
Casts to integer. \n
| \n
| \n
Selects the smallest value among the arguments. \n
| \n
| \n
Natural logarithm \n
| \n
| \n
Modulo (remainder) \n
| \n
| \n
Permuted value of
| \n
| \n
Approximate value of \u03c0 \n
| \n
| \n
| \n
| \n
Computes a uniformly-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes an exponentially-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes a Gaussian-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes a Zipfian-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Square root \n
| \n
The random function generates values using a uniform distribution, that is all the values are drawn within the specified range with equal probability. The random_exponential, random_gaussian and random_zipfian functions require an additional double parameter which determines the precise shape of the distribution.
For an exponential distribution, parameter controls the distribution by truncating a quickly-decreasing exponential distribution at parameter, and then projecting onto integers between the bounds. To be precise, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0exp(-parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0min)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/\u00a0(1\u00a0-\u00a0exp(-parameter))
Then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i) - f(i + 1).
Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to min are accessed, and the less frequently values close to max are accessed. The closer to 0 parameter is, the flatter (more uniform) the access distribution. A crude approximation of the distribution is that the most frequent 1% values in the range, close to min, are drawn parameter% of the time. The parameter value must be strictly positive.
For a Gaussian distribution, the interval is mapped onto a standard normal distribution (the classical bell-shaped Gaussian curve) truncated at -parameter on the left and +parameter on the right. Values in the middle of the interval are more likely to be drawn. To be precise, if PHI(x) is the cumulative distribution function of the standard normal distribution, with mean mu defined as (max + min) / 2.0, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0PHI(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0mu)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/
\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0PHI(parameter)\u00a0-\u00a01)
then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i + 0.5) - f(i - 0.5). Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to the middle of the interval are drawn, and the less frequently values close to the min and max bounds. About 67% of values are drawn from the middle 1.0 / parameter, that is a relative 0.5 / parameter around the mean, and 95% in the middle 2.0 / parameter, that is a relative 1.0 / parameter around the mean; for instance, if parameter is 4.0, 67% of values are drawn from the middle quarter (1.0 / 4.0) of the interval (i.e., from 3.0 / 8.0 to 5.0 / 8.0) and 95% from the middle half (2.0 / 4.0) of the interval (second and third quartiles). The minimum allowed parameter value is 2.0.
random_zipfian generates a bounded Zipfian distribution. parameter defines how skewed the distribution is. The larger the parameter, the more frequently values closer to the beginning of the interval are drawn. The distribution is such that, assuming the range starts from 1, the ratio of the probability of drawing k versus drawing k+1 is ((. For example, k+1)/k)**parameterrandom_zipfian(1, ..., 2.5) produces the value 1 about (2/1)**2.5 = 5.66 times more frequently than 2, which itself is produced (3/2)**2.5 = 2.76 times more frequently than 3, and so on.
pgbench's implementation is based on \"Non-Uniform Random Variate Generation\", Luc Devroye, p. 550-551, Springer 1986. Due to limitations of that algorithm, the parameter value is restricted to the range [1.001, 1000].
When designing a benchmark which selects rows non-uniformly, be aware that the rows chosen may be correlated with other data such as IDs from a sequence or the physical row ordering, which may skew performance measurements.
\nTo avoid this, you may wish to use the permute function, or some other additional step with similar effect, to shuffle the selected rows and remove such correlations.
Hash functions hash, hash_murmur2 and hash_fnv1a accept an input value and an optional seed parameter. In case the seed isn't provided the value of :default_seed is used, which is initialized randomly unless set by the command-line -D option.
permute accepts an input value, a size, and an optional seed parameter. It generates a pseudorandom permutation of integers in the range [0, size), and returns the index of the input value in the permuted values. The permutation chosen is parameterized by the seed, which defaults to :default_seed, if not specified. Unlike the hash functions, permute ensures that there are no collisions or holes in the output values. Input values outside the interval are interpreted modulo the size. The function raises an error if the size is not positive. permute can be used to scatter the distribution of non-uniform random functions such as random_zipfian or random_exponential so that values drawn more often are not trivially correlated. For instance, the following pgbench script simulates a possible real world workload typical for social media and blogging platforms where a few accounts generate excessive load:
\\set size 1000000\n\\set r random_zipfian(1, :size, 1.07)\n\\set k 1 + permute(:r, :size)\n\n
In some cases several distinct distributions are needed which don't correlate with each other and this is when the optional seed parameter comes in handy:
\n\\set k1 1 + permute(:r, :size, :default_seed + 123)\n\\set k2 1 + permute(:r, :size, :default_seed + 321)\n\n
A similar behavior can also be approximated with hash:
\\set size 1000000\n\\set r random_zipfian(1, 100 * :size, 1.07)\n\\set k 1 + abs(hash(:r)) % :size\n\n
However, since hash generates collisions, some values will not be reachable and others will be more frequent than expected from the original distribution.
As an example, the full definition of the built-in TPC-B-like transaction is:
\n\\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n\\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n\\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n\\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\nBEGIN;\nUPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\nSELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\nUPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\nUPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\nINSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\nEND;\n\n
This script allows each iteration of the transaction to reference different, randomly-chosen rows. (This example also shows why it's important for each client session to have its own variables \u2014 otherwise they'd not be independently touching different rows.)
\nWith the -l option (but without the --aggregate-interval option), pgbench writes information about each transaction to a log file. The log file will be named prefix.nnnprefix defaults to pgbench_log, and nnn is the PID of the pgbench process. The prefix can be changed by using the --log-prefix option. If the -j option is 2 or higher, so that there are multiple worker threads, each will have its own log file. The first worker will use the same name for its log file as in the standard single worker case. The additional log files for the other workers will be named prefix.nnn.mmmmmm is a sequential number for each worker starting with 1.
Each line in a log file describes one transaction. It contains the following space-separated fields:
\nclient_ididentifies the client session that ran the transaction
\ntransaction_nocounts how many transactions have been run by that session
\ntimetransaction's elapsed time, in microseconds
\nscript_noidentifies the script file that was used for the transaction (useful when multiple scripts are specified with -f or -b)
time_epochtransaction's completion time, as a Unix-epoch time stamp
\ntime_usfractional-second part of transaction's completion time, in microseconds
\nschedule_lagtransaction start delay, that is the difference between the transaction's scheduled start time and the time it actually started, in microseconds (present only if --rate is specified)
retriescount of retries after serialization or deadlock errors during the transaction (present only if --max-tries is not equal to one)
When both --rate and --latency-limit are used, the time for a skipped transaction will be reported as skipped. If the transaction ends with a failure, its time will be reported as failed. If you use the --failures-detailed option, the time of the failed transaction will be reported as serialization or deadlock depending on the type of failure (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information).
Here is a snippet of a log file generated in a single-client run:
\n0 199 2241 0 1175850568 995598\n0 200 2465 0 1175850568 998079\n0 201 2513 0 1175850569 608\n0 202 2038 0 1175850569 2663\n\n
Another example with --rate=100 and --latency-limit=5 (note the additional schedule_lag column):
0 81 4621 0 1412881037 912698 3005\n0 82 6173 0 1412881037 914578 4304\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5217\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5099\n0 83 4722 0 1412881037 916203 3108\n0 84 4142 0 1412881037 918023 2333\n0 85 2465 0 1412881037 919759 740\n\n
In this example, transaction 82 was late, because its latency (6.173 ms) was over the 5 ms limit. The next two transactions were skipped, because they were already late before they were even started.
\nThe following example shows a snippet of a log file with failures and retries, with the maximum number of tries set to 10 (note the additional retries column):
3 0 47423 0 1499414498 34501 3\n3 1 8333 0 1499414498 42848 0\n3 2 8358 0 1499414498 51219 0\n4 0 72345 0 1499414498 59433 6\n1 3 41718 0 1499414498 67879 4\n1 4 8416 0 1499414498 76311 0\n3 3 33235 0 1499414498 84469 3\n0 0 failed 0 1499414498 84905 9\n2 0 failed 0 1499414498 86248 9\n3 4 8307 0 1499414498 92788 0\n\n
If the --failures-detailed option is used, the type of failure is reported in the time like this:
3 0 47423 0 1499414498 34501 3\n3 1 8333 0 1499414498 42848 0\n3 2 8358 0 1499414498 51219 0\n4 0 72345 0 1499414498 59433 6\n1 3 41718 0 1499414498 67879 4\n1 4 8416 0 1499414498 76311 0\n3 3 33235 0 1499414498 84469 3\n0 0 serialization 0 1499414498 84905 9\n2 0 serialization 0 1499414498 86248 9\n3 4 8307 0 1499414498 92788 0\n\n
When running a long test on hardware that can handle a lot of transactions, the log files can become very large. The --sampling-rate option can be used to log only a random sample of transactions.
With the --aggregate-interval option, a different format is used for the log files. Each log line describes one aggregation interval. It contains the following space-separated fields:
interval_startstart time of the interval, as a Unix-epoch time stamp
\nnum_transactionsnumber of transactions within the interval
\nsum_latencysum of transaction latencies
\nsum_latency_2sum of squares of transaction latencies
\nmin_latencyminimum transaction latency
\nmax_latencymaximum transaction latency
\nsum_lagsum of transaction start delays (zero unless --rate is specified)
sum_lag_2sum of squares of transaction start delays (zero unless --rate is specified)
min_lagminimum transaction start delay (zero unless --rate is specified)
max_lagmaximum transaction start delay (zero unless --rate is specified)
skippednumber of transactions skipped because they would have started too late (zero unless --rate and --latency-limit are specified)
retriednumber of retried transactions (zero unless --max-tries is not equal to one)
retriesnumber of retries after serialization or deadlock errors (zero unless --max-tries is not equal to one)
serialization_failuresnumber of transactions that got a serialization error and were not retried afterwards (zero unless --failures-detailed is specified)
deadlock_failuresnumber of transactions that got a deadlock error and were not retried afterwards (zero unless --failures-detailed is specified)
Here is some example output generated with these options:
\npgbench --aggregate-interval=10 --time=20 --client=10 --log --rate=1000 --latency-limit=10 --failures-detailed --max-tries=10 test\n\n1650260552 5178 26171317 177284491527 1136 44462 2647617 7321113867 0 9866 64 7564 28340 4148 0\n1650260562 4808 25573984 220121792172 1171 62083 3037380 9666800914 0 9998 598 7392 26621 4527 0\nNotice that while the plain (unaggregated) log format shows which script was used for each transaction, the aggregated format does not. Therefore if you need per-script data, you need to aggregate the data on your own.
\nWith the -r option, pgbench collects the following statistics for each statement:
latency \u2014 elapsed transaction time for each statement. pgbench reports an average value of all successful runs of the statement.
The number of failures in this statement. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\nThe number of retries after a serialization or a deadlock error in this statement. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\nThe report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
All values are computed for each statement executed by every client and are reported after the benchmark has finished.
\nFor the default script, the output will look similar to this:
\nstarting vacuum...end.\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 1\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 0 (0.000%)\nnumber of transactions above the 50.0 ms latency limit: 1311/10000 (13.110 %)\nlatency average = 28.488 ms\nlatency stddev = 21.009 ms\ninitial connection time = 69.068 ms\ntps = 346.224794 (without initial connection time)\nstatement latencies in milliseconds and failures:\n 0.012 0 \\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\n 0.319 0 BEGIN;\n 0.834 0 UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\n 0.641 0 SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\n 11.126 0 UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\n 12.961 0 UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\n 0.634 0 INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\n 1.957 0 END;\n\n
Another example of output for the default script using serializable default transaction isolation level (PGOPTIONS='-c default_transaction_isolation=serializable' pgbench ...):
starting vacuum...end.\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 1\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 10\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 6317/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 3683 (36.830%)\nnumber of transactions retried: 7667 (76.670%)\ntotal number of retries: 45339\nnumber of transactions above the 50.0 ms latency limit: 106/6317 (1.678 %)\nlatency average = 17.016 ms\nlatency stddev = 13.283 ms\ninitial connection time = 45.017 ms\ntps = 186.792667 (without initial connection time)\nstatement latencies in milliseconds, failures and retries:\n 0.006 0 0 \\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\n 0.385 0 0 BEGIN;\n 0.773 0 1 UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\n 0.624 0 0 SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\n 1.098 320 3762 UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\n 0.582 3363 41576 UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\n 0.465 0 0 INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\n 1.933 0 0 END;\n\n
If multiple script files are specified, all statistics are reported separately for each script file.
\nNote that collecting the additional timing information needed for per-statement latency computation adds some overhead. This will slow average execution speed and lower the computed TPS. The amount of slowdown varies significantly depending on platform and hardware. Comparing average TPS values with and without latency reporting enabled is a good way to measure if the timing overhead is significant.
\nWhen executing pgbench, there are three main types of errors:
\nErrors of the main program. They are the most serious and always result in an immediate exit from pgbench with the corresponding error message. They include:
\nerrors at the beginning of pgbench (e.g. an invalid option value);
\nerrors in the initialization mode (e.g. the query to create tables for built-in scripts fails);
\nerrors before starting threads (e.g. could not connect to the database server, syntax error in the meta command, thread creation failure);
\ninternal pgbench errors (which are supposed to never occur...).
\nErrors when the thread manages its clients (e.g. the client could not start a connection to the database server / the socket for connecting the client to the database server has become invalid). In such cases all clients of this thread stop while other threads continue to work.
\nDirect client errors. They lead to immediate exit from pgbench with the corresponding error message only in the case of an internal pgbench error (which are supposed to never occur...). Otherwise in the worst case they only lead to the abortion of the failed client while other clients continue their run (but some client errors are handled without an abortion of the client and reported separately, see below). Later in this section it is assumed that the discussed errors are only the direct client errors and they are not internal pgbench errors.
\nA client's run is aborted in case of a serious error; for example, the connection with the database server was lost or the end of script was reached without completing the last transaction. In addition, if execution of an SQL or meta command fails for reasons other than serialization or deadlock errors, the client is aborted. Otherwise, if an SQL command fails with serialization or deadlock errors, the client is not aborted. In such cases, the current transaction is rolled back, which also includes setting the client variables as they were before the run of this transaction (it is assumed that one transaction script contains only one transaction; see What Is the \"Transaction\" Actually Performed in pgbench? for more information). Transactions with serialization or deadlock errors are repeated after rollbacks until they complete successfully or reach the maximum number of tries (specified by the --max-tries option) / the maximum time of retries (specified by the --latency-limit option) / the end of benchmark (specified by the --time option). If the last trial run fails, this transaction will be reported as failed but the client is not aborted and continues to work.
Without specifying the --max-tries option, a transaction will never be retried after a serialization or deadlock error because its default value is 1. Use an unlimited number of tries (--max-tries=0) and the --latency-limit option to limit only the maximum time of tries. You can also use the --time option to limit the benchmark duration under an unlimited number of tries.
Be careful when repeating scripts that contain multiple transactions: the script is always retried completely, so successful transactions can be performed several times.
\nBe careful when repeating transactions with shell commands. Unlike the results of SQL commands, the results of shell commands are not rolled back, except for the variable value of the \\setshell command.
The latency of a successful transaction includes the entire time of transaction execution with rollbacks and retries. The latency is measured only for successful transactions and commands but not for failed transactions or commands.
\nThe main report contains the number of failed transactions. If the --max-tries option is not equal to 1, the main report also contains statistics related to retries: the total number of retried transactions and total number of retries. The per-script report inherits all these fields from the main report. The per-statement report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
If you want to group failures by basic types in per-transaction and aggregation logs, as well as in the main and per-script reports, use the --failures-detailed option. If you also want to distinguish all errors and failures (errors without retrying) by type including which limit for retries was exceeded and how much it was exceeded by for the serialization/deadlock failures, use the --verbose-errors option.
You may specify the Table Access Method for the pgbench tables. The environment variable PGOPTIONS specifies database configuration options that are passed to PostgreSQL via the command line (See Section\u00a020.1.4). For example, a hypothetical default Table Access Method for the tables that pgbench creates called wuzza can be specified with:
PGOPTIONS='-c default_table_access_method=wuzza'\n\n
It is very easy to use pgbench to produce completely meaningless numbers. Here are some guidelines to help you get useful results.
\nIn the first place, never believe any test that runs for only a few seconds. Use the -t or -T option to make the run last at least a few minutes, so as to average out noise. In some cases you could need hours to get numbers that are reproducible. It's a good idea to try the test run a few times, to find out if your numbers are reproducible or not.
For the default TPC-B-like test scenario, the initialization scale factor (-s) should be at least as large as the largest number of clients you intend to test (-c); else you'll mostly be measuring update contention. There are only -s rows in the pgbench_branches table, and every transaction wants to update one of them, so -c values in excess of -s will undoubtedly result in lots of transactions blocked waiting for other transactions.
The default test scenario is also quite sensitive to how long it's been since the tables were initialized: accumulation of dead rows and dead space in the tables changes the results. To understand the results you must keep track of the total number of updates and when vacuuming happens. If autovacuum is enabled it can result in unpredictable changes in measured performance.
\nA limitation of pgbench is that it can itself become the bottleneck when trying to test a large number of client sessions. This can be alleviated by running pgbench on a different machine from the database server, although low network latency will be essential. It might even be useful to run several pgbench instances concurrently, on several client machines, against the same database server.
\nIf untrusted users have access to a database that has not adopted a secure schema usage pattern, do not run pgbench in that database. pgbench uses unqualified names and does not manipulate the search path.
\npgbench \u2014 run a benchmark test on PostgreSQL
\npgbench -i [option...] [dbname]
pgbench [option...] [dbname]
pgbench is a simple program for running benchmark tests on PostgreSQL. It runs the same sequence of SQL commands over and over, possibly in multiple concurrent database sessions, and then calculates the average transaction rate (transactions per second). By default, pgbench tests a scenario that is loosely based on TPC-B, involving five SELECT, UPDATE, and INSERT commands per transaction. However, it is easy to test other cases by writing your own transaction script files.
Typical output from pgbench looks like:
\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 10\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 0 (0.000%)\nlatency average = 11.013 ms\nlatency stddev = 7.351 ms\ninitial connection time = 45.758 ms\ntps = 896.967014 (without initial connection time)\n\n
The first seven lines report some of the most important parameter settings. The sixth line reports the maximum number of tries for transactions with serialization or deadlock errors (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information). The eighth line reports the number of transactions completed and intended (the latter being just the product of number of clients and number of transactions per client); these will be equal unless the run failed before completion or some SQL command(s) failed. (In -T mode, only the actual number of transactions is printed.) The next line reports the number of failed transactions due to serialization or deadlock errors (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information). The last line reports the number of transactions per second.
The default TPC-B-like transaction test requires specific tables to be set up beforehand. pgbench should be invoked with the -i (initialize) option to create and populate these tables. (When you are testing a custom script, you don't need this step, but will instead need to do whatever setup your test needs.) Initialization looks like:
pgbench -i [\nother-options]dbname\n
where dbname is the name of the already-created database to test in. (You may also need -h, -p, and/or -U options to specify how to connect to the database server.)
pgbench -i creates four tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers, destroying any existing tables of these names. Be very careful to use another database if you have tables having these names!
At the default \u201cscale factor\u201d of 1, the tables initially contain this many rows:
\ntable # of rows\n---------------------------------\npgbench_branches 1\npgbench_tellers 10\npgbench_accounts 100000\npgbench_history 0\n\n
You can (and, for most purposes, probably should) increase the number of rows by using the -s (scale factor) option. The -F (fillfactor) option might also be used at this point.
Once you have done the necessary setup, you can run your benchmark with a command that doesn't include -i, that is
pgbench [\noptions]dbname\n
In nearly all cases, you'll need some options to make a useful test. The most important options are -c (number of clients), -t (number of transactions), -T (time limit), and -f (specify a custom script file). See below for a full list.
The following is divided into three subsections. Different options are used during database initialization and while running benchmarks, but some options are useful in both cases.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line initialization arguments:
\n[-d] dbname[--dbname=]dbname Specifies the name of the database to test in. If this is not specified, the environment variable PGDATABASE is used. If that is not set, the user name specified for the connection is used.
-i--initialize Required to invoke initialization mode.
\n-I init_steps--init-steps=init_steps Perform just a selected set of the normal initialization steps. init_steps specifies the initialization steps to be performed, using one character per step. Each step is invoked in the specified order. The default is dtgvp. The available steps are:
d (Drop) Drop any existing pgbench tables.
\nt (create Tables) Create the tables used by the standard pgbench scenario, namely pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
g or G (Generate data, client-side or server-side) Generate data and load it into the standard tables, replacing any data already present.
\nWith g (client-side data generation), data is generated in pgbench client and then sent to the server. This uses the client/server bandwidth extensively through a COPY. pgbench uses the FREEZE option with version 14 or later of PostgreSQL to speed up subsequent VACUUM, except on the pgbench_accounts table if partitions are enabled. Using g causes logging to print one message every 100,000 rows while generating data for all tables.
With G (server-side data generation), only small queries are sent from the pgbench client and then data is actually generated in the server. No significant bandwidth is required for this variant, but the server will do more work. Using G causes logging not to print any progress message while generating data.
The default initialization behavior uses client-side data generation (equivalent to g).
v (Vacuum) Invoke VACUUM on the standard tables.
p (create Primary keys) Create primary key indexes on the standard tables.
\nf (create Foreign keys) Create foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (Note that this step is not performed by default.)
\n-F fillfactor--fillfactor=fillfactor Create the pgbench_accounts, pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables with the given fillfactor. Default is 100.
-n--no-vacuum Perform no vacuuming during initialization. (This option suppresses the v initialization step, even if it was specified in -I.)
-q--quiet Switch logging to quiet mode, producing only one progress message per 5 seconds. The default logging prints one message each 100,000 rows, which often outputs many lines per second (especially on good hardware).
\nThis setting has no effect if G is specified in -I.
-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factor Multiply the number of rows generated by the scale factor. For example, -s 100 will create 10,000,000 rows in the pgbench_accounts table. Default is 1. When the scale is 20,000 or larger, the columns used to hold account identifiers (aid columns) will switch to using larger integers (bigint), in order to be big enough to hold the range of account identifiers.
--foreign-keys Create foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (This option adds the f step to the initialization step sequence, if it is not already present.)
--index-tablespace=index_tablespace Create indexes in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--partition-method=NAME Create a partitioned pgbench_accounts table with NAME method. Expected values are range or hash. This option requires that --partitions is set to non-zero. If unspecified, default is range.
--partitions=NUM Create a partitioned pgbench_accounts table with NUM partitions of nearly equal size for the scaled number of accounts. Default is 0, meaning no partitioning.
--tablespace=tablespace Create tables in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--unlogged-tables Create all tables as unlogged tables, rather than permanent tables.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line benchmarking arguments:
\n-b scriptname[@weight]--builtin=scriptname[@weight] Add the specified built-in script to the list of scripts to be executed. Available built-in scripts are: tpcb-like, simple-update and select-only. Unambiguous prefixes of built-in names are accepted. With the special name list, show the list of built-in scripts and exit immediately.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. See below for details.
-c clients--client=clients Number of clients simulated, that is, number of concurrent database sessions. Default is 1.
\n-C--connect Establish a new connection for each transaction, rather than doing it just once per client session. This is useful to measure the connection overhead.
\n-D varname=value--define=varname=value Define a variable for use by a custom script (see below). Multiple -D options are allowed.
-f filename[@weight]--file=filename[@weight] Add a transaction script read from filename to the list of scripts to be executed.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. (To use a script file name that includes an @ character, append a weight so that there is no ambiguity, for example filen@me@1.) See below for details.
-j threads--jobs=threads Number of worker threads within pgbench. Using more than one thread can be helpful on multi-CPU machines. Clients are distributed as evenly as possible among available threads. Default is 1.
\n-l--log Write information about each transaction to a log file. See below for details.
\n-L limit--latency-limit=limit Transactions that last more than limit milliseconds are counted and reported separately, as late.
When throttling is used (--rate=...), transactions that lag behind schedule by more than limit ms, and thus have no hope of meeting the latency limit, are not sent to the server at all. They are counted and reported separately as skipped.
When the --max-tries option is used, a transaction which fails due to a serialization anomaly or from a deadlock will not be retried if the total time of all its tries is greater than limit ms. To limit only the time of tries and not their number, use --max-tries=0. By default, the option --max-tries is set to 1 and transactions with serialization/deadlock errors are not retried. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information about retrying such transactions.
-M querymode--protocol=querymode Protocol to use for submitting queries to the server:
\nsimple: use simple query protocol.
extended: use extended query protocol.
prepared: use extended query protocol with prepared statements.
In the prepared mode, pgbench reuses the parse analysis result starting from the second query iteration, so pgbench runs faster than in other modes.
The default is simple query protocol. (See Chapter\u00a053 for more information.)
\n-n--no-vacuum Perform no vacuuming before running the test. This option is necessary if you are running a custom test scenario that does not include the standard tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
-N--skip-some-updates Run built-in simple-update script. Shorthand for -b simple-update.
-P sec--progress=sec Show progress report every sec seconds. The report includes the time since the beginning of the run, the TPS since the last report, and the transaction latency average, standard deviation, and the number of failed transactions since the last report. Under throttling (-R), the latency is computed with respect to the transaction scheduled start time, not the actual transaction beginning time, thus it also includes the average schedule lag time. When --max-tries is used to enable transaction retries after serialization/deadlock errors, the report includes the number of retried transactions and the sum of all retries.
-r--report-per-command Report the following statistics for each command after the benchmark finishes: the average per-statement latency (execution time from the perspective of the client), the number of failures, and the number of retries after serialization or deadlock errors in this command. The report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
-R rate--rate=rate Execute transactions targeting the specified rate instead of running as fast as possible (the default). The rate is given in transactions per second. If the targeted rate is above the maximum possible rate, the rate limit won't impact the results.
\nThe rate is targeted by starting transactions along a Poisson-distributed schedule time line. The expected start time schedule moves forward based on when the client first started, not when the previous transaction ended. That approach means that when transactions go past their original scheduled end time, it is possible for later ones to catch up again.
\nWhen throttling is active, the transaction latency reported at the end of the run is calculated from the scheduled start times, so it includes the time each transaction had to wait for the previous transaction to finish. The wait time is called the schedule lag time, and its average and maximum are also reported separately. The transaction latency with respect to the actual transaction start time, i.e., the time spent executing the transaction in the database, can be computed by subtracting the schedule lag time from the reported latency.
\nIf --latency-limit is used together with --rate, a transaction can lag behind so much that it is already over the latency limit when the previous transaction ends, because the latency is calculated from the scheduled start time. Such transactions are not sent to the server, but are skipped altogether and counted separately.
A high schedule lag time is an indication that the system cannot process transactions at the specified rate, with the chosen number of clients and threads. When the average transaction execution time is longer than the scheduled interval between each transaction, each successive transaction will fall further behind, and the schedule lag time will keep increasing the longer the test run is. When that happens, you will have to reduce the specified transaction rate.
\n-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factor Report the specified scale factor in pgbench's output. With the built-in tests, this is not necessary; the correct scale factor will be detected by counting the number of rows in the pgbench_branches table. However, when testing only custom benchmarks (-f option), the scale factor will be reported as 1 unless this option is used.
-S--select-only Run built-in select-only script. Shorthand for -b select-only.
-t transactions--transactions=transactions Number of transactions each client runs. Default is 10.
\n-T seconds--time=seconds Run the test for this many seconds, rather than a fixed number of transactions per client. -t and -T are mutually exclusive.
