Provided by: check-pgactivity_2.7-1_all 
NAME
check_pgactivity - PostgreSQL plugin for Nagios
SYNOPSIS
check_pgactivity {-w|--warning THRESHOLD} {-c|--critical THRESHOLD} [-s|--service SERVICE ] [-h|--host HOST] [-U|--username ROLE] [-p|--port PORT] [-d|--dbname DATABASE] [-S|--dbservice SERVICE_NAME] [-P|--psql PATH] [--debug] [--status-file FILE] [--path PATH] [-t|--timemout TIMEOUT]
check_pgactivity [-l|--list]
check_pgactivity [--help]
DESCRIPTION
check_pgactivity is designed to monitor PostgreSQL clusters from Nagios. It offers many options to
measure and monitor useful performance metrics.
COMPATIBILITY
Each service is available from a different PostgreSQL version, from 7.4, as documented below. The psql
client must be 8.3 at least. It can be used with an older server. Please report any undocumented
incompatibility.
-s, --service SERVICE
The Nagios service to run. See section SERVICES for a description of available services or use --list
for a short service and description list.
-h, --host HOST
Database server host or socket directory (default: $PGHOST or "localhost")
See section CONNECTIONS for more informations.
-U, --username ROLE
Database user name (default: $PGUSER or "postgres").
See section CONNECTIONS for more informations.
-p, --port PORT
Database server port (default: $PGPORT or "5432").
See section CONNECTIONS for more informations.
-d, --dbname DATABASE
Database name to connect to (default: $PGDATABASE or "template1").
WARNING! This is not necessarily one of the database that will be checked. See --dbinclude and
--dbexclude .
See section CONNECTIONS for more informations.
-S, --dbservice SERVICE_NAME
The connection service name from pg_service.conf to use.
See section CONNECTIONS for more informations.
--dbexclude REGEXP
Some services automatically check all the databases of your cluster (note: that does not mean they
always need to connect on all of them to check them though). --dbexclude excludes any database whose
name matches the given Perl regular expression. Repeat this option as many time as needed.
See --dbinclude as well. If a database match both dbexclude and dbinclude arguments, it is excluded.
--dbinclude REGEXP
Some services automatically check all the databases of your cluster (note: that does not imply that
they always need to connect to all of them though). Some always exclude the 'postgres' database and
templates. --dbinclude checks ONLY databases whose names match the given Perl regular expression.
Repeat this option as many time as needed.
See --dbexclude as well. If a database match both dbexclude and dbinclude arguments, it is excluded.
-w, --warning THRESHOLD
The Warning threshold.
-c, --critical THRESHOLD
The Critical threshold.
-F, --format OUTPUT_FORMAT
The output format. Supported output are: binary, debug, human, nagios, nagios_strict, json and
json_strict.
Using the binary format, the results are written in a binary file (using perl module Storable) given
in argument --output. If no output is given, defaults to file check_pgactivity.out in the same
directory as the script.
The nagios_strict and json_strict formats are equivalent to the nagios and json formats respectively.
The only difference is that they enforce the units to follow the strict Nagios specs: B, c, s or %.
Any unit absent from this list is dropped (Bps, Tps, etc).
--tmpdir DIRECTORY
Path to a directory where the script can create temporary files. The script relies on the system
default temporary directory if possible.
-P, --psql FILE
Path to the psql executable (default: "psql"). It should be version 8.3 at least, but the server can
be older.
--status-file PATH
Path to the file where service status information is kept between successive calls. Default is to
save a file called check_pgactivity.data in the same directory as the script.
Note that this file is protected from concurrent writes using a lock file located in the same
directory, having the same name than the status file, but with the extension .lock.
On some plateform, network filesystems may not be supported correctly by the locking mechanism. See
perldoc -f flock for more information.
--dump-status-file
Dump the content of the status file and exit. This is useful for debugging purpose.
--dump-bin-file [PATH]
Dump the content of the given binary file previously created using --format binary. If no path is
given, defaults to file check_pgactivity.out in the same directory as the script.
-t, --timeout TIMEOUT
Timeout (default: "30s"), as raw (in seconds) or as an interval. This timeout will be used as
statement_timeout for psql and URL timeout for minor_version service.
-l, --list
List available services.
-V, --version
Print version and exit.
--debug
Print some debug messages.
-?, --help
Show this help page.
THRESHOLDS
THRESHOLDS provided as warning and critical values can be raw numbers, percentages, intervals or sizes.
Each available service supports one or more formats (eg. a size and a percentage).
Percentage
If THRESHOLD is a percentage, the value should end with a '%' (no space). For instance: 95%.
Interval
If THRESHOLD is an interval, the following units are accepted (not case sensitive): s (second), m
(minute), h (hour), d (day). You can use more than one unit per given value. If not set, the last
unit is in seconds. For instance: "1h 55m 6" = "1h55m6s".
