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hyperboreean
Asked: 2010-05-15 00:44:08 +0800 CST

weird postgresql log entries

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I am trying to figure out why I get some weird entries in my postgresql log after I do a restart:

2010-05-14 11:30:25 EEST LOG:  database system was shut down at 2010-05-14 11:30:22 EEST
2010-05-14 11:30:25 EEST LOG:  autovacuum launcher started
2010-05-14 11:30:25 EEST LOG:  database system is ready to accept connections
2010-05-14 11:30:25 EEST LOG:  incomplete startup packet
2010-05-14 11:30:40 EEST WARNING:  there is already a transaction in progress
2010-05-14 11:30:40 EEST LOG:  could not receive data from client: Connection reset by peer
2010-05-14 11:30:40 EEST LOG:  unexpected EOF on client connection

First, there's the 2010-05-14 11:30:25 EEST LOG: incomplete startup packet which bugs me. Anyone has any idea why this happens?

And also, this one is very strange: 2010-05-14 11:30:40 EEST WARNING: there is already a transaction in progress ...

logging postgresql

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    incomplete startup packet means a connection was established but the Postgres server didn't get the handshake it was expecting (I get a ton of these as my monitoring system checks to make sure port 5432 is open but isn't smart enough to actually log in to & query the DB).
    Whether or not this is a problem depends on if you expect to have something connecting and not handshaking: For me seeing it once every 5 minutes isn't an issue, but if you're not expecting it this message could be an indication that you're being port scanned.

    WARNING: there is already a transaction in progress means exactly what it says: Someone tried to start a transaction while already in a transaction (BEGIN ... BEGIN).
    If you see this a lot somebody wrote some bad SQL in a program and you should find/fix it because the corresponding COMMIT and ROLLBACK statements may not do what you expect. If you see it once and never again someone probably fat-fingered a transaction in psql.

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  2. In our environment, incomplete startup packet are caused by haproxy sending a heartbeat on a programmable interval (for us, every 600000 milliseconds). We use haproxy in tcp mode to relay business users requests to run reports again postgres.

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