-v--vacuum-all Vacuum all four standard tables before running the test. With neither -n nor -v, pgbench will vacuum the pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables, and will truncate pgbench_history.
--aggregate-interval=seconds Length of aggregation interval (in seconds). May be used only with -l option. With this option, the log contains per-interval summary data, as described below.
--exit-on-abort Exit immediately when any client is aborted due to some error. Without this option, even when a client is aborted, other clients could continue their run as specified by -t or -T option, and pgbench will print an incomplete results in this case.
Note that serialization failures or deadlock failures do not abort the client, so they are not affected by this option. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\n--failures-detailed Report failures in per-transaction and aggregation logs, as well as in the main and per-script reports, grouped by the following types:
\nserialization failures;
\ndeadlock failures;
\nSee Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\n--log-prefix=prefix Set the filename prefix for the log files created by --log. The default is pgbench_log.
--max-tries=number_of_tries Enable retries for transactions with serialization/deadlock errors and set the maximum number of these tries. This option can be combined with the --latency-limit option which limits the total time of all transaction tries; moreover, you cannot use an unlimited number of tries (--max-tries=0) without --latency-limit or --time. The default value is 1 and transactions with serialization/deadlock errors are not retried. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information about retrying such transactions.
--progress-timestamp When showing progress (option -P), use a timestamp (Unix epoch) instead of the number of seconds since the beginning of the run. The unit is in seconds, with millisecond precision after the dot. This helps compare logs generated by various tools.
--random-seed=seed Set random generator seed. Seeds the system random number generator, which then produces a sequence of initial generator states, one for each thread. Values for seed may be: time (the default, the seed is based on the current time), rand (use a strong random source, failing if none is available), or an unsigned decimal integer value. The random generator is invoked explicitly from a pgbench script (random... functions) or implicitly (for instance option --rate uses it to schedule transactions). When explicitly set, the value used for seeding is shown on the terminal. Any value allowed for seed may also be provided through the environment variable PGBENCH_RANDOM_SEED. To ensure that the provided seed impacts all possible uses, put this option first or use the environment variable.
Setting the seed explicitly allows to reproduce a pgbench run exactly, as far as random numbers are concerned. As the random state is managed per thread, this means the exact same pgbench run for an identical invocation if there is one client per thread and there are no external or data dependencies. From a statistical viewpoint reproducing runs exactly is a bad idea because it can hide the performance variability or improve performance unduly, e.g., by hitting the same pages as a previous run. However, it may also be of great help for debugging, for instance re-running a tricky case which leads to an error. Use wisely.
--sampling-rate=rate Sampling rate, used when writing data into the log, to reduce the amount of log generated. If this option is given, only the specified fraction of transactions are logged. 1.0 means all transactions will be logged, 0.05 means only 5% of the transactions will be logged.
\nRemember to take the sampling rate into account when processing the log file. For example, when computing TPS values, you need to multiply the numbers accordingly (e.g., with 0.01 sample rate, you'll only get 1/100 of the actual TPS).
\n--show-script=scriptname Show the actual code of builtin script scriptname on stderr, and exit immediately.
--verbose-errors Print messages about all errors and failures (errors without retrying) including which limit for retries was exceeded and how far it was exceeded for the serialization/deadlock failures. (Note that in this case the output can be significantly increased.) See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\npgbench also accepts the following common command-line arguments for connection parameters and other common settings:
\n--debug Print debugging output.
\n-h hostname--host=hostname The database server's host name
\n-p port--port=port The database server's port number
\n-U login--username=login The user name to connect as
\n-V--version Print the pgbench version and exit.
\n-?--help Show help about pgbench command line arguments, and exit.
\nA successful run will exit with status 0. Exit status 1 indicates static problems such as invalid command-line options or internal errors which are supposed to never occur. Early errors that occur when starting benchmark such as initial connection failures also exit with status 1. Errors during the run such as database errors or problems in the script will result in exit status 2. In the latter case, pgbench will print partial results if --exit-on-abort option is not specified.
PGDATABASEPGHOSTPGPORTPGUSER Default connection parameters.
\nThis utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, uses the environment variables supported by libpq (see Section\u00a032.15).
\nThe environment variable PG_COLOR specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. Possible values are always, auto and never.
pgbench executes test scripts chosen randomly from a specified list. The scripts may include built-in scripts specified with -b and user-provided scripts specified with -f. Each script may be given a relative weight specified after an @ so as to change its selection probability. The default weight is 1. Scripts with a weight of 0 are ignored.
The default built-in transaction script (also invoked with -b tpcb-like) issues seven commands per transaction over randomly chosen aid, tid, bid and delta. The scenario is inspired by the TPC-B benchmark, but is not actually TPC-B, hence the name.
BEGIN;
UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;
SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;
UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;
UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;
INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);
END;
If you select the simple-update built-in (also -N), steps 4 and 5 aren't included in the transaction. This will avoid update contention on these tables, but it makes the test case even less like TPC-B.
If you select the select-only built-in (also -S), only the SELECT is issued.
pgbench has support for running custom benchmark scenarios by replacing the default transaction script (described above) with a transaction script read from a file (-f option). In this case a \u201ctransaction\u201d counts as one execution of a script file.
A script file contains one or more SQL commands terminated by semicolons. Empty lines and lines beginning with -- are ignored. Script files can also contain \u201cmeta commands\u201d, which are interpreted by pgbench itself, as described below.
Before PostgreSQL 9.6, SQL commands in script files were terminated by newlines, and so they could not be continued across lines. Now a semicolon is required to separate consecutive SQL commands (though an SQL command does not need one if it is followed by a meta command). If you need to create a script file that works with both old and new versions of pgbench, be sure to write each SQL command on a single line ending with a semicolon.
\nIt is assumed that pgbench scripts do not contain incomplete blocks of SQL transactions. If at runtime the client reaches the end of the script without completing the last transaction block, it will be aborted.
\nThere is a simple variable-substitution facility for script files. Variable names must consist of letters (including non-Latin letters), digits, and underscores, with the first character not being a digit. Variables can be set by the command-line -D option, explained above, or by the meta commands explained below. In addition to any variables preset by -D command-line options, there are a few variables that are preset automatically, listed in Table\u00a0298. A value specified for these variables using -D takes precedence over the automatic presets. Once set, a variable's value can be inserted into an SQL command by writing :variablename. When running more than one client session, each session has its own set of variables. pgbench supports up to 255 variable uses in one statement.
Table\u00a0298.\u00a0pgbench Automatic Variables
\n| Variable | \nDescription | \n
|---|---|
client_id | \nunique number identifying the client session (starts from zero) | \n
default_seed | \nseed used in hash and pseudorandom permutation functions by default | \n
random_seed | \nrandom generator seed (unless overwritten with -D) | \n
scale | \ncurrent scale factor | \n
Script file meta commands begin with a backslash (\\) and normally extend to the end of the line, although they can be continued to additional lines by writing backslash-return. Arguments to a meta command are separated by white space. These meta commands are supported:
\\gset [prefix] \\aset [prefix] These commands may be used to end SQL queries, taking the place of the terminating semicolon (;).
When the \\gset command is used, the preceding SQL query is expected to return one row, the columns of which are stored into variables named after column names, and prefixed with prefix if provided.
When the \\aset command is used, all combined SQL queries (separated by \\;) have their columns stored into variables named after column names, and prefixed with prefix if provided. If a query returns no row, no assignment is made and the variable can be tested for existence to detect this. If a query returns more than one row, the last value is kept.
\\gset and \\aset cannot be used in pipeline mode, since the query results are not yet available by the time the commands would need them.
The following example puts the final account balance from the first query into variable abalance, and fills variables p_two and p_three with integers from the third query. The result of the second query is discarded. The result of the two last combined queries are stored in variables four and five.
UPDATE pgbench_accounts\n SET abalance = abalance + :delta\n WHERE aid = :aid\n RETURNING abalance \\gset\n-- compound of two queries\nSELECT 1 \\;\nSELECT 2 AS two, 3 AS three \\gset p_\nSELECT 4 AS four \\; SELECT 5 AS five \\aset\n\n
\\if expression\\elif expression\\else\\endif This group of commands implements nestable conditional blocks, similarly to psql's \\if expression. Conditional expressions are identical to those with \\set, with non-zero values interpreted as true.
\\set varname expression Sets variable varname to a value calculated from expression. The expression may contain the NULL constant, Boolean constants TRUE and FALSE, integer constants such as 5432, double constants such as 3.14159, references to variables :variablename, operators with their usual SQL precedence and associativity, function calls, SQL CASE generic conditional expressions and parentheses.
Functions and most operators return NULL on NULL input.
For conditional purposes, non zero numerical values are TRUE, zero numerical values and NULL are FALSE.
Too large or small integer and double constants, as well as integer arithmetic operators (+, -, * and /) raise errors on overflows.
When no final ELSE clause is provided to a CASE, the default value is NULL.
Examples:
\n\\set ntellers 10 * :scale\n\\set aid (1021 * random(1, 100000 * :scale)) % \\\n (100000 * :scale) + 1\n\\set divx CASE WHEN :x <> 0 THEN :y/:x ELSE NULL END\n\n
\\sleep number [ us | ms | s ] Causes script execution to sleep for the specified duration in microseconds (us), milliseconds (ms) or seconds (s). If the unit is omitted then seconds are the default. number can be either an integer constant or a :variablename reference to a variable having an integer value.
Example:
\n\\sleep 10 ms\n\n
\\setshell varname command [ argument ... ] Sets variable varname to the result of the shell command command with the given argument(s). The command must return an integer value through its standard output.
command and each argument can be either a text constant or a :variablename reference to a variable. If you want to use an argument starting with a colon, write an additional colon at the beginning of argument.
Example:
\n\\setshell variable_to_be_assigned command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
\\shell command [ argument ... ] Same as \\setshell, but the result of the command is discarded.
Example:
\n\\shell command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
\\startpipeline\\syncpipeline\\endpipeline This group of commands implements pipelining of SQL statements. A pipeline must begin with a \\startpipeline and end with an \\endpipeline. In between there may be any number of \\syncpipeline commands, which sends a sync message without ending the ongoing pipeline and flushing the send buffer. In pipeline mode, statements are sent to the server without waiting for the results of previous statements. See Section\u00a032.5 for more details. Pipeline mode requires the use of extended query protocol.
The arithmetic, bitwise, comparison and logical operators listed in Table\u00a0299 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set. The operators are listed in increasing precedence order. Except as noted, operators taking two numeric inputs will produce a double value if either input is double, otherwise they produce an integer result.
Table\u00a0299.\u00a0pgbench Operators
\n| \n Operator \nDescription \nExample(s) \n | \n
|---|
| \n
Logical OR \n
| \n
| \n
Logical AND \n
| \n
| \n
Logical NOT \n
| \n
| \n
Boolean value tests \n
| \n
| \n
Nullness tests \n
| \n
| \n
Equal \n
| \n
| \n
Not equal \n
| \n
| \n
Not equal \n
| \n
| \n
Less than \n
| \n
| \n
Less than or equal to \n
| \n
| \n
Greater than \n
| \n
| \n
Greater than or equal to \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise OR \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise XOR \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise AND \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise NOT \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise shift left \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise shift right \n
| \n
| \n
Addition \n
| \n
| \n
Subtraction \n
| \n
| \n
Multiplication \n
| \n
| \n
Division (truncates the result towards zero if both inputs are integers) \n
| \n
| \n
Modulo (remainder) \n
| \n
| \n
Negation \n
| \n
The functions listed in Table\u00a0300 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set.
Table\u00a0300.\u00a0pgbench Functions
\n| \n Function \nDescription \nExample(s) \n | \n
|---|
| \n
Absolute value \n
| \n
| \n
Prints the argument to stderr, and returns the argument. \n
| \n
| \n
Casts to double. \n
| \n
| \n
Exponential (
| \n
| \n
Selects the largest value among the arguments. \n
| \n
| \n
This is an alias for
| \n
| \n
Computes FNV-1a hash. \n
| \n
| \n
Computes MurmurHash2 hash. \n
| \n
| \n
Casts to integer. \n
| \n
| \n
Selects the smallest value among the arguments. \n
| \n
| \n
Natural logarithm \n
| \n
| \n
Modulo (remainder) \n
| \n
| \n
Permuted value of
| \n
| \n
Approximate value of \u03c0 \n
| \n
| \n
| \n
| \n
Computes a uniformly-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes an exponentially-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes a Gaussian-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes a Zipfian-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Square root \n
| \n
The random function generates values using a uniform distribution, that is all the values are drawn within the specified range with equal probability. The random_exponential, random_gaussian and random_zipfian functions require an additional double parameter which determines the precise shape of the distribution.
For an exponential distribution, parameter controls the distribution by truncating a quickly-decreasing exponential distribution at parameter, and then projecting onto integers between the bounds. To be precise, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0exp(-parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0min)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/\u00a0(1\u00a0-\u00a0exp(-parameter))
Then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i) - f(i + 1).
Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to min are accessed, and the less frequently values close to max are accessed. The closer to 0 parameter is, the flatter (more uniform) the access distribution. A crude approximation of the distribution is that the most frequent 1% values in the range, close to min, are drawn parameter% of the time. The parameter value must be strictly positive.
For a Gaussian distribution, the interval is mapped onto a standard normal distribution (the classical bell-shaped Gaussian curve) truncated at -parameter on the left and +parameter on the right. Values in the middle of the interval are more likely to be drawn. To be precise, if PHI(x) is the cumulative distribution function of the standard normal distribution, with mean mu defined as (max + min) / 2.0, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0PHI(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0mu)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/
\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0PHI(parameter)\u00a0-\u00a01)
then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i + 0.5) - f(i - 0.5). Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to the middle of the interval are drawn, and the less frequently values close to the min and max bounds. About 67% of values are drawn from the middle 1.0 / parameter, that is a relative 0.5 / parameter around the mean, and 95% in the middle 2.0 / parameter, that is a relative 1.0 / parameter around the mean; for instance, if parameter is 4.0, 67% of values are drawn from the middle quarter (1.0 / 4.0) of the interval (i.e., from 3.0 / 8.0 to 5.0 / 8.0) and 95% from the middle half (2.0 / 4.0) of the interval (second and third quartiles). The minimum allowed parameter value is 2.0.
random_zipfian generates a bounded Zipfian distribution. parameter defines how skewed the distribution is. The larger the parameter, the more frequently values closer to the beginning of the interval are drawn. The distribution is such that, assuming the range starts from 1, the ratio of the probability of drawing k versus drawing k+1 is ((. For example, k+1)/k)**parameterrandom_zipfian(1, ..., 2.5) produces the value 1 about (2/1)**2.5 = 5.66 times more frequently than 2, which itself is produced (3/2)**2.5 = 2.76 times more frequently than 3, and so on.
pgbench's implementation is based on \"Non-Uniform Random Variate Generation\", Luc Devroye, p. 550-551, Springer 1986. Due to limitations of that algorithm, the parameter value is restricted to the range [1.001, 1000].
When designing a benchmark which selects rows non-uniformly, be aware that the rows chosen may be correlated with other data such as IDs from a sequence or the physical row ordering, which may skew performance measurements.
\nTo avoid this, you may wish to use the permute function, or some other additional step with similar effect, to shuffle the selected rows and remove such correlations.
Hash functions hash, hash_murmur2 and hash_fnv1a accept an input value and an optional seed parameter. In case the seed isn't provided the value of :default_seed is used, which is initialized randomly unless set by the command-line -D option.
permute accepts an input value, a size, and an optional seed parameter. It generates a pseudorandom permutation of integers in the range [0, size), and returns the index of the input value in the permuted values. The permutation chosen is parameterized by the seed, which defaults to :default_seed, if not specified. Unlike the hash functions, permute ensures that there are no collisions or holes in the output values. Input values outside the interval are interpreted modulo the size. The function raises an error if the size is not positive. permute can be used to scatter the distribution of non-uniform random functions such as random_zipfian or random_exponential so that values drawn more often are not trivially correlated. For instance, the following pgbench script simulates a possible real world workload typical for social media and blogging platforms where a few accounts generate excessive load:
\\set size 1000000\n\\set r random_zipfian(1, :size, 1.07)\n\\set k 1 + permute(:r, :size)\n\n
In some cases several distinct distributions are needed which don't correlate with each other and this is when the optional seed parameter comes in handy:
\n\\set k1 1 + permute(:r, :size, :default_seed + 123)\n\\set k2 1 + permute(:r, :size, :default_seed + 321)\n\n
A similar behavior can also be approximated with hash:
\\set size 1000000\n\\set r random_zipfian(1, 100 * :size, 1.07)\n\\set k 1 + abs(hash(:r)) % :size\n\n
However, since hash generates collisions, some values will not be reachable and others will be more frequent than expected from the original distribution.
As an example, the full definition of the built-in TPC-B-like transaction is:
\n\\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n\\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n\\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n\\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\nBEGIN;\nUPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\nSELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\nUPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\nUPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\nINSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\nEND;\n\n
This script allows each iteration of the transaction to reference different, randomly-chosen rows. (This example also shows why it's important for each client session to have its own variables \u2014 otherwise they'd not be independently touching different rows.)
\nWith the -l option (but without the --aggregate-interval option), pgbench writes information about each transaction to a log file. The log file will be named prefix.nnnprefix defaults to pgbench_log, and nnn is the PID of the pgbench process. The prefix can be changed by using the --log-prefix option. If the -j option is 2 or higher, so that there are multiple worker threads, each will have its own log file. The first worker will use the same name for its log file as in the standard single worker case. The additional log files for the other workers will be named prefix.nnn.mmmmmm is a sequential number for each worker starting with 1.
Each line in a log file describes one transaction. It contains the following space-separated fields:
\nclient_ididentifies the client session that ran the transaction
\ntransaction_nocounts how many transactions have been run by that session
\ntimetransaction's elapsed time, in microseconds
\nscript_noidentifies the script file that was used for the transaction (useful when multiple scripts are specified with -f or -b)
time_epochtransaction's completion time, as a Unix-epoch time stamp
\ntime_usfractional-second part of transaction's completion time, in microseconds
\nschedule_lagtransaction start delay, that is the difference between the transaction's scheduled start time and the time it actually started, in microseconds (present only if --rate is specified)
retriescount of retries after serialization or deadlock errors during the transaction (present only if --max-tries is not equal to one)
When both --rate and --latency-limit are used, the time for a skipped transaction will be reported as skipped. If the transaction ends with a failure, its time will be reported as failed. If you use the --failures-detailed option, the time of the failed transaction will be reported as serialization or deadlock depending on the type of failure (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information).
Here is a snippet of a log file generated in a single-client run:
\n0 199 2241 0 1175850568 995598\n0 200 2465 0 1175850568 998079\n0 201 2513 0 1175850569 608\n0 202 2038 0 1175850569 2663\n\n
Another example with --rate=100 and --latency-limit=5 (note the additional schedule_lag column):
0 81 4621 0 1412881037 912698 3005\n0 82 6173 0 1412881037 914578 4304\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5217\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5099\n0 83 4722 0 1412881037 916203 3108\n0 84 4142 0 1412881037 918023 2333\n0 85 2465 0 1412881037 919759 740\n\n
In this example, transaction 82 was late, because its latency (6.173 ms) was over the 5 ms limit. The next two transactions were skipped, because they were already late before they were even started.
\nThe following example shows a snippet of a log file with failures and retries, with the maximum number of tries set to 10 (note the additional retries column):
3 0 47423 0 1499414498 34501 3\n3 1 8333 0 1499414498 42848 0\n3 2 8358 0 1499414498 51219 0\n4 0 72345 0 1499414498 59433 6\n1 3 41718 0 1499414498 67879 4\n1 4 8416 0 1499414498 76311 0\n3 3 33235 0 1499414498 84469 3\n0 0 failed 0 1499414498 84905 9\n2 0 failed 0 1499414498 86248 9\n3 4 8307 0 1499414498 92788 0\n\n
If the --failures-detailed option is used, the type of failure is reported in the time like this:
3 0 47423 0 1499414498 34501 3\n3 1 8333 0 1499414498 42848 0\n3 2 8358 0 1499414498 51219 0\n4 0 72345 0 1499414498 59433 6\n1 3 41718 0 1499414498 67879 4\n1 4 8416 0 1499414498 76311 0\n3 3 33235 0 1499414498 84469 3\n0 0 serialization 0 1499414498 84905 9\n2 0 serialization 0 1499414498 86248 9\n3 4 8307 0 1499414498 92788 0\n\n
When running a long test on hardware that can handle a lot of transactions, the log files can become very large. The --sampling-rate option can be used to log only a random sample of transactions.
With the --aggregate-interval option, a different format is used for the log files. Each log line describes one aggregation interval. It contains the following space-separated fields:
interval_startstart time of the interval, as a Unix-epoch time stamp
\nnum_transactionsnumber of transactions within the interval
\nsum_latencysum of transaction latencies
\nsum_latency_2sum of squares of transaction latencies
\nmin_latencyminimum transaction latency
\nmax_latencymaximum transaction latency
\nsum_lagsum of transaction start delays (zero unless --rate is specified)
sum_lag_2sum of squares of transaction start delays (zero unless --rate is specified)
min_lagminimum transaction start delay (zero unless --rate is specified)
max_lagmaximum transaction start delay (zero unless --rate is specified)
skippednumber of transactions skipped because they would have started too late (zero unless --rate and --latency-limit are specified)
retriednumber of retried transactions (zero unless --max-tries is not equal to one)
retriesnumber of retries after serialization or deadlock errors (zero unless --max-tries is not equal to one)
serialization_failuresnumber of transactions that got a serialization error and were not retried afterwards (zero unless --failures-detailed is specified)
deadlock_failuresnumber of transactions that got a deadlock error and were not retried afterwards (zero unless --failures-detailed is specified)
Here is some example output generated with this option:
\npgbench --aggregate-interval=10 --time=20 --client=10 --log --rate=1000 --latency-limit=10 --failures-detailed --max-tries=10 test\n\n1650260552 5178 26171317 177284491527 1136 44462 2647617 7321113867 0 9866 64 7564 28340 4148 0\n1650260562 4808 25573984 220121792172 1171 62083 3037380 9666800914 0 9998 598 7392 26621 4527 0\nNotice that while the plain (unaggregated) log format shows which script was used for each transaction, the aggregated format does not. Therefore if you need per-script data, you need to aggregate the data on your own.
\nWith the -r option, pgbench collects the following statistics for each statement:
latency \u2014 elapsed transaction time for each statement. pgbench reports an average value of all successful runs of the statement.
The number of failures in this statement. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\nThe number of retries after a serialization or a deadlock error in this statement. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\nThe report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
All values are computed for each statement executed by every client and are reported after the benchmark has finished.
\nFor the default script, the output will look similar to this:
\nstarting vacuum...end.\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 1\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 0 (0.000%)\nnumber of transactions above the 50.0 ms latency limit: 1311/10000 (13.110 %)\nlatency average = 28.488 ms\nlatency stddev = 21.009 ms\ninitial connection time = 69.068 ms\ntps = 346.224794 (without initial connection time)\nstatement latencies in milliseconds and failures:\n 0.012 0 \\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\n 0.319 0 BEGIN;\n 0.834 0 UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\n 0.641 0 SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\n 11.126 0 UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\n 12.961 0 UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\n 0.634 0 INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\n 1.957 0 END;\n\n
Another example of output for the default script using serializable default transaction isolation level (PGOPTIONS='-c default_transaction_isolation=serializable' pgbench ...):
starting vacuum...end.\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 1\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 10\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 6317/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 3683 (36.830%)\nnumber of transactions retried: 7667 (76.670%)\ntotal number of retries: 45339\nnumber of transactions above the 50.0 ms latency limit: 106/6317 (1.678 %)\nlatency average = 17.016 ms\nlatency stddev = 13.283 ms\ninitial connection time = 45.017 ms\ntps = 186.792667 (without initial connection time)\nstatement latencies in milliseconds, failures and retries:\n 0.006 0 0 \\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\n 0.385 0 0 BEGIN;\n 0.773 0 1 UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\n 0.624 0 0 SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\n 1.098 320 3762 UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\n 0.582 3363 41576 UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\n 0.465 0 0 INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\n 1.933 0 0 END;\n\n
If multiple script files are specified, all statistics are reported separately for each script file.
\nNote that collecting the additional timing information needed for per-statement latency computation adds some overhead. This will slow average execution speed and lower the computed TPS. The amount of slowdown varies significantly depending on platform and hardware. Comparing average TPS values with and without latency reporting enabled is a good way to measure if the timing overhead is significant.
\nWhen executing pgbench, there are three main types of errors:
\nErrors of the main program. They are the most serious and always result in an immediate exit from pgbench with the corresponding error message. They include:
\nerrors at the beginning of pgbench (e.g. an invalid option value);
\nerrors in the initialization mode (e.g. the query to create tables for built-in scripts fails);
\nerrors before starting threads (e.g. could not connect to the database server, syntax error in the meta command, thread creation failure);
\ninternal pgbench errors (which are supposed to never occur...).
\nErrors when the thread manages its clients (e.g. the client could not start a connection to the database server / the socket for connecting the client to the database server has become invalid). In such cases all clients of this thread stop while other threads continue to work. However, --exit-on-abort is specified, all of the threads stop immediately in this case.
Direct client errors. They lead to immediate exit from pgbench with the corresponding error message in the case of an internal pgbench error (which are supposed to never occur...) or when --exit-on-abort is specified. Otherwise in the worst case they only lead to the abortion of the failed client while other clients continue their run (but some client errors are handled without an abortion of the client and reported separately, see below). Later in this section it is assumed that the discussed errors are only the direct client errors and they are not internal pgbench errors.
A client's run is aborted in case of a serious error; for example, the connection with the database server was lost or the end of script was reached without completing the last transaction. In addition, if execution of an SQL or meta command fails for reasons other than serialization or deadlock errors, the client is aborted. Otherwise, if an SQL command fails with serialization or deadlock errors, the client is not aborted. In such cases, the current transaction is rolled back, which also includes setting the client variables as they were before the run of this transaction (it is assumed that one transaction script contains only one transaction; see What Is the \"Transaction\" Actually Performed in pgbench? for more information). Transactions with serialization or deadlock errors are repeated after rollbacks until they complete successfully or reach the maximum number of tries (specified by the --max-tries option) / the maximum time of retries (specified by the --latency-limit option) / the end of benchmark (specified by the --time option). If the last trial run fails, this transaction will be reported as failed but the client is not aborted and continues to work.
Without specifying the --max-tries option, a transaction will never be retried after a serialization or deadlock error because its default value is 1. Use an unlimited number of tries (--max-tries=0) and the --latency-limit option to limit only the maximum time of tries. You can also use the --time option to limit the benchmark duration under an unlimited number of tries.
Be careful when repeating scripts that contain multiple transactions: the script is always retried completely, so successful transactions can be performed several times.
\nBe careful when repeating transactions with shell commands. Unlike the results of SQL commands, the results of shell commands are not rolled back, except for the variable value of the \\setshell command.
The latency of a successful transaction includes the entire time of transaction execution with rollbacks and retries. The latency is measured only for successful transactions and commands but not for failed transactions or commands.