Size
If THRESHOLD is a size, the following units are accepted (not case sensitive): b (Byte), k (KB), m
(MB), g (GB), t (TB), p (PB), e (EB) or Z (ZB). Only integers are accepted. Eg. 1.5MB will be
refused, use 1500kB.
The factor between units is 1024 bytes. Eg. 1g = 1G = 1024*1024*1024.
CONNECTIONS
check_pgactivity allows two different connection specifications: by service or by specifying values for
host, user, port, and database. Some services can run on multiple hosts, or needs to connect to multiple
hosts.
You might specify one of the parameters below to connect to your PostgreSQL instance. If you don't, no
connection parameters are given to psql: connection relies on binary defaults and environment.
The format for connection parameters is:
Parameter --dbservice SERVICE_NAME
Define a new host using the given service. Multiple hosts can be defined by listing multiple services
separated by a comma. Eg.
--dbservice service1,service2
For more information about service definition, see:
<https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/libpq-pgservice.html>
Parameters --host HOST, --port PORT, --user ROLE or --dbname DATABASE
One parameter is enough to define a new host. Usual environment variables (PGHOST, PGPORT,
PGDATABASE, PGUSER, PGSERVICE, PGPASSWORD) or default values are used for missing parameters.
As for usual PostgreSQL tools, there is no command line argument to set the password, to avoid
exposing it. Use PGPASSWORD, .pgpass or a service file (recommended).
If multiple values are given, define as many host as maximum given values.
Values are associated by position. Eg.:
--host h1,h2 --port 5432,5433
Means "host=h1 port=5432" and "host=h2 port=5433".
If the number of values is different between parameters, any host missing a parameter will use the
first given value for this parameter. Eg.:
--host h1,h2 --port 5433
Means: "host=h1 port=5433" and "host=h2 port=5433".
Services are defined first
For instance:
--dbservice s1 --host h1 --port 5433
means: use "service=s1" and "host=h1 port=5433" in this order. If the service supports only one host,
the second host is ignored.
Mutual exclusion between both methods
You can not overwrite services connections variables with parameters --host HOST, --port PORT, --user
ROLE or --dbname DATABASE
SERVICES
Descriptions and parameters of available services.
archive_folder
Check if all archived WALs exist between the oldest and the latest WAL in the archive folder and make
sure they are 16MB. The given folder must have archived files from ONE cluster. The version of
PostgreSQL that created the archives is only checked on the last one, for performance consideration.
This service requires the argument --path on the command line to specify the archive folder path to
check. Obviously, it must have access to this folder at the filesystem level: you may have to execute
it on the archiving server rather than on the PostgreSQL instance.
The optional argument --suffix defines the suffix of your archived WALs; this is useful for
compressed WALs (eg. .gz, .bz2, ...). Default is no suffix.
This service needs to read the header of one of the archives to define how many segments a WAL owns.
Check_pgactivity automatically handles files with extensions .gz, .bz2, .xz, .zip or .7z using the
following commands:
gzip -dc
bzip2 -dc
xz -dc
unzip -qqp
7z x -so
If needed, provide your own command that writes the uncompressed file to standard output with the
--unarchiver argument.
Optional argument --ignore-wal-size skips the WAL size check. This is useful if your archived WALs
are compressed and check_pgactivity is unable to guess the original size. Here are the commands
check_pgactivity uses to guess the original size of .gz, .xz or .zip files:
gzip -ql
xz -ql
unzip -qql
Default behaviour is to check the WALs size.
Perfdata contains the number of archived WALs and the age of the most recent one.
Critical and Warning define the max age of the latest archived WAL as an interval (eg. 5m or 300s ).
Required privileges: unprivileged role; the system user needs read access to archived WAL files.
Sample commands:
check_pgactivity -s archive_folder --path /path/to/archives -w 15m -c 30m
check_pgactivity -s archive_folder --path /path/to/archives --suffix .gz -w 15m -c 30m
check_pgactivity -s archive_folder --path /path/to/archives --ignore-wal-size --suffix .bz2 -w 15m -c 30m
check_pgactivity -s archive_folder --path /path/to/archives --unarchiver "unrar p" --ignore-wal-size --suffix .rar -w 15m -c 30m
archiver (8.1+)
Check if the archiver is working properly and the number of WAL files ready to archive.
Perfdata returns the number of WAL files waiting to be archived.
Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They apply on the number of files waiting to be
archived. They only accept a raw number of files.
Whatever the given threshold, a critical alert is raised if the archiver process did not archive the
oldest waiting WAL to be archived since last call.
Required privileges: superuser (<v10), <v10: superuser, v10: nonsuper user but output will lack
perfdata oldest_ready_wal or superuser, v11+: grant execute on function pg_stat_file(text).
autovacuum (8.1+)
Check the autovacuum activity on the cluster.
Perfdata contains the age of oldest running autovacuum and the number of workers by type (VACUUM,
VACUUM ANALYZE, ANALYZE, VACUUM FREEZE).
Thresholds, if any, are ignored.
Required privileges: unprivileged role.
backends (all)
Check the total number of connections in the PostgreSQL cluster.
