Document the new autovacuum daemon.

doc/src/sgml/catalogs.sgml

 <!--
  Documentation of the system catalogs, directed toward PostgreSQL developers
- $PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/catalogs.sgml,v 2.113 2005/09/08 20:07:41 tgl Exp $
+ $PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/catalogs.sgml,v 2.114 2005/09/13 01:51:18 alvherre Exp $
  -->
 
 <chapter id="catalogs">
@@ -1137,9 +1137,14 @@
    <primary>pg_autovacuum</primary>
   </indexterm>
 
+  <indexterm zone="catalog-pg-autovacuum">
+   <primary>autovacuum</primary>
+   <secondary>table-specific configuration</secondary>
+  </indexterm>
+
   <para>
    The catalog <structname>pg_autovacuum</structname> stores optional
-   per-relation configuration parameters for <quote>autovacuum</>.
+   per-relation configuration parameters for <xref linkend="autovacuum" endterm="autovacuum-title">.
    If there is an entry here for a particular relation, the given
    parameters will be used for autovacuuming that table.  If no entry
    is present, the system-wide defaults will be used.

doc/src/sgml/config.sgml

 <!--
-$PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml,v 1.15 2005/09/12 23:09:05 tgl Exp $
+$PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml,v 1.16 2005/09/13 01:51:18 alvherre Exp $
 -->
 <chapter Id="runtime-config">
   <title>Run-time Configuration</title>
@@ -2897,18 +2897,15 @@ SELECT * FROM parent WHERE key = 2400;
    <sect1 id="runtime-config-autovacuum">
     <title>Automatic Vacuuming</title>
 
+    <indexterm>
+     <primary>autovacuum</primary>
+     <secondary>global configuration parameters</secondary>
+    </indexterm>
+
      <para>
-      Beginning in <productname>PostgreSQL</> 8.1, there is an optional server
-      process called the <firstterm>autovacuum daemon</>, whose purpose is
-      to automate the issuance of periodic <command>VACUUM</> and
-      <command>ANALYZE</> commands.  When enabled, the autovacuum daemon
-      runs periodically and checks for tables that have had a large number
-      of updated or deleted tuples.  This check uses the row-level statistics
-      collection facility; therefore, the autovacuum daemon cannot be used
-      unless <xref linkend="guc-stats-start-collector"> and
-      <xref linkend="guc-stats-row-level"> are set TRUE.  Also, it's
-      important to allow a slot for the autovacuum process when choosing
-      the value of <xref linkend="guc-superuser-reserved-connections">.
+      These settings control the default behavior for the <firstterm>autovacuum
+      daemon</firstterm>. Please refer to <xref linkend="autovacuum"> for
+      more information.
      </para>
 
     <variablelist>
@@ -2958,6 +2955,8 @@ SELECT * FROM parent WHERE key = 2400;
         The default is 1000.
         This option can only be set at server start or in the
         <filename>postgresql.conf</filename> file.
+        This setting can be overridden for individual tables by entries in
+        <structname>pg_autovacuum</>.
        </para>
       </listitem>
      </varlistentry>
@@ -2974,6 +2973,8 @@ SELECT * FROM parent WHERE key = 2400;
         The default is 500.
         This option can only be set at server start or in the
         <filename>postgresql.conf</filename> file.
+        This setting can be overridden for individual tables by entries in
+        <structname>pg_autovacuum</>.
        </para>
       </listitem>
      </varlistentry>
@@ -2991,6 +2992,8 @@ SELECT * FROM parent WHERE key = 2400;
         The default is 0.4.
         This option can only be set at server start or in the
         <filename>postgresql.conf</filename> file.
+        This setting can be overridden for individual tables by entries in
+        <structname>pg_autovacuum</>.
        </para>
       </listitem>
      </varlistentry>
@@ -3008,6 +3011,8 @@ SELECT * FROM parent WHERE key = 2400;
         The default is 0.2.
         This option can only be set at server start or in the
         <filename>postgresql.conf</filename> file.
+        This setting can be overridden for individual tables by entries in
+        <structname>pg_autovacuum</>.
        </para>
       </listitem>
      </varlistentry>

doc/src/sgml/maintenance.sgml

 <!--
-$PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/maintenance.sgml,v 1.45 2005/06/22 21:14:28 tgl Exp $
+$PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/maintenance.sgml,v 1.46 2005/09/13 01:51:18 alvherre Exp $
 -->
 
 <chapter id="maintenance">
@@ -99,6 +99,12 @@ $PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/maintenance.sgml,v 1.45 2005/06/22 21:14:28 tgl
    <xref linkend="runtime-config-resource-vacuum-cost">.
   </para>
 
+  <para>
+   An automated mechanism for performing the necessary <command>VACUUM</>
+   operations has been added in <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> 8.1.
+   See <xref linkend="autovacuum">.
+  </para>
+
   <sect2 id="vacuum-for-space-recovery">
    <title>Recovering disk space</title>
 
@@ -177,13 +183,6 @@ $PostgreSQL: pgsql/doc/src/sgml/maintenance.sgml,v 1.45 2005/06/22 21:14:28 tgl
     the program <filename>vacuumdb</> may be helpful.
    </para>
 