\nThe main report contains the number of failed transactions. If the --max-tries option is not equal to 1, the main report also contains statistics related to retries: the total number of retried transactions and total number of retries. The per-script report inherits all these fields from the main report. The per-statement report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
If you want to group failures by basic types in per-transaction and aggregation logs, as well as in the main and per-script reports, use the --failures-detailed option. If you also want to distinguish all errors and failures (errors without retrying) by type including which limit for retries was exceeded and how much it was exceeded by for the serialization/deadlock failures, use the --verbose-errors option.
You may specify the Table Access Method for the pgbench tables. The environment variable PGOPTIONS specifies database configuration options that are passed to PostgreSQL via the command line (See Section\u00a019.1.4). For example, a hypothetical default Table Access Method for the tables that pgbench creates called wuzza can be specified with:
PGOPTIONS='-c default_table_access_method=wuzza'\n\n
It is very easy to use pgbench to produce completely meaningless numbers. Here are some guidelines to help you get useful results.
\nIn the first place, never believe any test that runs for only a few seconds. Use the -t or -T option to make the run last at least a few minutes, so as to average out noise. In some cases you could need hours to get numbers that are reproducible. It's a good idea to try the test run a few times, to find out if your numbers are reproducible or not.
For the default TPC-B-like test scenario, the initialization scale factor (-s) should be at least as large as the largest number of clients you intend to test (-c); else you'll mostly be measuring update contention. There are only -s rows in the pgbench_branches table, and every transaction wants to update one of them, so -c values in excess of -s will undoubtedly result in lots of transactions blocked waiting for other transactions.
The default test scenario is also quite sensitive to how long it's been since the tables were initialized: accumulation of dead rows and dead space in the tables changes the results. To understand the results you must keep track of the total number of updates and when vacuuming happens. If autovacuum is enabled it can result in unpredictable changes in measured performance.
\nA limitation of pgbench is that it can itself become the bottleneck when trying to test a large number of client sessions. This can be alleviated by running pgbench on a different machine from the database server, although low network latency will be essential. It might even be useful to run several pgbench instances concurrently, on several client machines, against the same database server.
\nIf untrusted users have access to a database that has not adopted a secure schema usage pattern, do not run pgbench in that database. pgbench uses unqualified names and does not manipulate the search path.
\npgbench \u2014 run a benchmark test on PostgreSQL
\npgbench -i [option...] [dbname]
pgbench [option...] [dbname]
pgbench is a simple program for running benchmark tests on PostgreSQL. It runs the same sequence of SQL commands over and over, possibly in multiple concurrent database sessions, and then calculates the average transaction rate (transactions per second). By default, pgbench tests a scenario that is loosely based on TPC-B, involving five SELECT, UPDATE, and INSERT commands per transaction. However, it is easy to test other cases by writing your own transaction script files.
Typical output from pgbench looks like:
\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 10\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 0 (0.000%)\nlatency average = 11.013 ms\nlatency stddev = 7.351 ms\ninitial connection time = 45.758 ms\ntps = 896.967014 (without initial connection time)\n\n
The first seven lines report some of the most important parameter settings. The sixth line reports the maximum number of tries for transactions with serialization or deadlock errors (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information). The eighth line reports the number of transactions completed and intended (the latter being just the product of number of clients and number of transactions per client); these will be equal unless the run failed before completion or some SQL command(s) failed. (In -T mode, only the actual number of transactions is printed.) The next line reports the number of failed transactions due to serialization or deadlock errors (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information). The last line reports the number of transactions per second.
The default TPC-B-like transaction test requires specific tables to be set up beforehand. pgbench should be invoked with the -i (initialize) option to create and populate these tables. (When you are testing a custom script, you don't need this step, but will instead need to do whatever setup your test needs.) Initialization looks like:
pgbench -i [\nother-options]dbname\n
where dbname is the name of the already-created database to test in. (You may also need -h, -p, and/or -U options to specify how to connect to the database server.)
pgbench -i creates four tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers, destroying any existing tables of these names. Be very careful to use another database if you have tables having these names!
At the default \u201cscale factor\u201d of 1, the tables initially contain this many rows:
\ntable # of rows\n---------------------------------\npgbench_branches 1\npgbench_tellers 10\npgbench_accounts 100000\npgbench_history 0\n\n
You can (and, for most purposes, probably should) increase the number of rows by using the -s (scale factor) option. The -F (fillfactor) option might also be used at this point.
Once you have done the necessary setup, you can run your benchmark with a command that doesn't include -i, that is
pgbench [\noptions]dbname\n
In nearly all cases, you'll need some options to make a useful test. The most important options are -c (number of clients), -t (number of transactions), -T (time limit), and -f (specify a custom script file). See below for a full list.
The following is divided into three subsections. Different options are used during database initialization and while running benchmarks, but some options are useful in both cases.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line initialization arguments:
\n[-d] dbname[--dbname=]dbname Specifies the name of the database to test in. If this is not specified, the environment variable PGDATABASE is used. If that is not set, the user name specified for the connection is used.
-i--initialize Required to invoke initialization mode.
\n-I init_steps--init-steps=init_steps Perform just a selected set of the normal initialization steps. init_steps specifies the initialization steps to be performed, using one character per step. Each step is invoked in the specified order. The default is dtgvp. The available steps are:
d (Drop) Drop any existing pgbench tables.
\nt (create Tables) Create the tables used by the standard pgbench scenario, namely pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
g or G (Generate data, client-side or server-side) Generate data and load it into the standard tables, replacing any data already present.
\nWith g (client-side data generation), data is generated in pgbench client and then sent to the server. This uses the client/server bandwidth extensively through a COPY. pgbench uses the FREEZE option to load data into ordinary (non-partition) tables with version 14 or later of PostgreSQL to speed up subsequent VACUUM. Using g causes logging to print one message every 100,000 rows while generating data for all tables.
With G (server-side data generation), only small queries are sent from the pgbench client and then data is actually generated in the server. No significant bandwidth is required for this variant, but the server will do more work. Using G causes logging not to print any progress message while generating data.
The default initialization behavior uses client-side data generation (equivalent to g).
v (Vacuum) Invoke VACUUM on the standard tables.
p (create Primary keys) Create primary key indexes on the standard tables.
\nf (create Foreign keys) Create foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (Note that this step is not performed by default.)
\n-F fillfactor--fillfactor=fillfactor Create the pgbench_accounts, pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables with the given fillfactor. Default is 100.
-n--no-vacuum Perform no vacuuming during initialization. (This option suppresses the v initialization step, even if it was specified in -I.)
-q--quiet Switch logging to quiet mode, producing only one progress message per 5 seconds. The default logging prints one message each 100,000 rows, which often outputs many lines per second (especially on good hardware).
\nThis setting has no effect if G is specified in -I.
-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factor Multiply the number of rows generated by the scale factor. For example, -s 100 will create 10,000,000 rows in the pgbench_accounts table. Default is 1. When the scale is 20,000 or larger, the columns used to hold account identifiers (aid columns) will switch to using larger integers (bigint), in order to be big enough to hold the range of account identifiers.
--foreign-keys Create foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (This option adds the f step to the initialization step sequence, if it is not already present.)
--index-tablespace=index_tablespace Create indexes in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--partition-method=NAME Create a partitioned pgbench_accounts table with NAME method. Expected values are range or hash. This option requires that --partitions is set to non-zero. If unspecified, default is range.
--partitions=NUM Create a partitioned pgbench_accounts table with NUM partitions of nearly equal size for the scaled number of accounts. Default is 0, meaning no partitioning.
--tablespace=tablespace Create tables in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--unlogged-tables Create all tables as unlogged tables, rather than permanent tables.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line benchmarking arguments:
\n-b scriptname[@weight]--builtin=scriptname[@weight] Add the specified built-in script to the list of scripts to be executed. Available built-in scripts are: tpcb-like, simple-update and select-only. Unambiguous prefixes of built-in names are accepted. With the special name list, show the list of built-in scripts and exit immediately.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. See below for details.
-c clients--client=clients Number of clients simulated, that is, number of concurrent database sessions. Default is 1.
\n-C--connect Establish a new connection for each transaction, rather than doing it just once per client session. This is useful to measure the connection overhead.
\n-D varname=value--define=varname=value Define a variable for use by a custom script (see below). Multiple -D options are allowed.
-f filename[@weight]--file=filename[@weight] Add a transaction script read from filename to the list of scripts to be executed.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. (To use a script file name that includes an @ character, append a weight so that there is no ambiguity, for example filen@me@1.) See below for details.
-j threads--jobs=threads Number of worker threads within pgbench. Using more than one thread can be helpful on multi-CPU machines. Clients are distributed as evenly as possible among available threads. Default is 1.
\n-l--log Write information about each transaction to a log file. See below for details.
\n-L limit--latency-limit=limit Transactions that last more than limit milliseconds are counted and reported separately, as late.
When throttling is used (--rate=...), transactions that lag behind schedule by more than limit ms, and thus have no hope of meeting the latency limit, are not sent to the server at all. They are counted and reported separately as skipped.
When the --max-tries option is used, a transaction which fails due to a serialization anomaly or from a deadlock will not be retried if the total time of all its tries is greater than limit ms. To limit only the time of tries and not their number, use --max-tries=0. By default, the option --max-tries is set to 1 and transactions with serialization/deadlock errors are not retried. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information about retrying such transactions.
-M querymode--protocol=querymode Protocol to use for submitting queries to the server:
\nsimple: use simple query protocol.
extended: use extended query protocol.
prepared: use extended query protocol with prepared statements.
In the prepared mode, pgbench reuses the parse analysis result starting from the second query iteration, so pgbench runs faster than in other modes.
The default is simple query protocol. (See Chapter\u00a054 for more information.)
\n-n--no-vacuum Perform no vacuuming before running the test. This option is necessary if you are running a custom test scenario that does not include the standard tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
-N--skip-some-updates Run built-in simple-update script. Shorthand for -b simple-update.
-P sec--progress=sec Show progress report every sec seconds. The report includes the time since the beginning of the run, the TPS since the last report, and the transaction latency average, standard deviation, and the number of failed transactions since the last report. Under throttling (-R), the latency is computed with respect to the transaction scheduled start time, not the actual transaction beginning time, thus it also includes the average schedule lag time. When --max-tries is used to enable transaction retries after serialization/deadlock errors, the report includes the number of retried transactions and the sum of all retries.
-r--report-per-command Report the following statistics for each command after the benchmark finishes: the average per-statement latency (execution time from the perspective of the client), the number of failures, and the number of retries after serialization or deadlock errors in this command. The report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
-R rate--rate=rate Execute transactions targeting the specified rate instead of running as fast as possible (the default). The rate is given in transactions per second. If the targeted rate is above the maximum possible rate, the rate limit won't impact the results.
\nThe rate is targeted by starting transactions along a Poisson-distributed schedule time line. The expected start time schedule moves forward based on when the client first started, not when the previous transaction ended. That approach means that when transactions go past their original scheduled end time, it is possible for later ones to catch up again.
\nWhen throttling is active, the transaction latency reported at the end of the run is calculated from the scheduled start times, so it includes the time each transaction had to wait for the previous transaction to finish. The wait time is called the schedule lag time, and its average and maximum are also reported separately. The transaction latency with respect to the actual transaction start time, i.e., the time spent executing the transaction in the database, can be computed by subtracting the schedule lag time from the reported latency.
\nIf --latency-limit is used together with --rate, a transaction can lag behind so much that it is already over the latency limit when the previous transaction ends, because the latency is calculated from the scheduled start time. Such transactions are not sent to the server, but are skipped altogether and counted separately.
A high schedule lag time is an indication that the system cannot process transactions at the specified rate, with the chosen number of clients and threads. When the average transaction execution time is longer than the scheduled interval between each transaction, each successive transaction will fall further behind, and the schedule lag time will keep increasing the longer the test run is. When that happens, you will have to reduce the specified transaction rate.
\n-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factor Report the specified scale factor in pgbench's output. With the built-in tests, this is not necessary; the correct scale factor will be detected by counting the number of rows in the pgbench_branches table. However, when testing only custom benchmarks (-f option), the scale factor will be reported as 1 unless this option is used.
-S--select-only Run built-in select-only script. Shorthand for -b select-only.
-t transactions--transactions=transactions Number of transactions each client runs. Default is 10.
\n-T seconds--time=seconds Run the test for this many seconds, rather than a fixed number of transactions per client. -t and -T are mutually exclusive.
-v--vacuum-all Vacuum all four standard tables before running the test. With neither -n nor -v, pgbench will vacuum the pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables, and will truncate pgbench_history.
--aggregate-interval=seconds Length of aggregation interval (in seconds). May be used only with -l option. With this option, the log contains per-interval summary data, as described below.
--exit-on-abort Exit immediately when any client is aborted due to some error. Without this option, even when a client is aborted, other clients could continue their run as specified by -t or -T option, and pgbench will print an incomplete results in this case.
Note that serialization failures or deadlock failures do not abort the client, so they are not affected by this option. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\n--failures-detailed Report failures in per-transaction and aggregation logs, as well as in the main and per-script reports, grouped by the following types:
\nserialization failures;
\ndeadlock failures;
\nSee Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\n--log-prefix=prefix Set the filename prefix for the log files created by --log. The default is pgbench_log.
--max-tries=number_of_tries Enable retries for transactions with serialization/deadlock errors and set the maximum number of these tries. This option can be combined with the --latency-limit option which limits the total time of all transaction tries; moreover, you cannot use an unlimited number of tries (--max-tries=0) without --latency-limit or --time. The default value is 1 and transactions with serialization/deadlock errors are not retried. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information about retrying such transactions.
--progress-timestamp When showing progress (option -P), use a timestamp (Unix epoch) instead of the number of seconds since the beginning of the run. The unit is in seconds, with millisecond precision after the dot. This helps compare logs generated by various tools.
--random-seed=seed Set random generator seed. Seeds the system random number generator, which then produces a sequence of initial generator states, one for each thread. Values for seed may be: time (the default, the seed is based on the current time), rand (use a strong random source, failing if none is available), or an unsigned decimal integer value. The random generator is invoked explicitly from a pgbench script (random... functions) or implicitly (for instance option --rate uses it to schedule transactions). When explicitly set, the value used for seeding is shown on the terminal. Any value allowed for seed may also be provided through the environment variable PGBENCH_RANDOM_SEED. To ensure that the provided seed impacts all possible uses, put this option first or use the environment variable.
Setting the seed explicitly allows to reproduce a pgbench run exactly, as far as random numbers are concerned. As the random state is managed per thread, this means the exact same pgbench run for an identical invocation if there is one client per thread and there are no external or data dependencies. From a statistical viewpoint reproducing runs exactly is a bad idea because it can hide the performance variability or improve performance unduly, e.g., by hitting the same pages as a previous run. However, it may also be of great help for debugging, for instance re-running a tricky case which leads to an error. Use wisely.
--sampling-rate=rate Sampling rate, used when writing data into the log, to reduce the amount of log generated. If this option is given, only the specified fraction of transactions are logged. 1.0 means all transactions will be logged, 0.05 means only 5% of the transactions will be logged.
\nRemember to take the sampling rate into account when processing the log file. For example, when computing TPS values, you need to multiply the numbers accordingly (e.g., with 0.01 sample rate, you'll only get 1/100 of the actual TPS).
\n--show-script=scriptname Show the actual code of builtin script scriptname on stderr, and exit immediately.
--verbose-errors Print messages about all errors and failures (errors without retrying) including which limit for retries was exceeded and how far it was exceeded for the serialization/deadlock failures. (Note that in this case the output can be significantly increased.) See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\npgbench also accepts the following common command-line arguments for connection parameters and other common settings:
\n--debug Print debugging output.
\n-h hostname--host=hostname The database server's host name
\n-p port--port=port The database server's port number
\n-U login--username=login The user name to connect as
\n-V--version Print the pgbench version and exit.
\n-?--help Show help about pgbench command line arguments, and exit.
\nA successful run will exit with status 0. Exit status 1 indicates static problems such as invalid command-line options or internal errors which are supposed to never occur. Early errors that occur when starting benchmark such as initial connection failures also exit with status 1. Errors during the run such as database errors or problems in the script will result in exit status 2. In the latter case, pgbench will print partial results if --exit-on-abort option is not specified.
PGDATABASEPGHOSTPGPORTPGUSER Default connection parameters.
\nThis utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, uses the environment variables supported by libpq (see Section\u00a032.15).
\nThe environment variable PG_COLOR specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. Possible values are always, auto and never.
pgbench executes test scripts chosen randomly from a specified list. The scripts may include built-in scripts specified with -b and user-provided scripts specified with -f. Each script may be given a relative weight specified after an @ so as to change its selection probability. The default weight is 1. Scripts with a weight of 0 are ignored.
The default built-in transaction script (also invoked with -b tpcb-like) issues seven commands per transaction over randomly chosen aid, tid, bid and delta. The scenario is inspired by the TPC-B benchmark, but is not actually TPC-B, hence the name.
BEGIN;
UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;
SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;
UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;
UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;
INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);
END;
If you select the simple-update built-in (also -N), steps 4 and 5 aren't included in the transaction. This will avoid update contention on these tables, but it makes the test case even less like TPC-B.
If you select the select-only built-in (also -S), only the SELECT is issued.
pgbench has support for running custom benchmark scenarios by replacing the default transaction script (described above) with a transaction script read from a file (-f option). In this case a \u201ctransaction\u201d counts as one execution of a script file.
A script file contains one or more SQL commands terminated by semicolons. Empty lines and lines beginning with -- are ignored. Script files can also contain \u201cmeta commands\u201d, which are interpreted by pgbench itself, as described below.
Before PostgreSQL 9.6, SQL commands in script files were terminated by newlines, and so they could not be continued across lines. Now a semicolon is required to separate consecutive SQL commands (though an SQL command does not need one if it is followed by a meta command). If you need to create a script file that works with both old and new versions of pgbench, be sure to write each SQL command on a single line ending with a semicolon.
\nIt is assumed that pgbench scripts do not contain incomplete blocks of SQL transactions. If at runtime the client reaches the end of the script without completing the last transaction block, it will be aborted.
\nThere is a simple variable-substitution facility for script files. Variable names must consist of letters (including non-Latin letters), digits, and underscores, with the first character not being a digit. Variables can be set by the command-line -D option, explained above, or by the meta commands explained below. In addition to any variables preset by -D command-line options, there are a few variables that are preset automatically, listed in Table\u00a0301. A value specified for these variables using -D takes precedence over the automatic presets. Once set, a variable's value can be inserted into an SQL command by writing :variablename. When running more than one client session, each session has its own set of variables. pgbench supports up to 255 variable uses in one statement.
Table\u00a0301.\u00a0pgbench Automatic Variables
\n| Variable | \nDescription | \n
|---|---|
client_id | \nunique number identifying the client session (starts from zero) | \n
default_seed | \nseed used in hash and pseudorandom permutation functions by default | \n
random_seed | \nrandom generator seed (unless overwritten with -D) | \n
scale | \ncurrent scale factor | \n
Script file meta commands begin with a backslash (\\) and normally extend to the end of the line, although they can be continued to additional lines by writing backslash-return. Arguments to a meta command are separated by white space. These meta commands are supported:
\\gset [prefix] \\aset [prefix] These commands may be used to end SQL queries, taking the place of the terminating semicolon (;).
When the \\gset command is used, the preceding SQL query is expected to return one row, the columns of which are stored into variables named after column names, and prefixed with prefix if provided.
When the \\aset command is used, all combined SQL queries (separated by \\;) have their columns stored into variables named after column names, and prefixed with prefix if provided. If a query returns no row, no assignment is made and the variable can be tested for existence to detect this. If a query returns more than one row, the last value is kept.
\\gset and \\aset cannot be used in pipeline mode, since the query results are not yet available by the time the commands would need them.
The following example puts the final account balance from the first query into variable abalance, and fills variables p_two and p_three with integers from the third query. The result of the second query is discarded. The result of the two last combined queries are stored in variables four and five.
UPDATE pgbench_accounts\n SET abalance = abalance + :delta\n WHERE aid = :aid\n RETURNING abalance \\gset\n-- compound of two queries\nSELECT 1 \\;\nSELECT 2 AS two, 3 AS three \\gset p_\nSELECT 4 AS four \\; SELECT 5 AS five \\aset\n\n
\\if expression\\elif expression\\else\\endif This group of commands implements nestable conditional blocks, similarly to psql's \\if expression. Conditional expressions are identical to those with \\set, with non-zero values interpreted as true.
\\set varname expression Sets variable varname to a value calculated from expression. The expression may contain the NULL constant, Boolean constants TRUE and FALSE, integer constants such as 5432, double constants such as 3.14159, references to variables :variablename, operators with their usual SQL precedence and associativity, function calls, SQL CASE generic conditional expressions and parentheses.
Functions and most operators return NULL on NULL input.
For conditional purposes, non zero numerical values are TRUE, zero numerical values and NULL are FALSE.
Too large or small integer and double constants, as well as integer arithmetic operators (+, -, * and /) raise errors on overflows.
When no final ELSE clause is provided to a CASE, the default value is NULL.
Examples:
\n\\set ntellers 10 * :scale\n\\set aid (1021 * random(1, 100000 * :scale)) % \\\n (100000 * :scale) + 1\n\\set divx CASE WHEN :x <> 0 THEN :y/:x ELSE NULL END\n\n
\\sleep number [ us | ms | s ] Causes script execution to sleep for the specified duration in microseconds (us), milliseconds (ms) or seconds (s). If the unit is omitted then seconds are the default. number can be either an integer constant or a :variablename reference to a variable having an integer value.
Example:
\n\\sleep 10 ms\n\n
\\setshell varname command [ argument ... ] Sets variable varname to the result of the shell command command with the given argument(s). The command must return an integer value through its standard output.
command and each argument can be either a text constant or a :variablename reference to a variable. If you want to use an argument starting with a colon, write an additional colon at the beginning of argument.
Example:
\n\\setshell variable_to_be_assigned command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
\\shell command [ argument ... ] Same as \\setshell, but the result of the command is discarded.
Example:
\n\\shell command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
\\startpipeline\\syncpipeline\\endpipeline This group of commands implements pipelining of SQL statements. A pipeline must begin with a \\startpipeline and end with an \\endpipeline. In between there may be any number of \\syncpipeline commands, which sends a sync message without ending the ongoing pipeline and flushing the send buffer. In pipeline mode, statements are sent to the server without waiting for the results of previous statements. See Section\u00a032.5 for more details. Pipeline mode requires the use of extended query protocol.
The arithmetic, bitwise, comparison and logical operators listed in Table\u00a0302 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set. The operators are listed in increasing precedence order. Except as noted, operators taking two numeric inputs will produce a double value if either input is double, otherwise they produce an integer result.
Table\u00a0302.\u00a0pgbench Operators
\n| \n Operator \nDescription \nExample(s) \n | \n
|---|
| \n
Logical OR \n
| \n
| \n
Logical AND \n
| \n
| \n
Logical NOT \n
| \n
| \n
Boolean value tests \n
| \n
| \n
Nullness tests \n
| \n
| \n
Equal \n
| \n
| \n
Not equal \n
| \n
| \n
Not equal \n
| \n
| \n
Less than \n
| \n
| \n
Less than or equal to \n
| \n
| \n
Greater than \n
| \n
| \n
Greater than or equal to \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise OR \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise XOR \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise AND \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise NOT \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise shift left \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise shift right \n
| \n
| \n
Addition \n
| \n
| \n
Subtraction \n
| \n
| \n
Multiplication \n
| \n
| \n
Division (truncates the result towards zero if both inputs are integers) \n
| \n
| \n
Modulo (remainder) \n
| \n
| \n
Negation \n
| \n
The functions listed in Table\u00a0303 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set.
Table\u00a0303.\u00a0pgbench Functions
\n| \n Function \nDescription \nExample(s) \n | \n
|---|
| \n
Absolute value \n
| \n
| \n
Prints the argument to stderr, and returns the argument. \n
| \n
| \n
Casts to double. \n
| \n
| \n
Exponential (
| \n
| \n
Selects the largest value among the arguments. \n
| \n
| \n
This is an alias for
| \n
| \n
Computes FNV-1a hash. \n
| \n
| \n
Computes MurmurHash2 hash. \n
| \n
| \n
Casts to integer. \n
| \n
| \n
Selects the smallest value among the arguments. \n
| \n
| \n
Natural logarithm \n
| \n
| \n
Modulo (remainder) \n
| \n
| \n
Permuted value of
| \n
| \n
Approximate value of \u03c0 \n
| \n
| \n
| \n
| \n
Computes a uniformly-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes an exponentially-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes a Gaussian-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes a Zipfian-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Square root \n
| \n
The random function generates values using a uniform distribution, that is all the values are drawn within the specified range with equal probability. The random_exponential, random_gaussian and random_zipfian functions require an additional double parameter which determines the precise shape of the distribution.
For an exponential distribution, parameter controls the distribution by truncating a quickly-decreasing exponential distribution at parameter, and then projecting onto integers between the bounds. To be precise, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0exp(-parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0min)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/\u00a0(1\u00a0-\u00a0exp(-parameter))
Then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i) - f(i + 1).
Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to min are accessed, and the less frequently values close to max are accessed. The closer to 0 parameter is, the flatter (more uniform) the access distribution. A crude approximation of the distribution is that the most frequent 1% values in the range, close to min, are drawn parameter% of the time. The parameter value must be strictly positive.
For a Gaussian distribution, the interval is mapped onto a standard normal distribution (the classical bell-shaped Gaussian curve) truncated at -parameter on the left and +parameter on the right. Values in the middle of the interval are more likely to be drawn. To be precise, if PHI(x) is the cumulative distribution function of the standard normal distribution, with mean mu defined as (max + min) / 2.0, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0PHI(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0mu)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/
\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0PHI(parameter)\u00a0-\u00a01)
then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i + 0.5) - f(i - 0.5). Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to the middle of the interval are drawn, and the less frequently values close to the min and max bounds. About 67% of values are drawn from the middle 1.0 / parameter, that is a relative 0.5 / parameter around the mean, and 95% in the middle 2.0 / parameter, that is a relative 1.0 / parameter around the mean; for instance, if parameter is 4.0, 67% of values are drawn from the middle quarter (1.0 / 4.0) of the interval (i.e., from 3.0 / 8.0 to 5.0 / 8.0) and 95% from the middle half (2.0 / 4.0) of the interval (second and third quartiles). The minimum allowed parameter value is 2.0.
random_zipfian generates a bounded Zipfian distribution. parameter defines how skewed the distribution is. The larger the parameter, the more frequently values closer to the beginning of the interval are drawn. The distribution is such that, assuming the range starts from 1, the ratio of the probability of drawing k versus drawing k+1 is ((. For example, k+1)/k)**parameterrandom_zipfian(1, ..., 2.5) produces the value 1 about (2/1)**2.5 = 5.66 times more frequently than 2, which itself is produced (3/2)**2.5 = 2.76 times more frequently than 3, and so on.
pgbench's implementation is based on \"Non-Uniform Random Variate Generation\", Luc Devroye, p. 550-551, Springer 1986. Due to limitations of that algorithm, the parameter value is restricted to the range [1.001, 1000].
When designing a benchmark which selects rows non-uniformly, be aware that the rows chosen may be correlated with other data such as IDs from a sequence or the physical row ordering, which may skew performance measurements.
\nTo avoid this, you may wish to use the permute function, or some other additional step with similar effect, to shuffle the selected rows and remove such correlations.
Hash functions hash, hash_murmur2 and hash_fnv1a accept an input value and an optional seed parameter. In case the seed isn't provided the value of :default_seed is used, which is initialized randomly unless set by the command-line -D option.
permute accepts an input value, a size, and an optional seed parameter. It generates a pseudorandom permutation of integers in the range [0, size), and returns the index of the input value in the permuted values. The permutation chosen is parameterized by the seed, which defaults to :default_seed, if not specified. Unlike the hash functions, permute ensures that there are no collisions or holes in the output values. Input values outside the interval are interpreted modulo the size. The function raises an error if the size is not positive. permute can be used to scatter the distribution of non-uniform random functions such as random_zipfian or random_exponential so that values drawn more often are not trivially correlated. For instance, the following pgbench script simulates a possible real world workload typical for social media and blogging platforms where a few accounts generate excessive load:
\\set size 1000000\n\\set r random_zipfian(1, :size, 1.07)\n\\set k 1 + permute(:r, :size)\n\n
In some cases several distinct distributions are needed which don't correlate with each other and this is when the optional seed parameter comes in handy:
\n\\set k1 1 + permute(:r, :size, :default_seed + 123)\n\\set k2 1 + permute(:r, :size, :default_seed + 321)\n\n
A similar behavior can also be approximated with hash:
\\set size 1000000\n\\set r random_zipfian(1, 100 * :size, 1.07)\n\\set k 1 + abs(hash(:r)) % :size\n\n
However, since hash generates collisions, some values will not be reachable and others will be more frequent than expected from the original distribution.
As an example, the full definition of the built-in TPC-B-like transaction is:
\n\\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n\\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n\\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n\\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\nBEGIN;\nUPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\nSELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\nUPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\nUPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\nINSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\nEND;\n\n
This script allows each iteration of the transaction to reference different, randomly-chosen rows. (This example also shows why it's important for each client session to have its own variables \u2014 otherwise they'd not be independently touching different rows.)
\nWith the -l option (but without the --aggregate-interval option), pgbench writes information about each transaction to a log file. The log file will be named prefix.nnnprefix defaults to pgbench_log, and nnn is the PID of the pgbench process. The prefix can be changed by using the --log-prefix option. If the -j option is 2 or higher, so that there are multiple worker threads, each will have its own log file. The first worker will use the same name for its log file as in the standard single worker case. The additional log files for the other workers will be named prefix.nnn.mmmmmm is a sequential number for each worker starting with 1.
Each line in a log file describes one transaction. It contains the following space-separated fields:
\nclient_ididentifies the client session that ran the transaction
\ntransaction_nocounts how many transactions have been run by that session
\ntimetransaction's elapsed time, in microseconds
\nscript_noidentifies the script file that was used for the transaction (useful when multiple scripts are specified with -f or -b)
time_epochtransaction's completion time, as a Unix-epoch time stamp
\ntime_usfractional-second part of transaction's completion time, in microseconds
\nschedule_lagtransaction start delay, that is the difference between the transaction's scheduled start time and the time it actually started, in microseconds (present only if --rate is specified)
retriescount of retries after serialization or deadlock errors during the transaction (present only if --max-tries is not equal to one)
When both --rate and --latency-limit are used, the time for a skipped transaction will be reported as skipped. If the transaction ends with a failure, its time will be reported as failed. If you use the --failures-detailed option, the time of the failed transaction will be reported as serialization or deadlock depending on the type of failure (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information).
Here is a snippet of a log file generated in a single-client run:
\n0 199 2241 0 1175850568 995598\n0 200 2465 0 1175850568 998079\n0 201 2513 0 1175850569 608\n0 202 2038 0 1175850569 2663\n\n
Another example with --rate=100 and --latency-limit=5 (note the additional schedule_lag column):
0 81 4621 0 1412881037 912698 3005\n0 82 6173 0 1412881037 914578 4304\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5217\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5099\n0 83 4722 0 1412881037 916203 3108\n0 84 4142 0 1412881037 918023 2333\n0 85 2465 0 1412881037 919759 740\n\n
In this example, transaction 82 was late, because its latency (6.173 ms) was over the 5 ms limit. The next two transactions were skipped, because they were already late before they were even started.
\nThe following example shows a snippet of a log file with failures and retries, with the maximum number of tries set to 10 (note the additional retries column):
3 0 47423 0 1499414498 34501 3\n3 1 8333 0 1499414498 42848 0\n3 2 8358 0 1499414498 51219 0\n4 0 72345 0 1499414498 59433 6\n1 3 41718 0 1499414498 67879 4\n1 4 8416 0 1499414498 76311 0\n3 3 33235 0 1499414498 84469 3\n0 0 failed 0 1499414498 84905 9\n2 0 failed 0 1499414498 86248 9\n3 4 8307 0 1499414498 92788 0\n\n
If the --failures-detailed option is used, the type of failure is reported in the time like this:
3 0 47423 0 1499414498 34501 3\n3 1 8333 0 1499414498 42848 0\n3 2 8358 0 1499414498 51219 0\n4 0 72345 0 1499414498 59433 6\n1 3 41718 0 1499414498 67879 4\n1 4 8416 0 1499414498 76311 0\n3 3 33235 0 1499414498 84469 3\n0 0 serialization 0 1499414498 84905 9\n2 0 serialization 0 1499414498 86248 9\n3 4 8307 0 1499414498 92788 0\n\n
When running a long test on hardware that can handle a lot of transactions, the log files can become very large. The --sampling-rate option can be used to log only a random sample of transactions.
With the --aggregate-interval option, a different format is used for the log files. Each log line describes one aggregation interval. It contains the following space-separated fields:
interval_startstart time of the interval, as a Unix-epoch time stamp
\nnum_transactionsnumber of transactions within the interval
\nsum_latencysum of transaction latencies
\nsum_latency_2sum of squares of transaction latencies
\nmin_latencyminimum transaction latency
\nmax_latencymaximum transaction latency
\nsum_lagsum of transaction start delays (zero unless --rate is specified)
sum_lag_2sum of squares of transaction start delays (zero unless --rate is specified)
min_lagminimum transaction start delay (zero unless --rate is specified)
max_lagmaximum transaction start delay (zero unless --rate is specified)
skippednumber of transactions skipped because they would have started too late (zero unless --rate and --latency-limit are specified)
retriednumber of retried transactions (zero unless --max-tries is not equal to one)
retriesnumber of retries after serialization or deadlock errors (zero unless --max-tries is not equal to one)
serialization_failuresnumber of transactions that got a serialization error and were not retried afterwards (zero unless --failures-detailed is specified)
deadlock_failuresnumber of transactions that got a deadlock error and were not retried afterwards (zero unless --failures-detailed is specified)
Here is some example output generated with this option:
\npgbench --aggregate-interval=10 --time=20 --client=10 --log --rate=1000 --latency-limit=10 --failures-detailed --max-tries=10 test\n\n1650260552 5178 26171317 177284491527 1136 44462 2647617 7321113867 0 9866 64 7564 28340 4148 0\n1650260562 4808 25573984 220121792172 1171 62083 3037380 9666800914 0 9998 598 7392 26621 4527 0\nNotice that while the plain (unaggregated) log format shows which script was used for each transaction, the aggregated format does not. Therefore if you need per-script data, you need to aggregate the data on your own.
\nWith the -r option, pgbench collects the following statistics for each statement:
latency \u2014 elapsed transaction time for each statement. pgbench reports an average value of all successful runs of the statement.
The number of failures in this statement. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\nThe number of retries after a serialization or a deadlock error in this statement. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\nThe report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
All values are computed for each statement executed by every client and are reported after the benchmark has finished.
\nFor the default script, the output will look similar to this:
\nstarting vacuum...end.\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 1\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 0 (0.000%)\nnumber of transactions above the 50.0 ms latency limit: 1311/10000 (13.110 %)\nlatency average = 28.488 ms\nlatency stddev = 21.009 ms\ninitial connection time = 69.068 ms\ntps = 346.224794 (without initial connection time)\nstatement latencies in milliseconds and failures:\n 0.012 0 \\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\n 0.319 0 BEGIN;\n 0.834 0 UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\n 0.641 0 SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\n 11.126 0 UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\n 12.961 0 UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\n 0.634 0 INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\n 1.957 0 END;\n\n
Another example of output for the default script using serializable default transaction isolation level (PGOPTIONS='-c default_transaction_isolation=serializable' pgbench ...):
starting vacuum...end.\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 1\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 10\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 6317/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 3683 (36.830%)\nnumber of transactions retried: 7667 (76.670%)\ntotal number of retries: 45339\nnumber of transactions above the 50.0 ms latency limit: 106/6317 (1.678 %)\nlatency average = 17.016 ms\nlatency stddev = 13.283 ms\ninitial connection time = 45.017 ms\ntps = 186.792667 (without initial connection time)\nstatement latencies in milliseconds, failures and retries:\n 0.006 0 0 \\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\n 0.385 0 0 BEGIN;\n 0.773 0 1 UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\n 0.624 0 0 SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\n 1.098 320 3762 UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\n 0.582 3363 41576 UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\n 0.465 0 0 INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\n 1.933 0 0 END;\n\n
If multiple script files are specified, all statistics are reported separately for each script file.
\nNote that collecting the additional timing information needed for per-statement latency computation adds some overhead. This will slow average execution speed and lower the computed TPS. The amount of slowdown varies significantly depending on platform and hardware. Comparing average TPS values with and without latency reporting enabled is a good way to measure if the timing overhead is significant.
\nWhen executing pgbench, there are three main types of errors:
\nErrors of the main program. They are the most serious and always result in an immediate exit from pgbench with the corresponding error message. They include:
\nerrors at the beginning of pgbench (e.g. an invalid option value);
\nerrors in the initialization mode (e.g. the query to create tables for built-in scripts fails);
\nerrors before starting threads (e.g. could not connect to the database server, syntax error in the meta command, thread creation failure);
\ninternal pgbench errors (which are supposed to never occur...).
\nErrors when the thread manages its clients (e.g. the client could not start a connection to the database server / the socket for connecting the client to the database server has become invalid). In such cases all clients of this thread stop while other threads continue to work. However, --exit-on-abort is specified, all of the threads stop immediately in this case.
Direct client errors. They lead to immediate exit from pgbench with the corresponding error message in the case of an internal pgbench error (which are supposed to never occur...) or when --exit-on-abort is specified. Otherwise in the worst case they only lead to the abortion of the failed client while other clients continue their run (but some client errors are handled without an abortion of the client and reported separately, see below). Later in this section it is assumed that the discussed errors are only the direct client errors and they are not internal pgbench errors.
A client's run is aborted in case of a serious error; for example, the connection with the database server was lost or the end of script was reached without completing the last transaction. In addition, if execution of an SQL or meta command fails for reasons other than serialization or deadlock errors, the client is aborted. Otherwise, if an SQL command fails with serialization or deadlock errors, the client is not aborted. In such cases, the current transaction is rolled back, which also includes setting the client variables as they were before the run of this transaction (it is assumed that one transaction script contains only one transaction; see What Is the \"Transaction\" Actually Performed in pgbench? for more information). Transactions with serialization or deadlock errors are repeated after rollbacks until they complete successfully or reach the maximum number of tries (specified by the --max-tries option) / the maximum time of retries (specified by the --latency-limit option) / the end of benchmark (specified by the --time option). If the last trial run fails, this transaction will be reported as failed but the client is not aborted and continues to work.
Without specifying the --max-tries option, a transaction will never be retried after a serialization or deadlock error because its default value is 1. Use an unlimited number of tries (--max-tries=0) and the --latency-limit option to limit only the maximum time of tries. You can also use the --time option to limit the benchmark duration under an unlimited number of tries.
Be careful when repeating scripts that contain multiple transactions: the script is always retried completely, so successful transactions can be performed several times.
\nBe careful when repeating transactions with shell commands. Unlike the results of SQL commands, the results of shell commands are not rolled back, except for the variable value of the \\setshell command.
The latency of a successful transaction includes the entire time of transaction execution with rollbacks and retries. The latency is measured only for successful transactions and commands but not for failed transactions or commands.
\nThe main report contains the number of failed transactions. If the --max-tries option is not equal to 1, the main report also contains statistics related to retries: the total number of retried transactions and total number of retries. The per-script report inherits all these fields from the main report. The per-statement report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
If you want to group failures by basic types in per-transaction and aggregation logs, as well as in the main and per-script reports, use the --failures-detailed option. If you also want to distinguish all errors and failures (errors without retrying) by type including which limit for retries was exceeded and how much it was exceeded by for the serialization/deadlock failures, use the --verbose-errors option.
You may specify the Table Access Method for the pgbench tables. The environment variable PGOPTIONS specifies database configuration options that are passed to PostgreSQL via the command line (See Section\u00a019.1.4). For example, a hypothetical default Table Access Method for the tables that pgbench creates called wuzza can be specified with:
PGOPTIONS='-c default_table_access_method=wuzza'\n\n
It is very easy to use pgbench to produce completely meaningless numbers. Here are some guidelines to help you get useful results.
\nIn the first place, never believe any test that runs for only a few seconds. Use the -t or -T option to make the run last at least a few minutes, so as to average out noise. In some cases you could need hours to get numbers that are reproducible. It's a good idea to try the test run a few times, to find out if your numbers are reproducible or not.
For the default TPC-B-like test scenario, the initialization scale factor (-s) should be at least as large as the largest number of clients you intend to test (-c); else you'll mostly be measuring update contention. There are only -s rows in the pgbench_branches table, and every transaction wants to update one of them, so -c values in excess of -s will undoubtedly result in lots of transactions blocked waiting for other transactions.
The default test scenario is also quite sensitive to how long it's been since the tables were initialized: accumulation of dead rows and dead space in the tables changes the results. To understand the results you must keep track of the total number of updates and when vacuuming happens. If autovacuum is enabled it can result in unpredictable changes in measured performance.
\nA limitation of pgbench is that it can itself become the bottleneck when trying to test a large number of client sessions. This can be alleviated by running pgbench on a different machine from the database server, although low network latency will be essential. It might even be useful to run several pgbench instances concurrently, on several client machines, against the same database server.
\nIf untrusted users have access to a database that has not adopted a secure schema usage pattern, do not run pgbench in that database. pgbench uses unqualified names and does not manipulate the search path.
\npgbench \u2014 run a benchmark test on PostgreSQL
\npgbench -i [option...] [dbname]
pgbench [option...] [dbname]
pgbench is a simple program for running benchmark tests on PostgreSQL. It runs the same sequence of SQL commands over and over, possibly in multiple concurrent database sessions, and then calculates the average transaction rate (transactions per second). By default, pgbench tests a scenario that is loosely based on TPC-B, involving five SELECT, UPDATE, and INSERT commands per transaction. However, it is easy to test other cases by writing your own transaction script files.
Typical output from pgbench looks like:
\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 10\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 0 (0.000%)\nlatency average = 11.013 ms\nlatency stddev = 7.351 ms\ninitial connection time = 45.758 ms\ntps = 896.967014 (without initial connection time)\n\n
The first seven lines report some of the most important parameter settings. The sixth line reports the maximum number of tries for transactions with serialization or deadlock errors (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information). The eighth line reports the number of transactions completed and intended (the latter being just the product of number of clients and number of transactions per client); these will be equal unless the run failed before completion or some SQL command(s) failed. (In -T mode, only the actual number of transactions is printed.) The next line reports the number of failed transactions (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information). The last line reports the number of transactions per second.
The default TPC-B-like transaction test requires specific tables to be set up beforehand. pgbench should be invoked with the -i (initialize) option to create and populate these tables. (When you are testing a custom script, you don't need this step, but will instead need to do whatever setup your test needs.) Initialization looks like:
pgbench -i [\nother-options]dbname\n
where dbname is the name of the already-created database to test in. (You may also need -h, -p, and/or -U options to specify how to connect to the database server.)
pgbench -i creates four tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers, destroying any existing tables of these names. Be very careful to use another database if you have tables having these names!
At the default \u201cscale factor\u201d of 1, the tables initially contain this many rows:
\ntable # of rows\n---------------------------------\npgbench_branches 1\npgbench_tellers 10\npgbench_accounts 100000\npgbench_history 0\n\n
You can (and, for most purposes, probably should) increase the number of rows by using the -s (scale factor) option. The -F (fillfactor) option might also be used at this point.
Once you have done the necessary setup, you can run your benchmark with a command that doesn't include -i, that is
pgbench [\noptions]dbname\n
In nearly all cases, you'll need some options to make a useful test. The most important options are -c (number of clients), -t (number of transactions), -T (time limit), and -f (specify a custom script file). See below for a full list.
The following is divided into three subsections. Different options are used during database initialization and while running benchmarks, but some options are useful in both cases.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line initialization arguments:
\n[-d] dbname[--dbname=]dbname Specifies the name of the database to test in. If this is not specified, the environment variable PGDATABASE is used. If that is not set, the user name specified for the connection is used.
-i--initialize Required to invoke initialization mode.
\n-I init_steps--init-steps=init_steps Perform just a selected set of the normal initialization steps. init_steps specifies the initialization steps to be performed, using one character per step. Each step is invoked in the specified order. The default is dtgvp. The available steps are:
d (Drop) Drop any existing pgbench tables.
\nt (create Tables) Create the tables used by the standard pgbench scenario, namely pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
g or G (Generate data, client-side or server-side) Generate data and load it into the standard tables, replacing any data already present.
\nWith g (client-side data generation), data is generated in pgbench client and then sent to the server. This uses the client/server bandwidth extensively through a COPY. pgbench uses the FREEZE option to load data into ordinary (non-partition) tables with version 14 or later of PostgreSQL to speed up subsequent VACUUM. Using g causes logging to print one message every 100,000 rows while generating data for all tables.
With G (server-side data generation), only small queries are sent from the pgbench client and then data is actually generated in the server. No significant bandwidth is required for this variant, but the server will do more work. Using G causes logging not to print any progress message while generating data.
The default initialization behavior uses client-side data generation (equivalent to g).
v (Vacuum) Invoke VACUUM on the standard tables.
p (create Primary keys) Create primary key indexes on the standard tables.
\nf (create Foreign keys) Create foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (Note that this step is not performed by default.)
\n-F fillfactor--fillfactor=fillfactor Create the pgbench_accounts, pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables with the given fillfactor. Default is 100.
-n--no-vacuum Perform no vacuuming during initialization. (This option suppresses the v initialization step, even if it was specified in -I.)
-q--quiet Switch logging to quiet mode, producing only one progress message per 5 seconds. The default logging prints one message each 100,000 rows, which often outputs many lines per second (especially on good hardware).
\nThis setting has no effect if G is specified in -I.
-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factor Multiply the number of rows generated by the scale factor. For example, -s 100 will create 10,000,000 rows in the pgbench_accounts table. Default is 1. When the scale is 20,000 or larger, the columns used to hold account identifiers (aid columns) will switch to using larger integers (bigint), in order to be big enough to hold the range of account identifiers.
--foreign-keys Create foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (This option adds the f step to the initialization step sequence, if it is not already present.)
--index-tablespace=index_tablespace Create indexes in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--partition-method=NAME Create a partitioned pgbench_accounts table with NAME method. Expected values are range or hash. This option requires that --partitions is set to non-zero. If unspecified, default is range.
--partitions=NUM Create a partitioned pgbench_accounts table with NUM partitions of nearly equal size for the scaled number of accounts. Default is 0, meaning no partitioning.
--tablespace=tablespace Create tables in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--unlogged-tables Create all tables as unlogged tables, rather than permanent tables.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line benchmarking arguments:
\n-b scriptname[@weight]--builtin=scriptname[@weight] Add the specified built-in script to the list of scripts to be executed. Available built-in scripts are: tpcb-like, simple-update and select-only. Unambiguous prefixes of built-in names are accepted. With the special name list, show the list of built-in scripts and exit immediately.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. See below for details.
-c clients--client=clients Number of clients simulated, that is, number of concurrent database sessions. Default is 1.
\n-C--connect Establish a new connection for each transaction, rather than doing it just once per client session. This is useful to measure the connection overhead.
\n-D varname=value--define=varname=value Define a variable for use by a custom script (see below). Multiple -D options are allowed.
-f filename[@weight]--file=filename[@weight] Add a transaction script read from filename to the list of scripts to be executed.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. (To use a script file name that includes an @ character, append a weight so that there is no ambiguity, for example filen@me@1.) See below for details.
-j threads--jobs=threads Number of worker threads within pgbench. Using more than one thread can be helpful on multi-CPU machines. Clients are distributed as evenly as possible among available threads. Default is 1.
\n-l--log Write information about each transaction to a log file. See below for details.
\n-L limit--latency-limit=limit Transactions that last more than limit milliseconds are counted and reported separately, as late.
When throttling is used (--rate=...), transactions that lag behind schedule by more than limit ms, and thus have no hope of meeting the latency limit, are not sent to the server at all. They are counted and reported separately as skipped.
When the --max-tries option is used, a transaction which fails due to a serialization anomaly or from a deadlock will not be retried if the total time of all its tries is greater than limit ms. To limit only the time of tries and not their number, use --max-tries=0. By default, the option --max-tries is set to 1 and transactions with serialization/deadlock errors are not retried. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information about retrying such transactions.
-M querymode--protocol=querymode Protocol to use for submitting queries to the server:
\nsimple: use simple query protocol.
extended: use extended query protocol.
prepared: use extended query protocol with prepared statements.
In the prepared mode, pgbench reuses the parse analysis result starting from the second query iteration, so pgbench runs faster than in other modes.
The default is simple query protocol. (See Chapter\u00a054 for more information.)
\n-n--no-vacuum Perform no vacuuming before running the test. This option is necessary if you are running a custom test scenario that does not include the standard tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
-N--skip-some-updates Run built-in simple-update script. Shorthand for -b simple-update.
-P sec--progress=sec Show progress report every sec seconds. The report includes the time since the beginning of the run, the TPS since the last report, and the transaction latency average, standard deviation, and the number of failed transactions since the last report. Under throttling (-R), the latency is computed with respect to the transaction scheduled start time, not the actual transaction beginning time, thus it also includes the average schedule lag time. When --max-tries is used to enable transaction retries after serialization/deadlock errors, the report includes the number of retried transactions and the sum of all retries.
-r--report-per-command Report the following statistics for each command after the benchmark finishes: the average per-statement latency (execution time from the perspective of the client), the number of failures, and the number of retries after serialization or deadlock errors in this command. The report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
-R rate--rate=rate Execute transactions targeting the specified rate instead of running as fast as possible (the default). The rate is given in transactions per second. If the targeted rate is above the maximum possible rate, the rate limit won't impact the results.
\nThe rate is targeted by starting transactions along a Poisson-distributed schedule time line. The expected start time schedule moves forward based on when the client first started, not when the previous transaction ended. That approach means that when transactions go past their original scheduled end time, it is possible for later ones to catch up again.
\nWhen throttling is active, the transaction latency reported at the end of the run is calculated from the scheduled start times, so it includes the time each transaction had to wait for the previous transaction to finish. The wait time is called the schedule lag time, and its average and maximum are also reported separately. The transaction latency with respect to the actual transaction start time, i.e., the time spent executing the transaction in the database, can be computed by subtracting the schedule lag time from the reported latency.
\nIf --latency-limit is used together with --rate, a transaction can lag behind so much that it is already over the latency limit when the previous transaction ends, because the latency is calculated from the scheduled start time. Such transactions are not sent to the server, but are skipped altogether and counted separately.
A high schedule lag time is an indication that the system cannot process transactions at the specified rate, with the chosen number of clients and threads. When the average transaction execution time is longer than the scheduled interval between each transaction, each successive transaction will fall further behind, and the schedule lag time will keep increasing the longer the test run is. When that happens, you will have to reduce the specified transaction rate.
\n-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factor Report the specified scale factor in pgbench's output. With the built-in tests, this is not necessary; the correct scale factor will be detected by counting the number of rows in the pgbench_branches table. However, when testing only custom benchmarks (-f option), the scale factor will be reported as 1 unless this option is used.
-S--select-only Run built-in select-only script. Shorthand for -b select-only.
-t transactions--transactions=transactions Number of transactions each client runs. Default is 10.
\n-T seconds--time=seconds Run the test for this many seconds, rather than a fixed number of transactions per client. -t and -T are mutually exclusive.
-v--vacuum-all Vacuum all four standard tables before running the test. With neither -n nor -v, pgbench will vacuum the pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables, and will truncate pgbench_history.
--aggregate-interval=seconds Length of aggregation interval (in seconds). May be used only with -l option. With this option, the log contains per-interval summary data, as described below.
--continue-on-error Allows clients to continue running even if an SQL statement fails due to errors other than serialization or deadlock. By default, clients abort after such errors, but with this option enabled, they proceed to the next transaction instead. Note that clients still abort even with this option if an error causes the connection to fail. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\nThis option is useful when your custom script may raise errors such as unique constraint violations, but you want the benchmark to continue despite individual statement failures. Failed transactions are reported separately, but are not counted as transactions actually processed; time spent on failed transactions remains part of the benchmark duration, so such failures can lower the reported TPS.
\n--exit-on-abort Exit immediately when any client is aborted due to some error. Without this option, even when a client is aborted, other clients could continue their run as specified by -t or -T option, and pgbench will print an incomplete results in this case.
Note that serialization failures or deadlock failures do not abort the client, so they are not affected by this option. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\n--failures-detailed Report failures in per-transaction and aggregation logs, as well as in the main and per-script reports, grouped by the following types:
\nserialization failures;
\ndeadlock failures;
\nother failures;
\nSee Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\n--log-prefix=prefix Set the filename prefix for the log files created by --log. The default is pgbench_log.
--max-tries=number_of_tries Enable retries for transactions with serialization/deadlock errors and set the maximum number of these tries. This option can be combined with the --latency-limit option which limits the total time of all transaction tries; moreover, you cannot use an unlimited number of tries (--max-tries=0) without --latency-limit or --time. The default value is 1 and transactions with serialization/deadlock errors are not retried. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information about retrying such transactions.
--progress-timestamp When showing progress (option -P), use a timestamp (Unix epoch) instead of the number of seconds since the beginning of the run. The unit is in seconds, with millisecond precision after the dot. This helps compare logs generated by various tools.
--random-seed=seed Set random generator seed. Seeds the system random number generator, which then produces a sequence of initial generator states, one for each thread. Values for seed may be: time (the default, the seed is based on the current time), rand (use a strong random source, failing if none is available), or an unsigned decimal integer value. The random generator is invoked explicitly from a pgbench script (random... functions) or implicitly (for instance option --rate uses it to schedule transactions). When explicitly set, the value used for seeding is shown on the terminal. Any value allowed for seed may also be provided through the environment variable PGBENCH_RANDOM_SEED. To ensure that the provided seed impacts all possible uses, put this option first or use the environment variable.
Setting the seed explicitly allows to reproduce a pgbench run exactly, as far as random numbers are concerned. As the random state is managed per thread, this means the exact same pgbench run for an identical invocation if there is one client per thread and there are no external or data dependencies. From a statistical viewpoint reproducing runs exactly is a bad idea because it can hide the performance variability or improve performance unduly, e.g., by hitting the same pages as a previous run. However, it may also be of great help for debugging, for instance re-running a tricky case which leads to an error. Use wisely.
--sampling-rate=rate Sampling rate, used when writing data into the log, to reduce the amount of log generated. If this option is given, only the specified fraction of transactions are logged. 1.0 means all transactions will be logged, 0.05 means only 5% of the transactions will be logged.