-   <tip>
-    <para>
-     The <filename>contrib/pg_autovacuum</> program can be useful for
-     automating high-frequency vacuuming operations.
-    </para>
-   </tip>
-
    <para>
     <command>VACUUM FULL</> is recommended for cases where you know
     you have deleted the majority of rows in a table, so that the
@@ -456,6 +455,98 @@ HINT:  Stop the postmaster and use a standalone backend to VACUUM in "mydb".
     </para>
    </warning>
   </sect2>
+
+  <sect2 id="autovacuum">
+   <title id="autovacuum-title">The auto-vacuum daemon</title>
+
+   <indexterm>
+    <primary>autovacuum</primary>
+    <secondary>general information</secondary>
+   </indexterm>
+   <para>
+    Beginning in <productname>PostgreSQL </productname> 8.1, there is a
+    separate optional server process called the <firstterm>autovacuum
+    daemon</firstterm>, whose purpose is to automate the issuance of
+    <command>VACUUM</command> and <command>ANALYZE </command> commands.
+    When enabled, the autovacuum daemon runs periodically and checks for
+    tables that have had a large number of inserted, updated or deleted
+    tuples.  These checks use the row-level statistics collection facility;
+    therefore, the autovacuum daemon cannot be used unless <xref
+    linkend="guc-stats-start-collector"> and <xref
+    linkend="guc-stats-row-level"> are set <literal>true</literal>.  Also, it's
+    important to allow a slot for the autovacuum process when choosing the
+    value of <xref linkend="guc-superuser-reserved-connections">.
+   </para>
+
+   <para>
+    The autovacuum daemon, when enabled, runs every <xref
+    linkend="guc-autovacuum-naptime"> seconds and determines which database
+    to process.  Any database which is close to transaction ID wraparound
+    is immediately processed.  In this case, autovacuum issues a
+    database-wide <command>VACUUM</command> call, or <command>VACUUM
+    FREEZE</command> if it's a template database, and then terminates.  If
+    no database fulfills this criterion, the one that was least recently
+    processed by autovacuum itself is chosen.  In this mode, each table in
+    the database is checked for new and obsolete tuples, according to the
+    applicable autovacuum parameters.  If a <link linkend="catalog-pg-autovacuum">
+    <structname>pg_autovacuum</structname></link> tuple is found for this
+    table, these settings are applied; otherwise the global values in
+    <filename>postgresql.conf</filename> are used.  See <xref linkend="runtime-config-autovacuum">
+    for more details on the global settings.
+   </para>
+
+   <para>
+    For each table, two conditions are used to determine which operation to
+    apply.  If the number of obsolete tuples since the last
+    <command>VACUUM</command> exceeds the <quote>vacuum threshold</quote>, the
+    table is vacuumed and analyzed.  The vacuum threshold is defined as:
+<programlisting>
+vacuum threshold = vacuum base threshold + vacuum scale factor * number of tuples
+</programlisting>
+    where the vacuum base threshold is
+    <structname>pg_autovacuum</structname>.<structfield>vac_base_thresh</structfield>,
+    the vacuum scale factor is
+    <structname>pg_autovacuum</structname>.<structfield>vac_scale_factor</structfield>
+    and the number of tuples is
+    <structname>pg_class</structname>.<structfield>reltuples</structfield>.
+    The number of obsolete tuples is taken from the statistics
+    collector, which is a semi-accurate count updated by each
+    <command>UPDATE</command> and <command>DELETE</command> operation.  (It
+    is only semi-accurate because some information may be lost under heavy
+    load.)  For analyze, a similar condition is used: the threshold, calculated
+    by an equivalent equation to that above, is compared to the number of
+    new tuples, that is, those created by the <command>INSERT</command> and
+    <command>COPY</command> commands.
+   </para>
+
+   <para>
+    Note that if any of the values in <structname>pg_autovacuum</structname>
+    is set to a negative number, or if a tuple is not present at all in
+    <structname>pg_autovacuum</structname> for any particular table, the
+    equivalent value from <filename>postgresql.conf</filename> is used.
+   </para>
+
+   <para>
+    Besides the base threshold values and scale factors, there are three
+    parameters that can be set for each table in <structname>pg_autovacuum</structname>: 
+    the vacuum cost delay
+    (<structname>pg_autovacuum</structname>.<structfield>vac_cost_delay</structfield>)
+    and the vacuum cost limit
+    (<structname>pg_autovacuum</structname>.<structfield>vac_cost_limit</structfield>).
+    They are used to set table-specific values for the
+    <xref linkend="runtime-config-resource-vacuum-cost" endterm="runtime-config-resource-vacuum-cost-title">
+    feature.  The above note about negative values also applies here, but
+    also note that if the <filename>postgresql.conf</filename> variables
+    <varname>autovacuum_vacuum_cost_limit</varname> and
+    <varname>autovacuum_vacuum_cost_delay</varname> are also set to negative 
+    values, the <varname>vacuum_cost_limit</varname> and
+    <varname>vacuum_cost_delay</varname> values will be used instead.
+    The other parameter, <structname>pg_autovacuum</>.<structfield>enabled</>,
+	can be used to instruct the autovacuum daemon to skip any particular table
+	by setting it to <literal>false</literal>.
+   </para>
+
+  </sect2>
  </sect1>