\nRemember to take the sampling rate into account when processing the log file. For example, when computing TPS values, you need to multiply the numbers accordingly (e.g., with 0.01 sample rate, you'll only get 1/100 of the actual TPS).
\n--show-script=scriptname Show the actual code of builtin script scriptname on stderr, and exit immediately.
--verbose-errors Print messages about all errors and failures (errors without retrying) including which limit for retries was exceeded and how far it was exceeded for the serialization/deadlock failures. (Note that in this case the output can be significantly increased.) See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\npgbench also accepts the following common command-line arguments for connection parameters and other common settings:
\n--debug Print debugging output.
\n-h hostname--host=hostname The database server's host name
\n-p port--port=port The database server's port number
\n-U login--username=login The user name to connect as
\n-V--version Print the pgbench version and exit.
\n-?--help Show help about pgbench command line arguments, and exit.
\nA successful run will exit with status 0. Exit status 1 indicates static problems such as invalid command-line options or internal errors which are supposed to never occur. Early errors that occur when starting benchmark such as initial connection failures also exit with status 1. Errors during the run such as database errors or problems in the script will result in exit status 2. In the latter case, pgbench will print partial results if --exit-on-abort option is not specified.
PGDATABASEPGHOSTPGPORTPGUSER Default connection parameters.
\nThis utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, uses the environment variables supported by libpq (see Section\u00a032.15).
\nThe environment variable PG_COLOR specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. Possible values are always, auto and never.
pgbench executes test scripts chosen randomly from a specified list. The scripts may include built-in scripts specified with -b and user-provided scripts specified with -f. Each script may be given a relative weight specified after an @ so as to change its selection probability. The default weight is 1. Scripts with a weight of 0 are ignored.
The default built-in transaction script (also invoked with -b tpcb-like) issues seven commands per transaction over randomly chosen aid, tid, bid and delta. The scenario is inspired by the TPC-B benchmark, but is not actually TPC-B, hence the name.
BEGIN;
UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;
SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;
UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;
UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;
INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);
END;
If you select the simple-update built-in (also -N), steps 4 and 5 aren't included in the transaction. This will avoid update contention on these tables, but it makes the test case even less like TPC-B.
If you select the select-only built-in (also -S), only the SELECT is issued.
pgbench has support for running custom benchmark scenarios by replacing the default transaction script (described above) with a transaction script read from a file (-f option). In this case a \u201ctransaction\u201d counts as one execution of a script file.
A script file contains one or more SQL commands terminated by semicolons. Empty lines and lines beginning with -- are ignored. Script files can also contain \u201cmeta commands\u201d, which are interpreted by pgbench itself, as described below.
Before PostgreSQL 9.6, SQL commands in script files were terminated by newlines, and so they could not be continued across lines. Now a semicolon is required to separate consecutive SQL commands (though an SQL command does not need one if it is followed by a meta command). If you need to create a script file that works with both old and new versions of pgbench, be sure to write each SQL command on a single line ending with a semicolon.
\nIt is assumed that pgbench scripts do not contain incomplete blocks of SQL transactions. If at runtime the client reaches the end of the script without completing the last transaction block, it will be aborted.
\nThere is a simple variable-substitution facility for script files. Variable names must consist of letters (including non-Latin letters), digits, and underscores, with the first character not being a digit. Variables can be set by the command-line -D option, explained above, or by the meta commands explained below. In addition to any variables preset by -D command-line options, there are a few variables that are preset automatically, listed in Table\u00a0308. A value specified for these variables using -D takes precedence over the automatic presets. Once set, a variable's value can be inserted into an SQL command by writing :variablename. When running more than one client session, each session has its own set of variables. pgbench supports up to 255 variable uses in one statement.
Table\u00a0308.\u00a0pgbench Automatic Variables
\n| Variable | \nDescription | \n
|---|---|
client_id | \nunique number identifying the client session (starts from zero) | \n
default_seed | \nseed used in hash and pseudorandom permutation functions by default | \n
random_seed | \nrandom generator seed (unless overwritten with -D) | \n
scale | \ncurrent scale factor | \n
Script file meta commands begin with a backslash (\\) and normally extend to the end of the line, although they can be continued to additional lines by writing backslash-return. Arguments to a meta command are separated by white space. These meta commands are supported:
\\gset [prefix]\\aset [prefix] These commands may be used to end SQL queries, taking the place of the terminating semicolon (;).
When the \\gset command is used, the preceding SQL query is expected to return one row, the columns of which are stored into variables named after column names, and prefixed with prefix if provided. If the query returns zero or multiple rows, an error is raised.
When the \\aset command is used, all combined SQL queries (separated by \\;) have their columns stored into variables named after column names, and prefixed with prefix if provided. If a query returns no rows, no assignment is made. This can be detected by initializing the variable beforehand with a value the query cannot return, then checking whether it changes. If a query returns more than one row, the last value is kept.
\\gset and \\aset cannot be used in pipeline mode, since the query results are not yet available by the time the commands would need them.
The following example puts the final account balance from the first query into variable abalance, and fills variables p_two and p_three with integers from the third query. The result of the second query is discarded. The result of the two last combined queries are stored in variables four and five.
UPDATE pgbench_accounts\n SET abalance = abalance + :delta\n WHERE aid = :aid\n RETURNING abalance \\gset\n-- compound of two queries\nSELECT 1 \\;\nSELECT 2 AS two, 3 AS three \\gset p_\nSELECT 4 AS four \\; SELECT 5 AS five \\aset\n\n
\\if expression\\elif expression\\else\\endif This group of commands implements nestable conditional blocks, similarly to psql's \\if expression. Conditional expressions are identical to those with \\set, with non-zero values interpreted as true.
\\set varname expression Sets variable varname to a value calculated from expression. The expression may contain the NULL constant, Boolean constants TRUE and FALSE, integer constants such as 5432, double constants such as 3.14159, references to variables :variablename, operators with their usual SQL precedence and associativity, function calls, SQL CASE generic conditional expressions and parentheses.
Functions and most operators return NULL on NULL input.
For conditional purposes, non zero numerical values are TRUE, zero numerical values and NULL are FALSE.
Too large or small integer and double constants, as well as integer arithmetic operators (+, -, * and /) raise errors on overflows.
When no final ELSE clause is provided to a CASE, the default value is NULL.
Examples:
\n\\set ntellers 10 * :scale\n\\set aid (1021 * random(1, 100000 * :scale)) % \\\n (100000 * :scale) + 1\n\\set divx CASE WHEN :x <> 0 THEN :y/:x ELSE NULL END\n\n
\\sleep number [ us | ms | s ] Causes script execution to sleep for the specified duration in microseconds (us), milliseconds (ms) or seconds (s). If the unit is omitted then seconds are the default. number can be either an integer constant or a :variablename reference to a variable having an integer value.
Example:
\n\\sleep 10 ms\n\n
\\setshell varname command [ argument ... ] Sets variable varname to the result of the shell command command with the given argument(s). The command must return an integer value through its standard output.
command and each argument can be either a text constant or a :variablename reference to a variable. If you want to use an argument starting with a colon, write an additional colon at the beginning of argument.
Example:
\n\\setshell variable_to_be_assigned command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
\\shell command [ argument ... ] Same as \\setshell, but the result of the command is discarded.
Example:
\n\\shell command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
\\startpipeline\\syncpipeline\\endpipeline This group of commands implements pipelining of SQL statements. A pipeline must begin with a \\startpipeline and end with an \\endpipeline. In between there may be any number of \\syncpipeline commands, which sends a sync message without ending the ongoing pipeline and flushing the send buffer. In pipeline mode, statements are sent to the server without waiting for the results of previous statements. See Section\u00a032.5 for more details. Pipeline mode requires the use of extended query protocol.
The arithmetic, bitwise, comparison and logical operators listed in Table\u00a0309 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set. The operators are listed in increasing precedence order. Except as noted, operators taking two numeric inputs will produce a double value if either input is double, otherwise they produce an integer result.
Table\u00a0309.\u00a0pgbench Operators
\n| \n Operator \nDescription \nExample(s) \n | \n
|---|
| \n
Logical OR \n
| \n
| \n
Logical AND \n
| \n
| \n
Logical NOT \n
| \n
| \n
Boolean value tests \n
| \n
| \n
Nullness tests \n
| \n
| \n
Equal \n
| \n
| \n
Not equal \n
| \n
| \n
Not equal \n
| \n
| \n
Less than \n
| \n
| \n
Less than or equal to \n
| \n
| \n
Greater than \n
| \n
| \n
Greater than or equal to \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise OR \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise XOR \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise AND \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise NOT \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise shift left \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise shift right \n
| \n
| \n
Addition \n
| \n
| \n
Subtraction \n
| \n
| \n
Multiplication \n
| \n
| \n
Division (truncates the result towards zero if both inputs are integers) \n
| \n
| \n
Modulo (remainder) \n
| \n
| \n
Negation \n
| \n
The functions listed in Table\u00a0310 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set.
Table\u00a0310.\u00a0pgbench Functions
\n| \n Function \nDescription \nExample(s) \n | \n
|---|
| \n
Absolute value \n
| \n
| \n
Prints the argument to stderr, and returns the argument. \n
| \n
| \n
Casts to double. \n
| \n
| \n
Exponential (
| \n
| \n
Selects the largest value among the arguments. \n
| \n
| \n
This is an alias for
| \n
| \n
Computes FNV-1a hash. \n
| \n
| \n
Computes MurmurHash2 hash. \n
| \n
| \n
Casts to integer. \n
| \n
| \n
Selects the smallest value among the arguments. \n
| \n
| \n
Natural logarithm \n
| \n
| \n
Modulo (remainder) \n
| \n
| \n
Permuted value of
| \n
| \n
Approximate value of \u03c0 \n
| \n
| \n
| \n
| \n
Computes a uniformly-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes an exponentially-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes a Gaussian-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes a Zipfian-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Square root \n
| \n
The random function generates values using a uniform distribution, that is all the values are drawn within the specified range with equal probability. The random_exponential, random_gaussian and random_zipfian functions require an additional double parameter which determines the precise shape of the distribution.
For an exponential distribution, parameter controls the distribution by truncating a quickly-decreasing exponential distribution at parameter, and then projecting onto integers between the bounds. To be precise, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0exp(-parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0min)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/\u00a0(1\u00a0-\u00a0exp(-parameter))
Then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i) - f(i + 1).
Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to min are accessed, and the less frequently values close to max are accessed. The closer to 0 parameter is, the flatter (more uniform) the access distribution. A crude approximation of the distribution is that the most frequent 1% values in the range, close to min, are drawn parameter% of the time. The parameter value must be strictly positive.
For a Gaussian distribution, the interval is mapped onto a standard normal distribution (the classical bell-shaped Gaussian curve) truncated at -parameter on the left and +parameter on the right. Values in the middle of the interval are more likely to be drawn. To be precise, if PHI(x) is the cumulative distribution function of the standard normal distribution, with mean mu defined as (max + min) / 2.0, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0PHI(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0mu)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/
\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0PHI(parameter)\u00a0-\u00a01)
then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i + 0.5) - f(i - 0.5). Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to the middle of the interval are drawn, and the less frequently values close to the min and max bounds. About 67% of values are drawn from the middle 1.0 / parameter, that is a relative 0.5 / parameter around the mean, and 95% in the middle 2.0 / parameter, that is a relative 1.0 / parameter around the mean; for instance, if parameter is 4.0, 67% of values are drawn from the middle quarter (1.0 / 4.0) of the interval (i.e., from 3.0 / 8.0 to 5.0 / 8.0) and 95% from the middle half (2.0 / 4.0) of the interval (second and third quartiles). The minimum allowed parameter value is 2.0.
random_zipfian generates a bounded Zipfian distribution. parameter defines how skewed the distribution is. The larger the parameter, the more frequently values closer to the beginning of the interval are drawn. The distribution is such that, assuming the range starts from 1, the ratio of the probability of drawing k versus drawing k+1 is ((. For example, k+1)/k)**parameterrandom_zipfian(1, ..., 2.5) produces the value 1 about (2/1)**2.5 = 5.66 times more frequently than 2, which itself is produced (3/2)**2.5 = 2.76 times more frequently than 3, and so on.
pgbench's implementation is based on \"Non-Uniform Random Variate Generation\", Luc Devroye, p. 550-551, Springer 1986. Due to limitations of that algorithm, the parameter value is restricted to the range [1.001, 1000].
When designing a benchmark which selects rows non-uniformly, be aware that the rows chosen may be correlated with other data such as IDs from a sequence or the physical row ordering, which may skew performance measurements.
\nTo avoid this, you may wish to use the permute function, or some other additional step with similar effect, to shuffle the selected rows and remove such correlations.
Hash functions hash, hash_murmur2 and hash_fnv1a accept an input value and an optional seed parameter. In case the seed isn't provided the value of :default_seed is used, which is initialized randomly unless set by the command-line -D option.
permute accepts an input value, a size, and an optional seed parameter. It generates a pseudorandom permutation of integers in the range [0, size), and returns the index of the input value in the permuted values. The permutation chosen is parameterized by the seed, which defaults to :default_seed, if not specified. Unlike the hash functions, permute ensures that there are no collisions or holes in the output values. Input values outside the interval are interpreted modulo the size. The function raises an error if the size is not positive. permute can be used to scatter the distribution of non-uniform random functions such as random_zipfian or random_exponential so that values drawn more often are not trivially correlated. For instance, the following pgbench script simulates a possible real world workload typical for social media and blogging platforms where a few accounts generate excessive load:
\\set size 1000000\n\\set r random_zipfian(1, :size, 1.07)\n\\set k 1 + permute(:r, :size)\n\n
In some cases several distinct distributions are needed which don't correlate with each other and this is when the optional seed parameter comes in handy:
\n\\set k1 1 + permute(:r, :size, :default_seed + 123)\n\\set k2 1 + permute(:r, :size, :default_seed + 321)\n\n
A similar behavior can also be approximated with hash:
\\set size 1000000\n\\set r random_zipfian(1, 100 * :size, 1.07)\n\\set k 1 + abs(hash(:r)) % :size\n\n
However, since hash generates collisions, some values will not be reachable and others will be more frequent than expected from the original distribution.
As an example, the full definition of the built-in TPC-B-like transaction is:
\n\\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n\\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n\\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n\\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\nBEGIN;\nUPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\nSELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\nUPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\nUPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\nINSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\nEND;\n\n
This script allows each iteration of the transaction to reference different, randomly-chosen rows. (This example also shows why it's important for each client session to have its own variables \u2014 otherwise they'd not be independently touching different rows.)
\nWith the -l option (but without the --aggregate-interval option), pgbench writes information about each transaction to a log file. The log file will be named prefix.nnnprefix defaults to pgbench_log, and nnn is the PID of the pgbench process. The prefix can be changed by using the --log-prefix option. If the -j option is 2 or higher, so that there are multiple worker threads, each will have its own log file. The first worker will use the same name for its log file as in the standard single worker case. The additional log files for the other workers will be named prefix.nnn.mmmmmm is a sequential number for each worker starting with 1.
Each line in a log file describes one transaction. It contains the following space-separated fields:
\nclient_ididentifies the client session that ran the transaction
\ntransaction_nocounts how many transactions have been run by that session
\ntimetransaction's elapsed time, in microseconds
\nscript_noidentifies the script file that was used for the transaction (useful when multiple scripts are specified with -f or -b)
time_epochtransaction's completion time, as a Unix-epoch time stamp
\ntime_usfractional-second part of transaction's completion time, in microseconds
\nschedule_lagtransaction start delay, that is the difference between the transaction's scheduled start time and the time it actually started, in microseconds (present only if --rate is specified)
retriescount of retries after serialization or deadlock errors during the transaction (present only if --max-tries is not equal to one)
When both --rate and --latency-limit are used, the time for a skipped transaction will be reported as skipped. If the transaction ends with a failure, its time will be reported as failed. If you use the --failures-detailed option, the time of the failed transaction will be reported as serialization, deadlock, or other depending on the type of failure (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information).
Here is a snippet of a log file generated in a single-client run:
\n0 199 2241 0 1175850568 995598\n0 200 2465 0 1175850568 998079\n0 201 2513 0 1175850569 608\n0 202 2038 0 1175850569 2663\n\n
Another example with --rate=100 and --latency-limit=5 (note the additional schedule_lag column):
0 81 4621 0 1412881037 912698 3005\n0 82 6173 0 1412881037 914578 4304\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5217\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5099\n0 83 4722 0 1412881037 916203 3108\n0 84 4142 0 1412881037 918023 2333\n0 85 2465 0 1412881037 919759 740\n\n
In this example, transaction 82 was late, because its latency (6.173 ms) was over the 5 ms limit. The next two transactions were skipped, because they were already late before they were even started.
\nThe following example shows a snippet of a log file with failures and retries, with the maximum number of tries set to 10 (note the additional retries column):
3 0 47423 0 1499414498 34501 3\n3 1 8333 0 1499414498 42848 0\n3 2 8358 0 1499414498 51219 0\n4 0 72345 0 1499414498 59433 6\n1 3 41718 0 1499414498 67879 4\n1 4 8416 0 1499414498 76311 0\n3 3 33235 0 1499414498 84469 3\n0 0 failed 0 1499414498 84905 9\n2 0 failed 0 1499414498 86248 9\n3 4 8307 0 1499414498 92788 0\n\n
If the --failures-detailed option is used, the type of failure is reported in the time like this:
3 0 47423 0 1499414498 34501 3\n3 1 8333 0 1499414498 42848 0\n3 2 8358 0 1499414498 51219 0\n4 0 72345 0 1499414498 59433 6\n1 3 41718 0 1499414498 67879 4\n1 4 8416 0 1499414498 76311 0\n3 3 33235 0 1499414498 84469 3\n0 0 serialization 0 1499414498 84905 9\n2 0 serialization 0 1499414498 86248 9\n3 4 8307 0 1499414498 92788 0\n\n
When running a long test on hardware that can handle a lot of transactions, the log files can become very large. The --sampling-rate option can be used to log only a random sample of transactions.
With the --aggregate-interval option, a different format is used for the log files. Each log line describes one aggregation interval. It contains the following space-separated fields:
interval_startstart time of the interval, as a Unix-epoch time stamp
\nnum_transactionsnumber of transactions within the interval
\nsum_latencysum of transaction latencies
\nsum_latency_2sum of squares of transaction latencies
\nmin_latencyminimum transaction latency
\nmax_latencymaximum transaction latency
\nsum_lagsum of transaction start delays (zero unless --rate is specified)
sum_lag_2sum of squares of transaction start delays (zero unless --rate is specified)
min_lagminimum transaction start delay (zero unless --rate is specified)
max_lagmaximum transaction start delay (zero unless --rate is specified)
skippednumber of transactions skipped because they would have started too late (zero unless --rate and --latency-limit are specified)
retriednumber of retried transactions (zero unless --max-tries is not equal to one)
retriesnumber of retries after serialization or deadlock errors (zero unless --max-tries is not equal to one)
serialization_failuresnumber of transactions that got a serialization error and were not retried afterwards (zero unless --failures-detailed is specified)
deadlock_failuresnumber of transactions that got a deadlock error and were not retried afterwards (zero unless --failures-detailed is specified)
other_sql_failuresnumber of transactions that got an SQL error (zero unless both --failures-detailed and --continue-on-error are specified)
Here is some example output generated with this option:
\npgbench --aggregate-interval=10 --time=20 --client=10 --log --rate=1000 --latency-limit=10 --failures-detailed --max-tries=10 test\n\n1650260552 5178 26171317 177284491527 1136 44462 2647617 7321113867 0 9866 64 7564 28340 4148 0 0\n1650260562 4808 25573984 220121792172 1171 62083 3037380 9666800914 0 9998 598 7392 26621 4527 0 0\nNotice that while the plain (unaggregated) log format shows which script was used for each transaction, the aggregated format does not. Therefore if you need per-script data, you need to aggregate the data on your own.
\nWith the -r option, pgbench collects the following statistics for each statement:
latency \u2014 elapsed transaction time for each statement. pgbench reports an average value of all successful runs of the statement.
The number of failures in this statement. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\nThe number of retries after a serialization or a deadlock error in this statement. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\nThe report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
All values are computed for each statement executed by every client and are reported after the benchmark has finished.
\nFor the default script, the output will look similar to this:
\nstarting vacuum...end.\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 1\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 0 (0.000%)\nnumber of transactions above the 50.0 ms latency limit: 1311/10000 (13.110 %)\nlatency average = 28.488 ms\nlatency stddev = 21.009 ms\ninitial connection time = 69.068 ms\ntps = 346.224794 (without initial connection time)\nstatement latencies in milliseconds and failures:\n 0.012 0 \\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\n 0.319 0 BEGIN;\n 0.834 0 UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\n 0.641 0 SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\n 11.126 0 UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\n 12.961 0 UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\n 0.634 0 INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\n 1.957 0 END;\n\n
Another example of output for the default script using serializable default transaction isolation level (PGOPTIONS='-c default_transaction_isolation=serializable' pgbench ...):
starting vacuum...end.\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 1\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 10\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 6317/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 3683 (36.830%)\nnumber of transactions retried: 7667 (76.670%)\ntotal number of retries: 45339\nnumber of transactions above the 50.0 ms latency limit: 106/6317 (1.678 %)\nlatency average = 17.016 ms\nlatency stddev = 13.283 ms\ninitial connection time = 45.017 ms\ntps = 186.792667 (without initial connection time)\nstatement latencies in milliseconds, failures and retries:\n 0.006 0 0 \\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\n 0.385 0 0 BEGIN;\n 0.773 0 1 UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\n 0.624 0 0 SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\n 1.098 320 3762 UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\n 0.582 3363 41576 UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\n 0.465 0 0 INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\n 1.933 0 0 END;\n\n
If multiple script files are specified, all statistics are reported separately for each script file.
\nNote that collecting the additional timing information needed for per-statement latency computation adds some overhead. This will slow average execution speed and lower the computed TPS. The amount of slowdown varies significantly depending on platform and hardware. Comparing average TPS values with and without latency reporting enabled is a good way to measure if the timing overhead is significant.
\nWhen executing pgbench, there are three main types of errors:
\nErrors of the main program. They are the most serious and always result in an immediate exit from pgbench with the corresponding error message. They include:
\nerrors at the beginning of pgbench (e.g. an invalid option value);
\nerrors in the initialization mode (e.g. the query to create tables for built-in scripts fails);
\nerrors before starting threads (e.g. could not connect to the database server, syntax error in the meta command, thread creation failure);
\ninternal pgbench errors (which are supposed to never occur...).
\nErrors when the thread manages its clients (e.g. the client could not start a connection to the database server / the socket for connecting the client to the database server has become invalid). In such cases all clients of this thread stop while other threads continue to work. However, if --exit-on-abort is specified, all of the threads stop immediately in this case.
Direct client errors. They lead to immediate exit from pgbench with the corresponding error message in the case of an internal pgbench error (which are supposed to never occur...) or when --exit-on-abort is specified. Otherwise in the worst case they only lead to the abortion of the failed client while other clients continue their run (but some client errors are handled without an abortion of the client and reported separately, see below). Later in this section it is assumed that the discussed errors are only the direct client errors and they are not internal pgbench errors.
A client's run is aborted in case of a serious error; for example, the connection with the database server was lost or the end of script was reached without completing the last transaction. The client also aborts if a meta command fails, or if an SQL command fails for reasons other than serialization or deadlock errors when --continue-on-error is not specified. With --continue-on-error, the client does not abort on such SQL errors and instead proceeds to the next transaction. These cases are reported as other failures in the output. If the error occurs in a meta command, however, the client still aborts even when this option is specified.
If an SQL command fails due to serialization or deadlock errors, the client does not abort, regardless of whether --continue-on-error is used. Instead, the current transaction is rolled back, which also includes setting the client variables as they were before the run of this transaction (it is assumed that one transaction script contains only one transaction; see What Is the \"Transaction\" Actually Performed in pgbench? for more information). Transactions with serialization or deadlock errors are repeated after rollbacks until they complete successfully or reach the maximum number of tries (specified by the --max-tries option) / the maximum time of retries (specified by the --latency-limit option) / the end of benchmark (specified by the --time option). If the last trial run fails, this transaction will be reported as failed but the client is not aborted and continues to work.
Without specifying the --max-tries option, a transaction will never be retried after a serialization or deadlock error because its default value is 1. Use an unlimited number of tries (--max-tries=0) and the --latency-limit option to limit only the maximum time of tries. You can also use the --time option to limit the benchmark duration under an unlimited number of tries.
Be careful when repeating scripts that contain multiple transactions: the script is always retried completely, so successful transactions can be performed several times.
\nBe careful when repeating transactions with shell commands. Unlike the results of SQL commands, the results of shell commands are not rolled back, except for the variable value of the \\setshell command.
The latency of a successful transaction includes the entire time of transaction execution with rollbacks and retries. In the main report, when neither --progress, --rate, nor --latency-limit is specified, the latency average is computed from the total benchmark duration divided by both successful and failed transactions, and therefore includes failed transactions. Otherwise, the latency average and latency stddev shown in the main report are measured only for successful transactions. Detailed latency statistics, including the per-script and per-command reports, are also measured only for successful transactions and commands, not for failed transactions or commands.
The main report contains the number of failed transactions. If the --max-tries option is not equal to 1, the main report also contains statistics related to retries: the total number of retried transactions and total number of retries. The per-script report inherits all these fields from the main report. The per-statement report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
If you want to group failures by basic types in per-transaction and aggregation logs, as well as in the main and per-script reports, use the --failures-detailed option. If you also want to distinguish all errors and failures (errors without retrying) by type including which limit for retries was exceeded and how much it was exceeded by for the serialization/deadlock failures, use the --verbose-errors option.
You may specify the Table Access Method for the pgbench tables. The environment variable PGOPTIONS specifies database configuration options that are passed to PostgreSQL via the command line (See Section\u00a019.1.4). For example, a hypothetical default Table Access Method for the tables that pgbench creates called wuzza can be specified with:
PGOPTIONS='-c default_table_access_method=wuzza'\n\n
It is very easy to use pgbench to produce completely meaningless numbers. Here are some guidelines to help you get useful results.
\nIn the first place, never believe any test that runs for only a few seconds. Use the -t or -T option to make the run last at least a few minutes, so as to average out noise. In some cases you could need hours to get numbers that are reproducible. It's a good idea to try the test run a few times, to find out if your numbers are reproducible or not.
For the default TPC-B-like test scenario, the initialization scale factor (-s) should be at least as large as the largest number of clients you intend to test (-c); else you'll mostly be measuring update contention. There are only -s rows in the pgbench_branches table, and every transaction wants to update one of them, so -c values in excess of -s will undoubtedly result in lots of transactions blocked waiting for other transactions.
The default test scenario is also quite sensitive to how long it's been since the tables were initialized: accumulation of dead rows and dead space in the tables changes the results. To understand the results you must keep track of the total number of updates and when vacuuming happens. If autovacuum is enabled it can result in unpredictable changes in measured performance.
\nA limitation of pgbench is that it can itself become the bottleneck when trying to test a large number of client sessions. This can be alleviated by running pgbench on a different machine from the database server, although low network latency will be essential. It might even be useful to run several pgbench instances concurrently, on several client machines, against the same database server.
\nIf untrusted users have access to a database that has not adopted a secure schema usage pattern, do not run pgbench in that database. pgbench uses unqualified names and does not manipulate the search path.
\npgbench \u2014 run a benchmark test on PostgreSQL
\npgbench -i [option...] [dbname]
pgbench [option...] [dbname]
pgbench is a simple program for running benchmark tests on PostgreSQL. It runs the same sequence of SQL commands over and over, possibly in multiple concurrent database sessions, and then calculates the average transaction rate (transactions per second). By default, pgbench tests a scenario that is loosely based on TPC-B, involving five SELECT, UPDATE, and INSERT commands per transaction. However, it is easy to test other cases by writing your own transaction script files.
Typical output from pgbench looks like:
\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 10\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 0 (0.000%)\nlatency average = 11.013 ms\nlatency stddev = 7.351 ms\ninitial connection time = 45.758 ms\ntps = 896.967014 (without initial connection time)\n\n
The first seven lines report some of the most important parameter settings. The sixth line reports the maximum number of tries for transactions with serialization or deadlock errors (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information). The eighth line reports the number of transactions completed and intended (the latter being just the product of number of clients and number of transactions per client); these will be equal unless the run failed before completion or some SQL command(s) failed. (In -T mode, only the actual number of transactions is printed.) The next line reports the number of failed transactions (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information). The last line reports the number of transactions per second.
The default TPC-B-like transaction test requires specific tables to be set up beforehand. pgbench should be invoked with the -i (initialize) option to create and populate these tables. (When you are testing a custom script, you don't need this step, but will instead need to do whatever setup your test needs.) Initialization looks like:
pgbench -i [\nother-options]dbname\n
where dbname is the name of the already-created database to test in. (You may also need -h, -p, and/or -U options to specify how to connect to the database server.)
pgbench -i creates four tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers, destroying any existing tables of these names. Be very careful to use another database if you have tables having these names!
At the default \u201cscale factor\u201d of 1, the tables initially contain this many rows:
\ntable # of rows\n---------------------------------\npgbench_branches 1\npgbench_tellers 10\npgbench_accounts 100000\npgbench_history 0\n\n
You can (and, for most purposes, probably should) increase the number of rows by using the -s (scale factor) option. The -F (fillfactor) option might also be used at this point.
Once you have done the necessary setup, you can run your benchmark with a command that doesn't include -i, that is
pgbench [\noptions]dbname\n
In nearly all cases, you'll need some options to make a useful test. The most important options are -c (number of clients), -t (number of transactions), -T (time limit), and -f (specify a custom script file). See below for a full list.
The following is divided into three subsections. Different options are used during database initialization and while running benchmarks, but some options are useful in both cases.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line initialization arguments:
\n[-d] dbname[--dbname=]dbname Specifies the name of the database to test in. If this is not specified, the environment variable PGDATABASE is used. If that is not set, the user name specified for the connection is used.
-i--initialize Required to invoke initialization mode.
\n-I init_steps--init-steps=init_steps Perform just a selected set of the normal initialization steps. init_steps specifies the initialization steps to be performed, using one character per step. Each step is invoked in the specified order. The default is dtgvp. The available steps are:
d (Drop) Drop any existing pgbench tables.
\nt (create Tables) Create the tables used by the standard pgbench scenario, namely pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
g or G (Generate data, client-side or server-side) Generate data and load it into the standard tables, replacing any data already present.
\nWith g (client-side data generation), data is generated in pgbench client and then sent to the server. This uses the client/server bandwidth extensively through a COPY. pgbench uses the FREEZE option to load data into ordinary (non-partition) tables with version 14 or later of PostgreSQL to speed up subsequent VACUUM. Using g causes logging to print one message every 100,000 rows while generating data for all tables.
With G (server-side data generation), only small queries are sent from the pgbench client and then data is actually generated in the server. No significant bandwidth is required for this variant, but the server will do more work. Using G causes logging not to print any progress message while generating data.
The default initialization behavior uses client-side data generation (equivalent to g).
v (Vacuum) Invoke VACUUM on the standard tables.
p (create Primary keys) Create primary key indexes on the standard tables.
\nf (create Foreign keys) Create foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (Note that this step is not performed by default.)
\n-F fillfactor--fillfactor=fillfactor Create the pgbench_accounts, pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables with the given fillfactor. Default is 100.
-n--no-vacuum Perform no vacuuming during initialization. (This option suppresses the v initialization step, even if it was specified in -I.)
-q--quiet Switch logging to quiet mode, producing only one progress message per 5 seconds. The default logging prints one message each 100,000 rows, which often outputs many lines per second (especially on good hardware).
\nThis setting has no effect if G is specified in -I.
-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factor Multiply the number of rows generated by the scale factor. For example, -s 100 will create 10,000,000 rows in the pgbench_accounts table. Default is 1. When the scale is 20,000 or larger, the columns used to hold account identifiers (aid columns) will switch to using larger integers (bigint), in order to be big enough to hold the range of account identifiers.
--foreign-keys Create foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (This option adds the f step to the initialization step sequence, if it is not already present.)
--index-tablespace=index_tablespace Create indexes in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--partition-method=NAME Create a partitioned pgbench_accounts table with NAME method. Expected values are range or hash. This option requires that --partitions is set to non-zero. If unspecified, default is range.
--partitions=NUM Create a partitioned pgbench_accounts table with NUM partitions of nearly equal size for the scaled number of accounts. Default is 0, meaning no partitioning.
--tablespace=tablespace Create tables in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--unlogged-tables Create all tables as unlogged tables, rather than permanent tables.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line benchmarking arguments:
\n-b scriptname[@weight]--builtin=scriptname[@weight] Add the specified built-in script to the list of scripts to be executed. Available built-in scripts are: tpcb-like, simple-update and select-only. Unambiguous prefixes of built-in names are accepted. With the special name list, show the list of built-in scripts and exit immediately.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. See below for details.
-c clients--client=clients Number of clients simulated, that is, number of concurrent database sessions. Default is 1.
\n-C--connect Establish a new connection for each transaction, rather than doing it just once per client session. This is useful to measure the connection overhead.
\n-D varname=value--define=varname=value Define a variable for use by a custom script (see below). Multiple -D options are allowed.
-f filename[@weight]--file=filename[@weight] Add a transaction script read from filename to the list of scripts to be executed.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. (To use a script file name that includes an @ character, append a weight so that there is no ambiguity, for example filen@me@1.) See below for details.
-j threads--jobs=threads Number of worker threads within pgbench. Using more than one thread can be helpful on multi-CPU machines. Clients are distributed as evenly as possible among available threads. Default is 1.
\n-l--log Write information about each transaction to a log file. See below for details.
\n-L limit--latency-limit=limit Transactions that last more than limit milliseconds are counted and reported separately, as late.
When throttling is used (--rate=...), transactions that lag behind schedule by more than limit ms, and thus have no hope of meeting the latency limit, are not sent to the server at all. They are counted and reported separately as skipped.
When the --max-tries option is used, a transaction which fails due to a serialization anomaly or from a deadlock will not be retried if the total time of all its tries is greater than limit ms. To limit only the time of tries and not their number, use --max-tries=0. By default, the option --max-tries is set to 1 and transactions with serialization/deadlock errors are not retried. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information about retrying such transactions.
-M querymode--protocol=querymode Protocol to use for submitting queries to the server:
\nsimple: use simple query protocol.
extended: use extended query protocol.
prepared: use extended query protocol with prepared statements.
In the prepared mode, pgbench reuses the parse analysis result starting from the second query iteration, so pgbench runs faster than in other modes.
The default is simple query protocol. (See Chapter\u00a054 for more information.)
\n-n--no-vacuum Perform no vacuuming before running the test. This option is necessary if you are running a custom test scenario that does not include the standard tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
-N--skip-some-updates Run built-in simple-update script. Shorthand for -b simple-update.
-P sec--progress=sec Show progress report every sec seconds. The report includes the time since the beginning of the run, the TPS since the last report, and the transaction latency average, standard deviation, and the number of failed transactions since the last report. Under throttling (-R), the latency is computed with respect to the transaction scheduled start time, not the actual transaction beginning time, thus it also includes the average schedule lag time. When --max-tries is used to enable transaction retries after serialization/deadlock errors, the report includes the number of retried transactions and the sum of all retries.
-r--report-per-command Report the following statistics for each command after the benchmark finishes: the average per-statement latency (execution time from the perspective of the client), the number of failures, and the number of retries after serialization or deadlock errors in this command. The report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
-R rate--rate=rate Execute transactions targeting the specified rate instead of running as fast as possible (the default). The rate is given in transactions per second. If the targeted rate is above the maximum possible rate, the rate limit won't impact the results.
\nThe rate is targeted by starting transactions along a Poisson-distributed schedule time line. The expected start time schedule moves forward based on when the client first started, not when the previous transaction ended. That approach means that when transactions go past their original scheduled end time, it is possible for later ones to catch up again.
\nWhen throttling is active, the transaction latency reported at the end of the run is calculated from the scheduled start times, so it includes the time each transaction had to wait for the previous transaction to finish. The wait time is called the schedule lag time, and its average and maximum are also reported separately. The transaction latency with respect to the actual transaction start time, i.e., the time spent executing the transaction in the database, can be computed by subtracting the schedule lag time from the reported latency.
\nIf --latency-limit is used together with --rate, a transaction can lag behind so much that it is already over the latency limit when the previous transaction ends, because the latency is calculated from the scheduled start time. Such transactions are not sent to the server, but are skipped altogether and counted separately.
A high schedule lag time is an indication that the system cannot process transactions at the specified rate, with the chosen number of clients and threads. When the average transaction execution time is longer than the scheduled interval between each transaction, each successive transaction will fall further behind, and the schedule lag time will keep increasing the longer the test run is. When that happens, you will have to reduce the specified transaction rate.
\n-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factor Report the specified scale factor in pgbench's output. With the built-in tests, this is not necessary; the correct scale factor will be detected by counting the number of rows in the pgbench_branches table. However, when testing only custom benchmarks (-f option), the scale factor will be reported as 1 unless this option is used.
-S--select-only Run built-in select-only script. Shorthand for -b select-only.
-t transactions--transactions=transactions Number of transactions each client runs. Default is 10.
\n-T seconds--time=seconds Run the test for this many seconds, rather than a fixed number of transactions per client. -t and -T are mutually exclusive.
-v--vacuum-all Vacuum all four standard tables before running the test. With neither -n nor -v, pgbench will vacuum the pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables, and will truncate pgbench_history.
--aggregate-interval=seconds Length of aggregation interval (in seconds). May be used only with -l option. With this option, the log contains per-interval summary data, as described below.
--continue-on-error Allows clients to continue running even if an SQL statement fails due to errors other than serialization or deadlock. By default, clients abort after such errors, but with this option enabled, they proceed to the next transaction instead. Note that clients still abort even with this option if an error causes the connection to fail. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\nThis option is useful when your custom script may raise errors such as unique constraint violations, but you want the benchmark to continue despite individual statement failures. Failed transactions are reported separately, but are not counted as transactions actually processed; time spent on failed transactions remains part of the benchmark duration, so such failures can lower the reported TPS.
\n--exit-on-abort Exit immediately when any client is aborted due to some error. Without this option, even when a client is aborted, other clients could continue their run as specified by -t or -T option, and pgbench will print an incomplete results in this case.
Note that serialization failures or deadlock failures do not abort the client, so they are not affected by this option. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\n--failures-detailed Report failures in per-transaction and aggregation logs, as well as in the main and per-script reports, grouped by the following types:
\nserialization failures;
\ndeadlock failures;
\nother failures;
\nSee Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\n--log-prefix=prefix Set the filename prefix for the log files created by --log. The default is pgbench_log.
--max-tries=number_of_tries Enable retries for transactions with serialization/deadlock errors and set the maximum number of these tries. This option can be combined with the --latency-limit option which limits the total time of all transaction tries; moreover, you cannot use an unlimited number of tries (--max-tries=0) without --latency-limit or --time. The default value is 1 and transactions with serialization/deadlock errors are not retried. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information about retrying such transactions.
--progress-timestamp When showing progress (option -P), use a timestamp (Unix epoch) instead of the number of seconds since the beginning of the run. The unit is in seconds, with millisecond precision after the dot. This helps compare logs generated by various tools.
--random-seed=seed Set random generator seed. Seeds the system random number generator, which then produces a sequence of initial generator states, one for each thread. Values for seed may be: time (the default, the seed is based on the current time), rand (use a strong random source, failing if none is available), or an unsigned decimal integer value. The random generator is invoked explicitly from a pgbench script (random... functions) or implicitly (for instance option --rate uses it to schedule transactions). When explicitly set, the value used for seeding is shown on the terminal. Any value allowed for seed may also be provided through the environment variable PGBENCH_RANDOM_SEED. To ensure that the provided seed impacts all possible uses, put this option first or use the environment variable.
Setting the seed explicitly allows to reproduce a pgbench run exactly, as far as random numbers are concerned. As the random state is managed per thread, this means the exact same pgbench run for an identical invocation if there is one client per thread and there are no external or data dependencies. From a statistical viewpoint reproducing runs exactly is a bad idea because it can hide the performance variability or improve performance unduly, e.g., by hitting the same pages as a previous run. However, it may also be of great help for debugging, for instance re-running a tricky case which leads to an error. Use wisely.
--sampling-rate=rate Sampling rate, used when writing data into the log, to reduce the amount of log generated. If this option is given, only the specified fraction of transactions are logged. 1.0 means all transactions will be logged, 0.05 means only 5% of the transactions will be logged.
\nRemember to take the sampling rate into account when processing the log file. For example, when computing TPS values, you need to multiply the numbers accordingly (e.g., with 0.01 sample rate, you'll only get 1/100 of the actual TPS).
\n--show-script=scriptname Show the actual code of builtin script scriptname on stderr, and exit immediately.
--verbose-errors Print messages about all errors and failures (errors without retrying) including which limit for retries was exceeded and how far it was exceeded for the serialization/deadlock failures. (Note that in this case the output can be significantly increased.) See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\npgbench also accepts the following common command-line arguments for connection parameters and other common settings:
\n--debug Print debugging output.
\n-h hostname--host=hostname The database server's host name
\n-p port--port=port The database server's port number
\n-U login--username=login The user name to connect as
\n-V--version Print the pgbench version and exit.
\n-?--help Show help about pgbench command line arguments, and exit.
\nA successful run will exit with status 0. Exit status 1 indicates static problems such as invalid command-line options or internal errors which are supposed to never occur. Early errors that occur when starting benchmark such as initial connection failures also exit with status 1. Errors during the run such as database errors or problems in the script will result in exit status 2. In the latter case, pgbench will print partial results if --exit-on-abort option is not specified.
PGDATABASEPGHOSTPGPORTPGUSER Default connection parameters.
\nThis utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, uses the environment variables supported by libpq (see Section\u00a032.14).
\nThe environment variable PG_COLOR specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. Possible values are always, auto and never.
pgbench executes test scripts chosen randomly from a specified list. The scripts may include built-in scripts specified with -b and user-provided scripts specified with -f. Each script may be given a relative weight specified after an @ so as to change its selection probability. The default weight is 1. Scripts with a weight of 0 are ignored.
The default built-in transaction script (also invoked with -b tpcb-like) issues seven commands per transaction over randomly chosen aid, tid, bid and delta. The scenario is inspired by the TPC-B benchmark, but is not actually TPC-B, hence the name.
BEGIN;
UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;
SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;
UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;
UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;
INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);
END;
If you select the simple-update built-in (also -N), steps 4 and 5 aren't included in the transaction. This will avoid update contention on these tables, but it makes the test case even less like TPC-B.
If you select the select-only built-in (also -S), only the SELECT is issued.
pgbench has support for running custom benchmark scenarios by replacing the default transaction script (described above) with a transaction script read from a file (-f option). In this case a \u201ctransaction\u201d counts as one execution of a script file.
A script file contains one or more SQL commands terminated by semicolons. Empty lines and lines beginning with -- are ignored. Script files can also contain \u201cmeta commands\u201d, which are interpreted by pgbench itself, as described below.
Before PostgreSQL 9.6, SQL commands in script files were terminated by newlines, and so they could not be continued across lines. Now a semicolon is required to separate consecutive SQL commands (though an SQL command does not need one if it is followed by a meta command). If you need to create a script file that works with both old and new versions of pgbench, be sure to write each SQL command on a single line ending with a semicolon.
\nIt is assumed that pgbench scripts do not contain incomplete blocks of SQL transactions. If at runtime the client reaches the end of the script without completing the last transaction block, it will be aborted.
\nThere is a simple variable-substitution facility for script files. Variable names must consist of letters (including non-Latin letters), digits, and underscores, with the first character not being a digit. Variables can be set by the command-line -D option, explained above, or by the meta commands explained below. In addition to any variables preset by -D command-line options, there are a few variables that are preset automatically, listed in Table\u00a0314. A value specified for these variables using -D takes precedence over the automatic presets. Once set, a variable's value can be inserted into an SQL command by writing :variablename. When running more than one client session, each session has its own set of variables. pgbench supports up to 255 variable uses in one statement.
Table\u00a0314.\u00a0pgbench Automatic Variables
\n| Variable | \nDescription | \n
|---|---|
client_id | \nunique number identifying the client session (starts from zero) | \n
default_seed | \nseed used in hash and pseudorandom permutation functions by default | \n
random_seed | \nrandom generator seed (unless overwritten with -D) | \n
scale | \ncurrent scale factor | \n
Script file meta commands begin with a backslash (\\) and normally extend to the end of the line, although they can be continued to additional lines by writing backslash-return. Arguments to a meta command are separated by white space. These meta commands are supported:
\\gset [prefix]\\aset [prefix] These commands may be used to end SQL queries, taking the place of the terminating semicolon (;).
When the \\gset command is used, the preceding SQL query is expected to return one row, the columns of which are stored into variables named after column names, and prefixed with prefix if provided. If the query returns zero or multiple rows, an error is raised.
When the \\aset command is used, all combined SQL queries (separated by \\;) have their columns stored into variables named after column names, and prefixed with prefix if provided. If a query returns no rows, no assignment is made. This can be detected by initializing the variable beforehand with a value the query cannot return, then checking whether it changes. If a query returns more than one row, the last value is kept.
\\gset and \\aset cannot be used in pipeline mode, since the query results are not yet available by the time the commands would need them.
The following example puts the final account balance from the first query into variable abalance, and fills variables p_two and p_three with integers from the third query. The result of the second query is discarded. The result of the two last combined queries are stored in variables four and five.
UPDATE pgbench_accounts\n SET abalance = abalance + :delta\n WHERE aid = :aid\n RETURNING abalance \\gset\n-- compound of two queries\nSELECT 1 \\;\nSELECT 2 AS two, 3 AS three \\gset p_\nSELECT 4 AS four \\; SELECT 5 AS five \\aset\n\n
\\if expression\\elif expression\\else\\endif This group of commands implements nestable conditional blocks, similarly to psql's \\if expression. Conditional expressions are identical to those with \\set, with non-zero values interpreted as true.
\\set varname expression Sets variable varname to a value calculated from expression. The expression may contain the NULL constant, Boolean constants TRUE and FALSE, integer constants such as 5432, double constants such as 3.14159, references to variables :variablename, operators with their usual SQL precedence and associativity, function calls, SQL CASE generic conditional expressions and parentheses.
Functions and most operators return NULL on NULL input.
For conditional purposes, non zero numerical values are TRUE, zero numerical values and NULL are FALSE.
Too large or small integer and double constants, as well as integer arithmetic operators (+, -, * and /) raise errors on overflows.
When no final ELSE clause is provided to a CASE, the default value is NULL.
Examples:
\n\\set ntellers 10 * :scale\n\\set aid (1021 * random(1, 100000 * :scale)) % \\\n (100000 * :scale) + 1\n\\set divx CASE WHEN :x <> 0 THEN :y/:x ELSE NULL END\n\n
\\sleep number [ us | ms | s ] Causes script execution to sleep for the specified duration in microseconds (us), milliseconds (ms) or seconds (s). If the unit is omitted then seconds are the default. number can be either an integer constant or a :variablename reference to a variable having an integer value.
Example:
\n\\sleep 10 ms\n\n
\\setshell varname command [ argument ... ] Sets variable varname to the result of the shell command command with the given argument(s). The command must return an integer value through its standard output.
command and each argument can be either a text constant or a :variablename reference to a variable. If you want to use an argument starting with a colon, write an additional colon at the beginning of argument.
Example:
\n\\setshell variable_to_be_assigned command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
\\shell command [ argument ... ] Same as \\setshell, but the result of the command is discarded.
Example:
\n\\shell command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
\\startpipeline\\syncpipeline\\endpipeline This group of commands implements pipelining of SQL statements. A pipeline must begin with a \\startpipeline and end with an \\endpipeline. In between there may be any number of \\syncpipeline commands, which sends a sync message without ending the ongoing pipeline and flushing the send buffer. In pipeline mode, statements are sent to the server without waiting for the results of previous statements. See Section\u00a032.5 for more details. Pipeline mode requires the use of extended query protocol.
The arithmetic, bitwise, comparison and logical operators listed in Table\u00a0315 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set. The operators are listed in increasing precedence order. Except as noted, operators taking two numeric inputs will produce a double value if either input is double, otherwise they produce an integer result.
Table\u00a0315.\u00a0pgbench Operators
\n| \n Operator \nDescription \nExample(s) \n | \n
|---|
| \n
Logical OR \n
| \n
| \n
Logical AND \n
| \n
| \n
Logical NOT \n
| \n
| \n
Boolean value tests \n
| \n
| \n
Nullness tests \n
| \n
| \n
Equal \n
| \n
| \n
Not equal \n
| \n
| \n
Not equal \n
| \n
| \n
Less than \n
| \n
| \n
Less than or equal to \n
| \n
| \n
Greater than \n
| \n
| \n
Greater than or equal to \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise OR \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise XOR \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise AND \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise NOT \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise shift left \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise shift right \n
| \n
| \n
Addition \n
| \n
| \n
Subtraction \n
| \n
| \n
Multiplication \n
| \n
| \n
Division (truncates the result towards zero if both inputs are integers) \n
| \n
| \n
Modulo (remainder) \n
| \n
| \n
Negation \n
| \n
The functions listed in Table\u00a0316 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set.
Table\u00a0316.\u00a0pgbench Functions
\n| \n Function \nDescription \nExample(s) \n | \n
|---|
| \n
Absolute value \n
| \n
| \n
Prints the argument to stderr, and returns the argument. \n
| \n
| \n
Casts to double. \n
| \n
| \n
Exponential (
| \n
| \n
Selects the largest value among the arguments. \n
| \n
| \n
This is an alias for
| \n
| \n
Computes FNV-1a hash. \n
| \n
| \n
Computes MurmurHash2 hash. \n
| \n
| \n
Casts to integer. \n
| \n
| \n
Selects the smallest value among the arguments. \n
| \n
| \n
Natural logarithm \n
| \n
| \n
Modulo (remainder) \n
| \n
| \n
Permuted value of
| \n
| \n
Approximate value of \u03c0 \n
| \n
| \n
| \n
| \n
Computes a uniformly-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes an exponentially-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes a Gaussian-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes a Zipfian-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Square root \n
| \n
The random function generates values using a uniform distribution, that is all the values are drawn within the specified range with equal probability. The random_exponential, random_gaussian and random_zipfian functions require an additional double parameter which determines the precise shape of the distribution.
For an exponential distribution, parameter controls the distribution by truncating a quickly-decreasing exponential distribution at parameter, and then projecting onto integers between the bounds. To be precise, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0exp(-parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0min)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/\u00a0(1\u00a0-\u00a0exp(-parameter))
Then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i) - f(i + 1).
Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to min are accessed, and the less frequently values close to max are accessed. The closer to 0 parameter is, the flatter (more uniform) the access distribution. A crude approximation of the distribution is that the most frequent 1% values in the range, close to min, are drawn parameter% of the time. The parameter value must be strictly positive.
For a Gaussian distribution, the interval is mapped onto a standard normal distribution (the classical bell-shaped Gaussian curve) truncated at -parameter on the left and +parameter on the right. Values in the middle of the interval are more likely to be drawn. To be precise, if PHI(x) is the cumulative distribution function of the standard normal distribution, with mean mu defined as (max + min) / 2.0, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0PHI(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0mu)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/
\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0PHI(parameter)\u00a0-\u00a01)
then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i + 0.5) - f(i - 0.5). Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to the middle of the interval are drawn, and the less frequently values close to the min and max bounds. About 67% of values are drawn from the middle 1.0 / parameter, that is a relative 0.5 / parameter around the mean, and 95% in the middle 2.0 / parameter, that is a relative 1.0 / parameter around the mean; for instance, if parameter is 4.0, 67% of values are drawn from the middle quarter (1.0 / 4.0) of the interval (i.e., from 3.0 / 8.0 to 5.0 / 8.0) and 95% from the middle half (2.0 / 4.0) of the interval (second and third quartiles). The minimum allowed parameter value is 2.0.
random_zipfian generates a bounded Zipfian distribution. parameter defines how skewed the distribution is. The larger the parameter, the more frequently values closer to the beginning of the interval are drawn. The distribution is such that, assuming the range starts from 1, the ratio of the probability of drawing k versus drawing k+1 is ((. For example, k+1)/k)**parameterrandom_zipfian(1, ..., 2.5) produces the value 1 about (2/1)**2.5 = 5.66 times more frequently than 2, which itself is produced (3/2)**2.5 = 2.76 times more frequently than 3, and so on.
pgbench's implementation is based on \"Non-Uniform Random Variate Generation\", Luc Devroye, p. 550-551, Springer 1986. Due to limitations of that algorithm, the parameter value is restricted to the range [1.001, 1000].
When designing a benchmark which selects rows non-uniformly, be aware that the rows chosen may be correlated with other data such as IDs from a sequence or the physical row ordering, which may skew performance measurements.
\nTo avoid this, you may wish to use the permute function, or some other additional step with similar effect, to shuffle the selected rows and remove such correlations.
Hash functions hash, hash_murmur2 and hash_fnv1a accept an input value and an optional seed parameter. In case the seed isn't provided the value of :default_seed is used, which is initialized randomly unless set by the command-line -D option.
permute accepts an input value, a size, and an optional seed parameter. It generates a pseudorandom permutation of integers in the range [0, size), and returns the index of the input value in the permuted values. The permutation chosen is parameterized by the seed, which defaults to :default_seed, if not specified. Unlike the hash functions, permute ensures that there are no collisions or holes in the output values. Input values outside the interval are interpreted modulo the size. The function raises an error if the size is not positive. permute can be used to scatter the distribution of non-uniform random functions such as random_zipfian or random_exponential so that values drawn more often are not trivially correlated. For instance, the following pgbench script simulates a possible real world workload typical for social media and blogging platforms where a few accounts generate excessive load:
\\set size 1000000\n\\set r random_zipfian(1, :size, 1.07)\n\\set k 1 + permute(:r, :size)\n\n
In some cases several distinct distributions are needed which don't correlate with each other and this is when the optional seed parameter comes in handy:
\n\\set k1 1 + permute(:r, :size, :default_seed + 123)\n\\set k2 1 + permute(:r, :size, :default_seed + 321)\n\n
A similar behavior can also be approximated with hash:
\\set size 1000000\n\\set r random_zipfian(1, 100 * :size, 1.07)\n\\set k 1 + abs(hash(:r)) % :size\n\n
However, since hash generates collisions, some values will not be reachable and others will be more frequent than expected from the original distribution.
As an example, the full definition of the built-in TPC-B-like transaction is:
\n\\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n\\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n\\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n\\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\nBEGIN;\nUPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\nSELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\nUPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\nUPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\nINSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\nEND;\n\n
This script allows each iteration of the transaction to reference different, randomly-chosen rows. (This example also shows why it's important for each client session to have its own variables \u2014 otherwise they'd not be independently touching different rows.)
\nWith the -l option (but without the --aggregate-interval option), pgbench writes information about each transaction to a log file. The log file will be named prefix.nnnprefix defaults to pgbench_log, and nnn is the PID of the pgbench process. The prefix can be changed by using the --log-prefix option. If the -j option is 2 or higher, so that there are multiple worker threads, each will have its own log file. The first worker will use the same name for its log file as in the standard single worker case. The additional log files for the other workers will be named prefix.nnn.mmmmmm is a sequential number for each worker starting with 1.
Each line in a log file describes one transaction. It contains the following space-separated fields:
\nclient_ididentifies the client session that ran the transaction
\ntransaction_nocounts how many transactions have been run by that session
\ntimetransaction's elapsed time, in microseconds
\nscript_noidentifies the script file that was used for the transaction (useful when multiple scripts are specified with -f or -b)
time_epochtransaction's completion time, as a Unix-epoch time stamp
\ntime_usfractional-second part of transaction's completion time, in microseconds
\nschedule_lagtransaction start delay, that is the difference between the transaction's scheduled start time and the time it actually started, in microseconds (present only if --rate is specified)
retriescount of retries after serialization or deadlock errors during the transaction (present only if --max-tries is not equal to one)
When both --rate and --latency-limit are used, the time for a skipped transaction will be reported as skipped. If the transaction ends with a failure, its time will be reported as failed. If you use the --failures-detailed option, the time of the failed transaction will be reported as serialization, deadlock, or other depending on the type of failure (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information).
Here is a snippet of a log file generated in a single-client run:
\n0 199 2241 0 1175850568 995598\n0 200 2465 0 1175850568 998079\n0 201 2513 0 1175850569 608\n0 202 2038 0 1175850569 2663\n\n
Another example with --rate=100 and --latency-limit=5 (note the additional schedule_lag column):
0 81 4621 0 1412881037 912698 3005\n0 82 6173 0 1412881037 914578 4304\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5217\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5099\n0 83 4722 0 1412881037 916203 3108\n0 84 4142 0 1412881037 918023 2333\n0 85 2465 0 1412881037 919759 740\n\n
In this example, transaction 82 was late, because its latency (6.173 ms) was over the 5 ms limit. The next two transactions were skipped, because they were already late before they were even started.
\nThe following example shows a snippet of a log file with failures and retries, with the maximum number of tries set to 10 (note the additional retries column):
3 0 47423 0 1499414498 34501 3\n3 1 8333 0 1499414498 42848 0\n3 2 8358 0 1499414498 51219 0\n4 0 72345 0 1499414498 59433 6\n1 3 41718 0 1499414498 67879 4\n1 4 8416 0 1499414498 76311 0\n3 3 33235 0 1499414498 84469 3\n0 0 failed 0 1499414498 84905 9\n2 0 failed 0 1499414498 86248 9\n3 4 8307 0 1499414498 92788 0\n\n
If the --failures-detailed option is used, the type of failure is reported in the time like this:
3 0 47423 0 1499414498 34501 3\n3 1 8333 0 1499414498 42848 0\n3 2 8358 0 1499414498 51219 0\n4 0 72345 0 1499414498 59433 6\n1 3 41718 0 1499414498 67879 4\n1 4 8416 0 1499414498 76311 0\n3 3 33235 0 1499414498 84469 3\n0 0 serialization 0 1499414498 84905 9\n2 0 serialization 0 1499414498 86248 9\n3 4 8307 0 1499414498 92788 0\n\n
When running a long test on hardware that can handle a lot of transactions, the log files can become very large. The --sampling-rate option can be used to log only a random sample of transactions.
With the --aggregate-interval option, a different format is used for the log files. Each log line describes one aggregation interval. It contains the following space-separated fields:
interval_startstart time of the interval, as a Unix-epoch time stamp
\nnum_transactionsnumber of transactions within the interval
\nsum_latencysum of transaction latencies
\nsum_latency_2sum of squares of transaction latencies
\nmin_latencyminimum transaction latency
\nmax_latencymaximum transaction latency
\nsum_lagsum of transaction start delays (zero unless --rate is specified)
sum_lag_2sum of squares of transaction start delays (zero unless --rate is specified)
min_lagminimum transaction start delay (zero unless --rate is specified)
max_lagmaximum transaction start delay (zero unless --rate is specified)
skippednumber of transactions skipped because they would have started too late (zero unless --rate and --latency-limit are specified)
retriednumber of retried transactions (zero unless --max-tries is not equal to one)
retriesnumber of retries after serialization or deadlock errors (zero unless --max-tries is not equal to one)
serialization_failuresnumber of transactions that got a serialization error and were not retried afterwards (zero unless --failures-detailed is specified)
deadlock_failuresnumber of transactions that got a deadlock error and were not retried afterwards (zero unless --failures-detailed is specified)
other_sql_failuresnumber of transactions that got an SQL error (zero unless both --failures-detailed and --continue-on-error are specified)
Here is some example output generated with this option:
\npgbench --aggregate-interval=10 --time=20 --client=10 --log --rate=1000 --latency-limit=10 --failures-detailed --max-tries=10 test\n\n1650260552 5178 26171317 177284491527 1136 44462 2647617 7321113867 0 9866 64 7564 28340 4148 0 0\n1650260562 4808 25573984 220121792172 1171 62083 3037380 9666800914 0 9998 598 7392 26621 4527 0 0\nNotice that while the plain (unaggregated) log format shows which script was used for each transaction, the aggregated format does not. Therefore if you need per-script data, you need to aggregate the data on your own.
\nWith the -r option, pgbench collects the following statistics for each statement:
latency \u2014 elapsed transaction time for each statement. pgbench reports an average value of all successful runs of the statement.
The number of failures in this statement. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\nThe number of retries after a serialization or a deadlock error in this statement. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\nThe report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
All values are computed for each statement executed by every client and are reported after the benchmark has finished.
\nFor the default script, the output will look similar to this:
\nstarting vacuum...end.\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 1\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 0 (0.000%)\nnumber of transactions above the 50.0 ms latency limit: 1311/10000 (13.110 %)\nlatency average = 28.488 ms\nlatency stddev = 21.009 ms\ninitial connection time = 69.068 ms\ntps = 346.224794 (without initial connection time)\nstatement latencies in milliseconds and failures:\n 0.012 0 \\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\n 0.319 0 BEGIN;\n 0.834 0 UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\n 0.641 0 SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\n 11.126 0 UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\n 12.961 0 UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\n 0.634 0 INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\n 1.957 0 END;\n\n
Another example of output for the default script using serializable default transaction isolation level (PGOPTIONS='-c default_transaction_isolation=serializable' pgbench ...):
starting vacuum...end.\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 1\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 10\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 6317/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 3683 (36.830%)\nnumber of transactions retried: 7667 (76.670%)\ntotal number of retries: 45339\nnumber of transactions above the 50.0 ms latency limit: 106/6317 (1.678 %)\nlatency average = 17.016 ms\nlatency stddev = 13.283 ms\ninitial connection time = 45.017 ms\ntps = 186.792667 (without initial connection time)\nstatement latencies in milliseconds, failures and retries:\n 0.006 0 0 \\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\n 0.385 0 0 BEGIN;\n 0.773 0 1 UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\n 0.624 0 0 SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\n 1.098 320 3762 UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\n 0.582 3363 41576 UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\n 0.465 0 0 INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\n 1.933 0 0 END;\n\n
If multiple script files are specified, all statistics are reported separately for each script file.
\nNote that collecting the additional timing information needed for per-statement latency computation adds some overhead. This will slow average execution speed and lower the computed TPS. The amount of slowdown varies significantly depending on platform and hardware. Comparing average TPS values with and without latency reporting enabled is a good way to measure if the timing overhead is significant.
\nWhen executing pgbench, there are three main types of errors:
\nErrors of the main program. They are the most serious and always result in an immediate exit from pgbench with the corresponding error message. They include:
\nerrors at the beginning of pgbench (e.g. an invalid option value);
\nerrors in the initialization mode (e.g. the query to create tables for built-in scripts fails);
\nerrors before starting threads (e.g. could not connect to the database server, syntax error in the meta command, thread creation failure);
\ninternal pgbench errors (which are supposed to never occur...).
\nErrors when the thread manages its clients (e.g. the client could not start a connection to the database server / the socket for connecting the client to the database server has become invalid). In such cases all clients of this thread stop while other threads continue to work. However, if --exit-on-abort is specified, all of the threads stop immediately in this case.
Direct client errors. They lead to immediate exit from pgbench with the corresponding error message in the case of an internal pgbench error (which are supposed to never occur...) or when --exit-on-abort is specified. Otherwise in the worst case they only lead to the abortion of the failed client while other clients continue their run (but some client errors are handled without an abortion of the client and reported separately, see below). Later in this section it is assumed that the discussed errors are only the direct client errors and they are not internal pgbench errors.
A client's run is aborted in case of a serious error; for example, the connection with the database server was lost or the end of script was reached without completing the last transaction. The client also aborts if a meta command fails, or if an SQL command fails for reasons other than serialization or deadlock errors when --continue-on-error is not specified. With --continue-on-error, the client does not abort on such SQL errors and instead proceeds to the next transaction. These cases are reported as other failures in the output. If the error occurs in a meta command, however, the client still aborts even when this option is specified.
If an SQL command fails due to serialization or deadlock errors, the client does not abort, regardless of whether --continue-on-error is used. Instead, the current transaction is rolled back, which also includes setting the client variables as they were before the run of this transaction (it is assumed that one transaction script contains only one transaction; see What Is the \"Transaction\" Actually Performed in pgbench? for more information). Transactions with serialization or deadlock errors are repeated after rollbacks until they complete successfully or reach the maximum number of tries (specified by the --max-tries option) / the maximum time of retries (specified by the --latency-limit option) / the end of benchmark (specified by the --time option). If the last trial run fails, this transaction will be reported as failed but the client is not aborted and continues to work.
Without specifying the --max-tries option, a transaction will never be retried after a serialization or deadlock error because its default value is 1. Use an unlimited number of tries (--max-tries=0) and the --latency-limit option to limit only the maximum time of tries. You can also use the --time option to limit the benchmark duration under an unlimited number of tries.
Be careful when repeating scripts that contain multiple transactions: the script is always retried completely, so successful transactions can be performed several times.
\nBe careful when repeating transactions with shell commands. Unlike the results of SQL commands, the results of shell commands are not rolled back, except for the variable value of the \\setshell command.
The latency of a successful transaction includes the entire time of transaction execution with rollbacks and retries. In the main report, when neither --progress, --rate, nor --latency-limit is specified, the latency average is computed from the total benchmark duration divided by both successful and failed transactions, and therefore includes failed transactions. Otherwise, the latency average and latency stddev shown in the main report are measured only for successful transactions. Detailed latency statistics, including the per-script and per-command reports, are also measured only for successful transactions and commands, not for failed transactions or commands.
The main report contains the number of failed transactions. If the --max-tries option is not equal to 1, the main report also contains statistics related to retries: the total number of retried transactions and total number of retries. The per-script report inherits all these fields from the main report. The per-statement report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
If you want to group failures by basic types in per-transaction and aggregation logs, as well as in the main and per-script reports, use the --failures-detailed option. If you also want to distinguish all errors and failures (errors without retrying) by type including which limit for retries was exceeded and how much it was exceeded by for the serialization/deadlock failures, use the --verbose-errors option.
You may specify the Table Access Method for the pgbench tables. The environment variable PGOPTIONS specifies database configuration options that are passed to PostgreSQL via the command line (See Section\u00a019.1.4). For example, a hypothetical default Table Access Method for the tables that pgbench creates called wuzza can be specified with:
PGOPTIONS='-c default_table_access_method=wuzza'\n\n
It is very easy to use pgbench to produce completely meaningless numbers. Here are some guidelines to help you get useful results.
\nIn the first place, never believe any test that runs for only a few seconds. Use the -t or -T option to make the run last at least a few minutes, so as to average out noise. In some cases you could need hours to get numbers that are reproducible. It's a good idea to try the test run a few times, to find out if your numbers are reproducible or not.
For the default TPC-B-like test scenario, the initialization scale factor (-s) should be at least as large as the largest number of clients you intend to test (-c); else you'll mostly be measuring update contention. There are only -s rows in the pgbench_branches table, and every transaction wants to update one of them, so -c values in excess of -s will undoubtedly result in lots of transactions blocked waiting for other transactions.
The default test scenario is also quite sensitive to how long it's been since the tables were initialized: accumulation of dead rows and dead space in the tables changes the results. To understand the results you must keep track of the total number of updates and when vacuuming happens. If autovacuum is enabled it can result in unpredictable changes in measured performance.
\nA limitation of pgbench is that it can itself become the bottleneck when trying to test a large number of client sessions. This can be alleviated by running pgbench on a different machine from the database server, although low network latency will be essential. It might even be useful to run several pgbench instances concurrently, on several client machines, against the same database server.
\nIf untrusted users have access to a database that has not adopted a secure schema usage pattern, do not run pgbench in that database. pgbench uses unqualified names and does not manipulate the search path.
\npgbench \u2014 run a benchmark test on PostgreSQL
\npgbench -i [option...] [dbname]
pgbench [option...] [dbname]
pgbench is a simple program for running benchmark tests on PostgreSQL. It runs the same sequence of SQL commands over and over, possibly in multiple concurrent database sessions, and then calculates the average transaction rate (transactions per second). By default, pgbench tests a scenario that is loosely based on TPC-B, involving five SELECT, UPDATE, and INSERT commands per transaction. However, it is easy to test other cases by writing your own transaction script files.
Typical output from pgbench looks like:
\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 10\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 0 (0.000%)\nlatency average = 11.013 ms\nlatency stddev = 7.351 ms\ninitial connection time = 45.758 ms\ntps = 896.967014 (without initial connection time)\n\n
The first seven lines report some of the most important parameter settings. The sixth line reports the maximum number of tries for transactions with serialization or deadlock errors (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information). The eighth line reports the number of transactions completed and intended (the latter being just the product of number of clients and number of transactions per client); these will be equal unless the run failed before completion or some SQL command(s) failed. (In -T mode, only the actual number of transactions is printed.) The next line reports the number of failed transactions due to serialization or deadlock errors (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information). The last line reports the number of transactions per second.
The default TPC-B-like transaction test requires specific tables to be set up beforehand. pgbench should be invoked with the -i (initialize) option to create and populate these tables. (When you are testing a custom script, you don't need this step, but will instead need to do whatever setup your test needs.) Initialization looks like:
pgbench -i [\nother-options]dbname\n
where dbname is the name of the already-created database to test in. (You may also need -h, -p, and/or -U options to specify how to connect to the database server.)
pgbench -i creates four tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers, destroying any existing tables of these names. Be very careful to use another database if you have tables having these names!
At the default \u201cscale factor\u201d of 1, the tables initially contain this many rows:
\ntable # of rows\n---------------------------------\npgbench_branches 1\npgbench_tellers 10\npgbench_accounts 100000\npgbench_history 0\n\n
You can (and, for most purposes, probably should) increase the number of rows by using the -s (scale factor) option. The -F (fillfactor) option might also be used at this point.
Once you have done the necessary setup, you can run your benchmark with a command that doesn't include -i, that is
pgbench [\noptions]dbname\n
In nearly all cases, you'll need some options to make a useful test. The most important options are -c (number of clients), -t (number of transactions), -T (time limit), and -f (specify a custom script file). See below for a full list.
The following is divided into three subsections. Different options are used during database initialization and while running benchmarks, but some options are useful in both cases.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line initialization arguments:
\n[-d] dbname[--dbname=]dbname Specifies the name of the database to test in. If this is not specified, the environment variable PGDATABASE is used. If that is not set, the user name specified for the connection is used.
-i--initialize Required to invoke initialization mode.
\n-I init_steps--init-steps=init_steps Perform just a selected set of the normal initialization steps. init_steps specifies the initialization steps to be performed, using one character per step. Each step is invoked in the specified order. The default is dtgvp. The available steps are:
d (Drop) Drop any existing pgbench tables.
\nt (create Tables) Create the tables used by the standard pgbench scenario, namely pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
g or G (Generate data, client-side or server-side) Generate data and load it into the standard tables, replacing any data already present.
\nWith g (client-side data generation), data is generated in pgbench client and then sent to the server. This uses the client/server bandwidth extensively through a COPY. pgbench uses the FREEZE option to load data into ordinary (non-partition) tables with version 14 or later of PostgreSQL to speed up subsequent VACUUM. Using g causes logging to print one message every 100,000 rows while generating data for all tables.
With G (server-side data generation), only small queries are sent from the pgbench client and then data is actually generated in the server. No significant bandwidth is required for this variant, but the server will do more work. Using G causes logging not to print any progress message while generating data.
The default initialization behavior uses client-side data generation (equivalent to g).
v (Vacuum) Invoke VACUUM on the standard tables.
p (create Primary keys) Create primary key indexes on the standard tables.
\nf (create Foreign keys) Create foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (Note that this step is not performed by default.)
\n-F fillfactor--fillfactor=fillfactor Create the pgbench_accounts, pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables with the given fillfactor. Default is 100.
-n--no-vacuum Perform no vacuuming during initialization. (This option suppresses the v initialization step, even if it was specified in -I.)
-q--quiet Switch logging to quiet mode, producing only one progress message per 5 seconds. The default logging prints one message each 100,000 rows, which often outputs many lines per second (especially on good hardware).
\nThis setting has no effect if G is specified in -I.
-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factor Multiply the number of rows generated by the scale factor. For example, -s 100 will create 10,000,000 rows in the pgbench_accounts table. Default is 1. When the scale is 20,000 or larger, the columns used to hold account identifiers (aid columns) will switch to using larger integers (bigint), in order to be big enough to hold the range of account identifiers.
--foreign-keys Create foreign key constraints between the standard tables. (This option adds the f step to the initialization step sequence, if it is not already present.)
--index-tablespace=index_tablespace Create indexes in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--partition-method=NAME Create a partitioned pgbench_accounts table with NAME method. Expected values are range or hash. This option requires that --partitions is set to non-zero. If unspecified, default is range.
--partitions=NUM Create a partitioned pgbench_accounts table with NUM partitions of nearly equal size for the scaled number of accounts. Default is 0, meaning no partitioning.
--tablespace=tablespace Create tables in the specified tablespace, rather than the default tablespace.
\n--unlogged-tables Create all tables as unlogged tables, rather than permanent tables.
\npgbench accepts the following command-line benchmarking arguments:
\n-b scriptname[@weight]--builtin=scriptname[@weight] Add the specified built-in script to the list of scripts to be executed. Available built-in scripts are: tpcb-like, simple-update and select-only. Unambiguous prefixes of built-in names are accepted. With the special name list, show the list of built-in scripts and exit immediately.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. See below for details.
-c clients--client=clients Number of clients simulated, that is, number of concurrent database sessions. Default is 1.
\n-C--connect Establish a new connection for each transaction, rather than doing it just once per client session. This is useful to measure the connection overhead.
\n-D varname=value--define=varname=value Define a variable for use by a custom script (see below). Multiple -D options are allowed.
-f filename[@weight]--file=filename[@weight] Add a transaction script read from filename to the list of scripts to be executed.
Optionally, write an integer weight after @ to adjust the probability of selecting this script versus other ones. The default weight is 1. (To use a script file name that includes an @ character, append a weight so that there is no ambiguity, for example filen@me@1.) See below for details.
-j threads--jobs=threads Number of worker threads within pgbench. Using more than one thread can be helpful on multi-CPU machines. Clients are distributed as evenly as possible among available threads. Default is 1.
\n-l--log Write information about each transaction to a log file. See below for details.
\n-L limit--latency-limit=limit Transactions that last more than limit milliseconds are counted and reported separately, as late.
When throttling is used (--rate=...), transactions that lag behind schedule by more than limit ms, and thus have no hope of meeting the latency limit, are not sent to the server at all. They are counted and reported separately as skipped.
When the --max-tries option is used, a transaction which fails due to a serialization anomaly or from a deadlock will not be retried if the total time of all its tries is greater than limit ms. To limit only the time of tries and not their number, use --max-tries=0. By default, the option --max-tries is set to 1 and transactions with serialization/deadlock errors are not retried. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information about retrying such transactions.
-M querymode--protocol=querymode Protocol to use for submitting queries to the server:
\nsimple: use simple query protocol.
extended: use extended query protocol.
prepared: use extended query protocol with prepared statements.
In the prepared mode, pgbench reuses the parse analysis result starting from the second query iteration, so pgbench runs faster than in other modes.
The default is simple query protocol. (See Chapter\u00a054 for more information.)
\n-n--no-vacuum Perform no vacuuming before running the test. This option is necessary if you are running a custom test scenario that does not include the standard tables pgbench_accounts, pgbench_branches, pgbench_history, and pgbench_tellers.
-N--skip-some-updates Run built-in simple-update script. Shorthand for -b simple-update.
-P sec--progress=sec Show progress report every sec seconds. The report includes the time since the beginning of the run, the TPS since the last report, and the transaction latency average, standard deviation, and the number of failed transactions since the last report. Under throttling (-R), the latency is computed with respect to the transaction scheduled start time, not the actual transaction beginning time, thus it also includes the average schedule lag time. When --max-tries is used to enable transaction retries after serialization/deadlock errors, the report includes the number of retried transactions and the sum of all retries.
-r--report-per-command Report the following statistics for each command after the benchmark finishes: the average per-statement latency (execution time from the perspective of the client), the number of failures, and the number of retries after serialization or deadlock errors in this command. The report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
-R rate--rate=rate Execute transactions targeting the specified rate instead of running as fast as possible (the default). The rate is given in transactions per second. If the targeted rate is above the maximum possible rate, the rate limit won't impact the results.
\nThe rate is targeted by starting transactions along a Poisson-distributed schedule time line. The expected start time schedule moves forward based on when the client first started, not when the previous transaction ended. That approach means that when transactions go past their original scheduled end time, it is possible for later ones to catch up again.
\nWhen throttling is active, the transaction latency reported at the end of the run is calculated from the scheduled start times, so it includes the time each transaction had to wait for the previous transaction to finish. The wait time is called the schedule lag time, and its average and maximum are also reported separately. The transaction latency with respect to the actual transaction start time, i.e., the time spent executing the transaction in the database, can be computed by subtracting the schedule lag time from the reported latency.
\nIf --latency-limit is used together with --rate, a transaction can lag behind so much that it is already over the latency limit when the previous transaction ends, because the latency is calculated from the scheduled start time. Such transactions are not sent to the server, but are skipped altogether and counted separately.
A high schedule lag time is an indication that the system cannot process transactions at the specified rate, with the chosen number of clients and threads. When the average transaction execution time is longer than the scheduled interval between each transaction, each successive transaction will fall further behind, and the schedule lag time will keep increasing the longer the test run is. When that happens, you will have to reduce the specified transaction rate.
\n-s scale_factor--scale=scale_factor Report the specified scale factor in pgbench's output. With the built-in tests, this is not necessary; the correct scale factor will be detected by counting the number of rows in the pgbench_branches table. However, when testing only custom benchmarks (-f option), the scale factor will be reported as 1 unless this option is used.
-S--select-only Run built-in select-only script. Shorthand for -b select-only.
-t transactions--transactions=transactions Number of transactions each client runs. Default is 10.
\n-T seconds--time=seconds Run the test for this many seconds, rather than a fixed number of transactions per client. -t and -T are mutually exclusive.
-v--vacuum-all Vacuum all four standard tables before running the test. With neither -n nor -v, pgbench will vacuum the pgbench_tellers and pgbench_branches tables, and will truncate pgbench_history.
--aggregate-interval=seconds Length of aggregation interval (in seconds). May be used only with -l option. With this option, the log contains per-interval summary data, as described below.
--exit-on-abort Exit immediately when any client is aborted due to some error. Without this option, even when a client is aborted, other clients could continue their run as specified by -t or -T option, and pgbench will print an incomplete results in this case.
Note that serialization failures or deadlock failures do not abort the client, so they are not affected by this option. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\n--failures-detailed Report failures in per-transaction and aggregation logs, as well as in the main and per-script reports, grouped by the following types:
\nserialization failures;
\ndeadlock failures;
\nSee Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\n--log-prefix=prefix Set the filename prefix for the log files created by --log. The default is pgbench_log.
--max-tries=number_of_tries Enable retries for transactions with serialization/deadlock errors and set the maximum number of these tries. This option can be combined with the --latency-limit option which limits the total time of all transaction tries; moreover, you cannot use an unlimited number of tries (--max-tries=0) without --latency-limit or --time. The default value is 1 and transactions with serialization/deadlock errors are not retried. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information about retrying such transactions.
--progress-timestamp When showing progress (option -P), use a timestamp (Unix epoch) instead of the number of seconds since the beginning of the run. The unit is in seconds, with millisecond precision after the dot. This helps compare logs generated by various tools.
--random-seed=seed Set random generator seed. Seeds the system random number generator, which then produces a sequence of initial generator states, one for each thread. Values for seed may be: time (the default, the seed is based on the current time), rand (use a strong random source, failing if none is available), or an unsigned decimal integer value. The random generator is invoked explicitly from a pgbench script (random... functions) or implicitly (for instance option --rate uses it to schedule transactions). When explicitly set, the value used for seeding is shown on the terminal. Any value allowed for seed may also be provided through the environment variable PGBENCH_RANDOM_SEED. To ensure that the provided seed impacts all possible uses, put this option first or use the environment variable.
Setting the seed explicitly allows to reproduce a pgbench run exactly, as far as random numbers are concerned. As the random state is managed per thread, this means the exact same pgbench run for an identical invocation if there is one client per thread and there are no external or data dependencies. From a statistical viewpoint reproducing runs exactly is a bad idea because it can hide the performance variability or improve performance unduly, e.g., by hitting the same pages as a previous run. However, it may also be of great help for debugging, for instance re-running a tricky case which leads to an error. Use wisely.
--sampling-rate=rate Sampling rate, used when writing data into the log, to reduce the amount of log generated. If this option is given, only the specified fraction of transactions are logged. 1.0 means all transactions will be logged, 0.05 means only 5% of the transactions will be logged.
\nRemember to take the sampling rate into account when processing the log file. For example, when computing TPS values, you need to multiply the numbers accordingly (e.g., with 0.01 sample rate, you'll only get 1/100 of the actual TPS).
\n--show-script=scriptname Show the actual code of builtin script scriptname on stderr, and exit immediately.
--verbose-errors Print messages about all errors and failures (errors without retrying) including which limit for retries was exceeded and how far it was exceeded for the serialization/deadlock failures. (Note that in this case the output can be significantly increased.) See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\npgbench also accepts the following common command-line arguments for connection parameters and other common settings:
\n--debug Print debugging output.
\n-h hostname--host=hostname The database server's host name
\n-p port--port=port The database server's port number
\n-U login--username=login The user name to connect as
\n-V--version Print the pgbench version and exit.
\n-?--help Show help about pgbench command line arguments, and exit.
\nA successful run will exit with status 0. Exit status 1 indicates static problems such as invalid command-line options or internal errors which are supposed to never occur. Early errors that occur when starting benchmark such as initial connection failures also exit with status 1. Errors during the run such as database errors or problems in the script will result in exit status 2. In the latter case, pgbench will print partial results if --exit-on-abort option is not specified.
PGDATABASEPGHOSTPGPORTPGUSER Default connection parameters.
\nThis utility, like most other PostgreSQL utilities, uses the environment variables supported by libpq (see Section\u00a032.15).
\nThe environment variable PG_COLOR specifies whether to use color in diagnostic messages. Possible values are always, auto and never.
pgbench executes test scripts chosen randomly from a specified list. The scripts may include built-in scripts specified with -b and user-provided scripts specified with -f. Each script may be given a relative weight specified after an @ so as to change its selection probability. The default weight is 1. Scripts with a weight of 0 are ignored.
The default built-in transaction script (also invoked with -b tpcb-like) issues seven commands per transaction over randomly chosen aid, tid, bid and delta. The scenario is inspired by the TPC-B benchmark, but is not actually TPC-B, hence the name.
BEGIN;
UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;
SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;
UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;
UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;
INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);
END;
If you select the simple-update built-in (also -N), steps 4 and 5 aren't included in the transaction. This will avoid update contention on these tables, but it makes the test case even less like TPC-B.
If you select the select-only built-in (also -S), only the SELECT is issued.
pgbench has support for running custom benchmark scenarios by replacing the default transaction script (described above) with a transaction script read from a file (-f option). In this case a \u201ctransaction\u201d counts as one execution of a script file.
A script file contains one or more SQL commands terminated by semicolons. Empty lines and lines beginning with -- are ignored. Script files can also contain \u201cmeta commands\u201d, which are interpreted by pgbench itself, as described below.
Before PostgreSQL 9.6, SQL commands in script files were terminated by newlines, and so they could not be continued across lines. Now a semicolon is required to separate consecutive SQL commands (though an SQL command does not need one if it is followed by a meta command). If you need to create a script file that works with both old and new versions of pgbench, be sure to write each SQL command on a single line ending with a semicolon.
\nIt is assumed that pgbench scripts do not contain incomplete blocks of SQL transactions. If at runtime the client reaches the end of the script without completing the last transaction block, it will be aborted.
\nThere is a simple variable-substitution facility for script files. Variable names must consist of letters (including non-Latin letters), digits, and underscores, with the first character not being a digit. Variables can be set by the command-line -D option, explained above, or by the meta commands explained below. In addition to any variables preset by -D command-line options, there are a few variables that are preset automatically, listed in Table\u00a0301. A value specified for these variables using -D takes precedence over the automatic presets. Once set, a variable's value can be inserted into an SQL command by writing :variablename. When running more than one client session, each session has its own set of variables. pgbench supports up to 255 variable uses in one statement.
Table\u00a0301.\u00a0pgbench Automatic Variables
\n| Variable | \nDescription | \n
|---|---|
client_id | \nunique number identifying the client session (starts from zero) | \n
default_seed | \nseed used in hash and pseudorandom permutation functions by default | \n
random_seed | \nrandom generator seed (unless overwritten with -D) | \n
scale | \ncurrent scale factor | \n
Script file meta commands begin with a backslash (\\) and normally extend to the end of the line, although they can be continued to additional lines by writing backslash-return. Arguments to a meta command are separated by white space. These meta commands are supported:
\\gset [prefix] \\aset [prefix] These commands may be used to end SQL queries, taking the place of the terminating semicolon (;).
When the \\gset command is used, the preceding SQL query is expected to return one row, the columns of which are stored into variables named after column names, and prefixed with prefix if provided.
When the \\aset command is used, all combined SQL queries (separated by \\;) have their columns stored into variables named after column names, and prefixed with prefix if provided. If a query returns no row, no assignment is made and the variable can be tested for existence to detect this. If a query returns more than one row, the last value is kept.
\\gset and \\aset cannot be used in pipeline mode, since the query results are not yet available by the time the commands would need them.
The following example puts the final account balance from the first query into variable abalance, and fills variables p_two and p_three with integers from the third query. The result of the second query is discarded. The result of the two last combined queries are stored in variables four and five.
UPDATE pgbench_accounts\n SET abalance = abalance + :delta\n WHERE aid = :aid\n RETURNING abalance \\gset\n-- compound of two queries\nSELECT 1 \\;\nSELECT 2 AS two, 3 AS three \\gset p_\nSELECT 4 AS four \\; SELECT 5 AS five \\aset\n\n
\\if expression\\elif expression\\else\\endif This group of commands implements nestable conditional blocks, similarly to psql's \\if expression. Conditional expressions are identical to those with \\set, with non-zero values interpreted as true.
\\set varname expression Sets variable varname to a value calculated from expression. The expression may contain the NULL constant, Boolean constants TRUE and FALSE, integer constants such as 5432, double constants such as 3.14159, references to variables :variablename, operators with their usual SQL precedence and associativity, function calls, SQL CASE generic conditional expressions and parentheses.
Functions and most operators return NULL on NULL input.
For conditional purposes, non zero numerical values are TRUE, zero numerical values and NULL are FALSE.
Too large or small integer and double constants, as well as integer arithmetic operators (+, -, * and /) raise errors on overflows.
When no final ELSE clause is provided to a CASE, the default value is NULL.
Examples:
\n\\set ntellers 10 * :scale\n\\set aid (1021 * random(1, 100000 * :scale)) % \\\n (100000 * :scale) + 1\n\\set divx CASE WHEN :x <> 0 THEN :y/:x ELSE NULL END\n\n
\\sleep number [ us | ms | s ] Causes script execution to sleep for the specified duration in microseconds (us), milliseconds (ms) or seconds (s). If the unit is omitted then seconds are the default. number can be either an integer constant or a :variablename reference to a variable having an integer value.
Example:
\n\\sleep 10 ms\n\n
\\setshell varname command [ argument ... ] Sets variable varname to the result of the shell command command with the given argument(s). The command must return an integer value through its standard output.
command and each argument can be either a text constant or a :variablename reference to a variable. If you want to use an argument starting with a colon, write an additional colon at the beginning of argument.
Example:
\n\\setshell variable_to_be_assigned command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
\\shell command [ argument ... ] Same as \\setshell, but the result of the command is discarded.
Example:
\n\\shell command literal_argument :variable ::literal_starting_with_colon\n\n
\\startpipeline\\syncpipeline\\endpipeline This group of commands implements pipelining of SQL statements. A pipeline must begin with a \\startpipeline and end with an \\endpipeline. In between there may be any number of \\syncpipeline commands, which sends a sync message without ending the ongoing pipeline and flushing the send buffer. In pipeline mode, statements are sent to the server without waiting for the results of previous statements. See Section\u00a032.5 for more details. Pipeline mode requires the use of extended query protocol.
The arithmetic, bitwise, comparison and logical operators listed in Table\u00a0302 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set. The operators are listed in increasing precedence order. Except as noted, operators taking two numeric inputs will produce a double value if either input is double, otherwise they produce an integer result.
Table\u00a0302.\u00a0pgbench Operators
\n| \n Operator \nDescription \nExample(s) \n | \n
|---|
| \n
Logical OR \n
| \n
| \n
Logical AND \n
| \n
| \n
Logical NOT \n
| \n
| \n
Boolean value tests \n
| \n
| \n
Nullness tests \n
| \n
| \n
Equal \n
| \n
| \n
Not equal \n
| \n
| \n
Not equal \n
| \n
| \n
Less than \n
| \n
| \n
Less than or equal to \n
| \n
| \n
Greater than \n
| \n
| \n
Greater than or equal to \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise OR \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise XOR \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise AND \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise NOT \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise shift left \n
| \n
| \n
Bitwise shift right \n
| \n
| \n
Addition \n
| \n
| \n
Subtraction \n
| \n
| \n
Multiplication \n
| \n
| \n
Division (truncates the result towards zero if both inputs are integers) \n
| \n
| \n
Modulo (remainder) \n
| \n
| \n
Negation \n
| \n
The functions listed in Table\u00a0303 are built into pgbench and may be used in expressions appearing in \\set.
Table\u00a0303.\u00a0pgbench Functions
\n| \n Function \nDescription \nExample(s) \n | \n
|---|
| \n
Absolute value \n
| \n
| \n
Prints the argument to stderr, and returns the argument. \n
| \n
| \n
Casts to double. \n
| \n
| \n
Exponential (
| \n
| \n
Selects the largest value among the arguments. \n
| \n
| \n
This is an alias for
| \n
| \n
Computes FNV-1a hash. \n
| \n
| \n
Computes MurmurHash2 hash. \n
| \n
| \n
Casts to integer. \n
| \n
| \n
Selects the smallest value among the arguments. \n
| \n
| \n
Natural logarithm \n
| \n
| \n
Modulo (remainder) \n
| \n
| \n
Permuted value of
| \n
| \n
Approximate value of \u03c0 \n
| \n
| \n
| \n
| \n
Computes a uniformly-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes an exponentially-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes a Gaussian-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Computes a Zipfian-distributed random integer in
| \n
| \n
Square root \n
| \n
The random function generates values using a uniform distribution, that is all the values are drawn within the specified range with equal probability. The random_exponential, random_gaussian and random_zipfian functions require an additional double parameter which determines the precise shape of the distribution.
For an exponential distribution, parameter controls the distribution by truncating a quickly-decreasing exponential distribution at parameter, and then projecting onto integers between the bounds. To be precise, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0exp(-parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0min)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/\u00a0(1\u00a0-\u00a0exp(-parameter))
Then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i) - f(i + 1).
Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to min are accessed, and the less frequently values close to max are accessed. The closer to 0 parameter is, the flatter (more uniform) the access distribution. A crude approximation of the distribution is that the most frequent 1% values in the range, close to min, are drawn parameter% of the time. The parameter value must be strictly positive.
For a Gaussian distribution, the interval is mapped onto a standard normal distribution (the classical bell-shaped Gaussian curve) truncated at -parameter on the left and +parameter on the right. Values in the middle of the interval are more likely to be drawn. To be precise, if PHI(x) is the cumulative distribution function of the standard normal distribution, with mean mu defined as (max + min) / 2.0, with
\n f(x)\u00a0=\u00a0PHI(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0parameter\u00a0*\u00a0(x\u00a0-\u00a0mu)\u00a0/\u00a0(max\u00a0-\u00a0min\u00a0+\u00a01))\u00a0/
\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0(2.0\u00a0*\u00a0PHI(parameter)\u00a0-\u00a01)
then value i between min and max inclusive is drawn with probability: f(i + 0.5) - f(i - 0.5). Intuitively, the larger the parameter, the more frequently values close to the middle of the interval are drawn, and the less frequently values close to the min and max bounds. About 67% of values are drawn from the middle 1.0 / parameter, that is a relative 0.5 / parameter around the mean, and 95% in the middle 2.0 / parameter, that is a relative 1.0 / parameter around the mean; for instance, if parameter is 4.0, 67% of values are drawn from the middle quarter (1.0 / 4.0) of the interval (i.e., from 3.0 / 8.0 to 5.0 / 8.0) and 95% from the middle half (2.0 / 4.0) of the interval (second and third quartiles). The minimum allowed parameter value is 2.0.
random_zipfian generates a bounded Zipfian distribution. parameter defines how skewed the distribution is. The larger the parameter, the more frequently values closer to the beginning of the interval are drawn. The distribution is such that, assuming the range starts from 1, the ratio of the probability of drawing k versus drawing k+1 is ((. For example, k+1)/k)**parameterrandom_zipfian(1, ..., 2.5) produces the value 1 about (2/1)**2.5 = 5.66 times more frequently than 2, which itself is produced (3/2)**2.5 = 2.76 times more frequently than 3, and so on.
pgbench's implementation is based on \"Non-Uniform Random Variate Generation\", Luc Devroye, p. 550-551, Springer 1986. Due to limitations of that algorithm, the parameter value is restricted to the range [1.001, 1000].
When designing a benchmark which selects rows non-uniformly, be aware that the rows chosen may be correlated with other data such as IDs from a sequence or the physical row ordering, which may skew performance measurements.
\nTo avoid this, you may wish to use the permute function, or some other additional step with similar effect, to shuffle the selected rows and remove such correlations.
Hash functions hash, hash_murmur2 and hash_fnv1a accept an input value and an optional seed parameter. In case the seed isn't provided the value of :default_seed is used, which is initialized randomly unless set by the command-line -D option.
permute accepts an input value, a size, and an optional seed parameter. It generates a pseudorandom permutation of integers in the range [0, size), and returns the index of the input value in the permuted values. The permutation chosen is parameterized by the seed, which defaults to :default_seed, if not specified. Unlike the hash functions, permute ensures that there are no collisions or holes in the output values. Input values outside the interval are interpreted modulo the size. The function raises an error if the size is not positive. permute can be used to scatter the distribution of non-uniform random functions such as random_zipfian or random_exponential so that values drawn more often are not trivially correlated. For instance, the following pgbench script simulates a possible real world workload typical for social media and blogging platforms where a few accounts generate excessive load:
\\set size 1000000\n\\set r random_zipfian(1, :size, 1.07)\n\\set k 1 + permute(:r, :size)\n\n
In some cases several distinct distributions are needed which don't correlate with each other and this is when the optional seed parameter comes in handy:
\n\\set k1 1 + permute(:r, :size, :default_seed + 123)\n\\set k2 1 + permute(:r, :size, :default_seed + 321)\n\n
A similar behavior can also be approximated with hash:
\\set size 1000000\n\\set r random_zipfian(1, 100 * :size, 1.07)\n\\set k 1 + abs(hash(:r)) % :size\n\n
However, since hash generates collisions, some values will not be reachable and others will be more frequent than expected from the original distribution.
As an example, the full definition of the built-in TPC-B-like transaction is:
\n\\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n\\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n\\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n\\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\nBEGIN;\nUPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\nSELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\nUPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\nUPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\nINSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\nEND;\n\n
This script allows each iteration of the transaction to reference different, randomly-chosen rows. (This example also shows why it's important for each client session to have its own variables \u2014 otherwise they'd not be independently touching different rows.)
\nWith the -l option (but without the --aggregate-interval option), pgbench writes information about each transaction to a log file. The log file will be named prefix.nnnprefix defaults to pgbench_log, and nnn is the PID of the pgbench process. The prefix can be changed by using the --log-prefix option. If the -j option is 2 or higher, so that there are multiple worker threads, each will have its own log file. The first worker will use the same name for its log file as in the standard single worker case. The additional log files for the other workers will be named prefix.nnn.mmmmmm is a sequential number for each worker starting with 1.
Each line in a log file describes one transaction. It contains the following space-separated fields:
\nclient_ididentifies the client session that ran the transaction
\ntransaction_nocounts how many transactions have been run by that session
\ntimetransaction's elapsed time, in microseconds
\nscript_noidentifies the script file that was used for the transaction (useful when multiple scripts are specified with -f or -b)
time_epochtransaction's completion time, as a Unix-epoch time stamp
\ntime_usfractional-second part of transaction's completion time, in microseconds
\nschedule_lagtransaction start delay, that is the difference between the transaction's scheduled start time and the time it actually started, in microseconds (present only if --rate is specified)
retriescount of retries after serialization or deadlock errors during the transaction (present only if --max-tries is not equal to one)
When both --rate and --latency-limit are used, the time for a skipped transaction will be reported as skipped. If the transaction ends with a failure, its time will be reported as failed. If you use the --failures-detailed option, the time of the failed transaction will be reported as serialization or deadlock depending on the type of failure (see Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information).
Here is a snippet of a log file generated in a single-client run:
\n0 199 2241 0 1175850568 995598\n0 200 2465 0 1175850568 998079\n0 201 2513 0 1175850569 608\n0 202 2038 0 1175850569 2663\n\n
Another example with --rate=100 and --latency-limit=5 (note the additional schedule_lag column):
0 81 4621 0 1412881037 912698 3005\n0 82 6173 0 1412881037 914578 4304\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5217\n0 83 skipped 0 1412881037 914578 5099\n0 83 4722 0 1412881037 916203 3108\n0 84 4142 0 1412881037 918023 2333\n0 85 2465 0 1412881037 919759 740\n\n
In this example, transaction 82 was late, because its latency (6.173 ms) was over the 5 ms limit. The next two transactions were skipped, because they were already late before they were even started.
\nThe following example shows a snippet of a log file with failures and retries, with the maximum number of tries set to 10 (note the additional retries column):
3 0 47423 0 1499414498 34501 3\n3 1 8333 0 1499414498 42848 0\n3 2 8358 0 1499414498 51219 0\n4 0 72345 0 1499414498 59433 6\n1 3 41718 0 1499414498 67879 4\n1 4 8416 0 1499414498 76311 0\n3 3 33235 0 1499414498 84469 3\n0 0 failed 0 1499414498 84905 9\n2 0 failed 0 1499414498 86248 9\n3 4 8307 0 1499414498 92788 0\n\n
If the --failures-detailed option is used, the type of failure is reported in the time like this:
3 0 47423 0 1499414498 34501 3\n3 1 8333 0 1499414498 42848 0\n3 2 8358 0 1499414498 51219 0\n4 0 72345 0 1499414498 59433 6\n1 3 41718 0 1499414498 67879 4\n1 4 8416 0 1499414498 76311 0\n3 3 33235 0 1499414498 84469 3\n0 0 serialization 0 1499414498 84905 9\n2 0 serialization 0 1499414498 86248 9\n3 4 8307 0 1499414498 92788 0\n\n
When running a long test on hardware that can handle a lot of transactions, the log files can become very large. The --sampling-rate option can be used to log only a random sample of transactions.
With the --aggregate-interval option, a different format is used for the log files. Each log line describes one aggregation interval. It contains the following space-separated fields:
interval_startstart time of the interval, as a Unix-epoch time stamp
\nnum_transactionsnumber of transactions within the interval
\nsum_latencysum of transaction latencies
\nsum_latency_2sum of squares of transaction latencies
\nmin_latencyminimum transaction latency
\nmax_latencymaximum transaction latency
\nsum_lagsum of transaction start delays (zero unless --rate is specified)
sum_lag_2sum of squares of transaction start delays (zero unless --rate is specified)
min_lagminimum transaction start delay (zero unless --rate is specified)
max_lagmaximum transaction start delay (zero unless --rate is specified)
skippednumber of transactions skipped because they would have started too late (zero unless --rate and --latency-limit are specified)
retriednumber of retried transactions (zero unless --max-tries is not equal to one)
retriesnumber of retries after serialization or deadlock errors (zero unless --max-tries is not equal to one)
serialization_failuresnumber of transactions that got a serialization error and were not retried afterwards (zero unless --failures-detailed is specified)
deadlock_failuresnumber of transactions that got a deadlock error and were not retried afterwards (zero unless --failures-detailed is specified)
Here is some example output generated with this option:
\npgbench --aggregate-interval=10 --time=20 --client=10 --log --rate=1000 --latency-limit=10 --failures-detailed --max-tries=10 test\n\n1650260552 5178 26171317 177284491527 1136 44462 2647617 7321113867 0 9866 64 7564 28340 4148 0\n1650260562 4808 25573984 220121792172 1171 62083 3037380 9666800914 0 9998 598 7392 26621 4527 0\nNotice that while the plain (unaggregated) log format shows which script was used for each transaction, the aggregated format does not. Therefore if you need per-script data, you need to aggregate the data on your own.
\nWith the -r option, pgbench collects the following statistics for each statement:
latency \u2014 elapsed transaction time for each statement. pgbench reports an average value of all successful runs of the statement.
The number of failures in this statement. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\nThe number of retries after a serialization or a deadlock error in this statement. See Failures and Serialization/Deadlock Retries for more information.
\nThe report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
All values are computed for each statement executed by every client and are reported after the benchmark has finished.
\nFor the default script, the output will look similar to this:
\nstarting vacuum...end.\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 1\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 1\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 10000/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 0 (0.000%)\nnumber of transactions above the 50.0 ms latency limit: 1311/10000 (13.110 %)\nlatency average = 28.488 ms\nlatency stddev = 21.009 ms\ninitial connection time = 69.068 ms\ntps = 346.224794 (without initial connection time)\nstatement latencies in milliseconds and failures:\n 0.012 0 \\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n 0.002 0 \\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\n 0.319 0 BEGIN;\n 0.834 0 UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\n 0.641 0 SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\n 11.126 0 UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\n 12.961 0 UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\n 0.634 0 INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\n 1.957 0 END;\n\n
Another example of output for the default script using serializable default transaction isolation level (PGOPTIONS='-c default_transaction_isolation=serializable' pgbench ...):
starting vacuum...end.\ntransaction type: <builtin: TPC-B (sort of)>\nscaling factor: 1\nquery mode: simple\nnumber of clients: 10\nnumber of threads: 1\nmaximum number of tries: 10\nnumber of transactions per client: 1000\nnumber of transactions actually processed: 6317/10000\nnumber of failed transactions: 3683 (36.830%)\nnumber of transactions retried: 7667 (76.670%)\ntotal number of retries: 45339\nnumber of transactions above the 50.0 ms latency limit: 106/6317 (1.678 %)\nlatency average = 17.016 ms\nlatency stddev = 13.283 ms\ninitial connection time = 45.017 ms\ntps = 186.792667 (without initial connection time)\nstatement latencies in milliseconds, failures and retries:\n 0.006 0 0 \\set aid random(1, 100000 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set bid random(1, 1 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set tid random(1, 10 * :scale)\n 0.001 0 0 \\set delta random(-5000, 5000)\n 0.385 0 0 BEGIN;\n 0.773 0 1 UPDATE pgbench_accounts SET abalance = abalance + :delta WHERE aid = :aid;\n 0.624 0 0 SELECT abalance FROM pgbench_accounts WHERE aid = :aid;\n 1.098 320 3762 UPDATE pgbench_tellers SET tbalance = tbalance + :delta WHERE tid = :tid;\n 0.582 3363 41576 UPDATE pgbench_branches SET bbalance = bbalance + :delta WHERE bid = :bid;\n 0.465 0 0 INSERT INTO pgbench_history (tid, bid, aid, delta, mtime) VALUES (:tid, :bid, :aid, :delta, CURRENT_TIMESTAMP);\n 1.933 0 0 END;\n\n
If multiple script files are specified, all statistics are reported separately for each script file.
\nNote that collecting the additional timing information needed for per-statement latency computation adds some overhead. This will slow average execution speed and lower the computed TPS. The amount of slowdown varies significantly depending on platform and hardware. Comparing average TPS values with and without latency reporting enabled is a good way to measure if the timing overhead is significant.
\nWhen executing pgbench, there are three main types of errors:
\nErrors of the main program. They are the most serious and always result in an immediate exit from pgbench with the corresponding error message. They include:
\nerrors at the beginning of pgbench (e.g. an invalid option value);
\nerrors in the initialization mode (e.g. the query to create tables for built-in scripts fails);
\nerrors before starting threads (e.g. could not connect to the database server, syntax error in the meta command, thread creation failure);
\ninternal pgbench errors (which are supposed to never occur...).
\nErrors when the thread manages its clients (e.g. the client could not start a connection to the database server / the socket for connecting the client to the database server has become invalid). In such cases all clients of this thread stop while other threads continue to work. However, --exit-on-abort is specified, all of the threads stop immediately in this case.
Direct client errors. They lead to immediate exit from pgbench with the corresponding error message in the case of an internal pgbench error (which are supposed to never occur...) or when --exit-on-abort is specified. Otherwise in the worst case they only lead to the abortion of the failed client while other clients continue their run (but some client errors are handled without an abortion of the client and reported separately, see below). Later in this section it is assumed that the discussed errors are only the direct client errors and they are not internal pgbench errors.
A client's run is aborted in case of a serious error; for example, the connection with the database server was lost or the end of script was reached without completing the last transaction. In addition, if execution of an SQL or meta command fails for reasons other than serialization or deadlock errors, the client is aborted. Otherwise, if an SQL command fails with serialization or deadlock errors, the client is not aborted. In such cases, the current transaction is rolled back, which also includes setting the client variables as they were before the run of this transaction (it is assumed that one transaction script contains only one transaction; see What Is the \"Transaction\" Actually Performed in pgbench? for more information). Transactions with serialization or deadlock errors are repeated after rollbacks until they complete successfully or reach the maximum number of tries (specified by the --max-tries option) / the maximum time of retries (specified by the --latency-limit option) / the end of benchmark (specified by the --time option). If the last trial run fails, this transaction will be reported as failed but the client is not aborted and continues to work.
Without specifying the --max-tries option, a transaction will never be retried after a serialization or deadlock error because its default value is 1. Use an unlimited number of tries (--max-tries=0) and the --latency-limit option to limit only the maximum time of tries. You can also use the --time option to limit the benchmark duration under an unlimited number of tries.
Be careful when repeating scripts that contain multiple transactions: the script is always retried completely, so successful transactions can be performed several times.
\nBe careful when repeating transactions with shell commands. Unlike the results of SQL commands, the results of shell commands are not rolled back, except for the variable value of the \\setshell command.
The latency of a successful transaction includes the entire time of transaction execution with rollbacks and retries. The latency is measured only for successful transactions and commands but not for failed transactions or commands.
\nThe main report contains the number of failed transactions. If the --max-tries option is not equal to 1, the main report also contains statistics related to retries: the total number of retried transactions and total number of retries. The per-script report inherits all these fields from the main report. The per-statement report displays retry statistics only if the --max-tries option is not equal to 1.
If you want to group failures by basic types in per-transaction and aggregation logs, as well as in the main and per-script reports, use the --failures-detailed option. If you also want to distinguish all errors and failures (errors without retrying) by type including which limit for retries was exceeded and how much it was exceeded by for the serialization/deadlock failures, use the --verbose-errors option.
You may specify the Table Access Method for the pgbench tables. The environment variable PGOPTIONS specifies database configuration options that are passed to PostgreSQL via the command line (See Section\u00a019.1.4). For example, a hypothetical default Table Access Method for the tables that pgbench creates called wuzza can be specified with:
PGOPTIONS='-c default_table_access_method=wuzza'\n\n
It is very easy to use pgbench to produce completely meaningless numbers. Here are some guidelines to help you get useful results.
\nIn the first place, never believe any test that runs for only a few seconds. Use the -t or -T option to make the run last at least a few minutes, so as to average out noise. In some cases you could need hours to get numbers that are reproducible. It's a good idea to try the test run a few times, to find out if your numbers are reproducible or not.
For the default TPC-B-like test scenario, the initialization scale factor (-s) should be at least as large as the largest number of clients you intend to test (-c); else you'll mostly be measuring update contention. There are only -s rows in the pgbench_branches table, and every transaction wants to update one of them, so -c values in excess of -s will undoubtedly result in lots of transactions blocked waiting for other transactions.
The default test scenario is also quite sensitive to how long it's been since the tables were initialized: accumulation of dead rows and dead space in the tables changes the results. To understand the results you must keep track of the total number of updates and when vacuuming happens. If autovacuum is enabled it can result in unpredictable changes in measured performance.
\nA limitation of pgbench is that it can itself become the bottleneck when trying to test a large number of client sessions. This can be alleviated by running pgbench on a different machine from the database server, although low network latency will be essential. It might even be useful to run several pgbench instances concurrently, on several client machines, against the same database server.
\nIf untrusted users have access to a database that has not adopted a secure schema usage pattern, do not run pgbench in that database. pgbench uses unqualified names and does not manipulate the search path.
\n