Perfdata contains the number of connections per database.
Critical and Warning thresholds accept either a raw number or a percentage (eg. 80%). When a
threshold is a percentage, it is compared to the difference between the cluster parameters
max_connections and superuser_reserved_connections.
Required privileges: an unprivileged user only sees its own queries; a pg_monitor (10+) or superuser
(<10) role is required to see all queries.
backends_status (8.2+)
Check the status of all backends. Depending on your PostgreSQL version, statuses are: idle, idle in
transaction, idle in transaction (aborted) (>=9.0 only), fastpath function call, active, waiting for
lock, undefined, disabled and insufficient privilege. insufficient privilege appears when you are
not allowed to see the statuses of other connections.
This service supports the argument --exclude REGEX to exclude queries matching the given regular
expression.
You can use multiple --exclude REGEX arguments.
Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They accept a list of 'status_label=value' separated by
a comma. Available labels are idle, idle_xact, aborted_xact, fastpath, active and waiting. Values are
raw numbers or time units and empty lists are forbidden. Here is an example:
-w 'waiting=5,idle_xact=10' -c 'waiting=20,idle_xact=30,active=1d'
Perfdata contains the number of backends for each status and the oldest one for each of them, for
8.2+.
Note that the number of backends reported in Nagios message includes excluded backends.
Required privileges: an unprivileged user only sees its own queries; a pg_monitor (10+) or superuser
(<10) role is required to see all queries.
checksum_errors (12+)
Check for data checksums error, reported in pg_stat_database.
This service requires that data checksums are enabled on the target instance. UNKNOWN will be
returned if that's not the case.
Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They only accept a raw number of checksums errors per
database. If the thresholds are not provided, a default value of `1` will be used for both
thresholds.
Checksums errors are CRITICAL issues, so it's highly recommended to keep default threshold, as
immediate action should be taken as soon as such a problem arises.
Perfdata contains the number of error per database.
Required privileges: unprivileged user.
backup_label_age (8.1+)
Check the age of the backup label file.
Perfdata returns the age of the backup_label file, -1 if not present.
Critical and Warning thresholds only accept an interval (eg. 1h30m25s).
Required privileges: grant execute on function pg_stat_file(text, boolean) (pg12+); unprivileged role
(9.3+); superuser (<9.3)
bgwriter (8.3+)
Check the percentage of pages written by backends since last check.
This service uses the status file (see --status-file parameter).
Perfdata contains the ratio per second for each pg_stat_bgwriter counter since last execution. Units
Nps for checkpoints, max written clean and fsyncs are the number of "events" per second.
Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. If set, they only accept a percentage.
Required privileges: unprivileged role.
btree_bloat
Estimate bloat on B-tree indexes.
Warning and critical thresholds accept a comma-separated list of either raw number(for a size), size
(eg. 125M) or percentage. The thresholds apply to bloat size, not object size. If a percentage is
given, the threshold will apply to the bloat size compared to the total index size. If multiple
threshold values are passed, check_pgactivity will choose the largest (bloat size) value.
This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters. The 'postgres' database and
templates are always excluded.
It also supports a --exclude REGEX parameter to exclude relations matching a regular expression. The
regular expression applies to "database.schema_name.relation_name". This enables you to filter either
on a relation name for all schemas and databases, on a qualified named relation (schema + relation)
for all databases or on a qualified named relation in only one database.
You can use multiple --exclude REGEX parameters.
Perfdata will return the number of indexes of concern, by warning and critical threshold per
database.
A list of the bloated indexes will be returned after the perfdata. This list contains the fully
qualified bloated index name, the estimated bloat size, the index size and the bloat percentage.
Required privileges: superuser (<10) able to log in all databases, or at least those in --dbinclude;
superuser (<10); on PostgreSQL 10+, a user with the role pg_monitor suffices, provided that you grant
SELECT on the system table pg_statistic to the pg_monitor role, in each database of the cluster:
GRANT SELECT ON pg_statistic TO pg_monitor;
session_stats (14+)
Gather miscellaneous session statistics.
This service uses the status file (see --status-file parameter).
Perfdata contains the session / active / idle-in-transaction times for each database since last call,
as well as the number of sessions per second, and the number of sessions killed / abandoned /
terminated by fatal errors.
Required privileges: unprivileged role.
commit_ratio (all)
Check the commit and rollback rate per second since last call.
This service uses the status file (see --status-file parameter).
Perfdata contains the commit rate, rollback rate, transaction rate and rollback ratio for each
database since last call.
Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They accept a list of comma separated 'label=value'.
Available labels are rollbacks, rollback_rate and rollback_ratio, which will be compared to the
number of rollbacks, the rollback rate and the rollback ratio of each database. Warning or critical
will be raised if the reported value is greater than rollbacks, rollback_rate or rollback_ratio.
Required privileges: unprivileged role.
configuration (8.0+)
Check the most important settings.
Warning and Critical thresholds are ignored.
Specific parameters are : --work_mem, --maintenance_work_mem, --shared_buffers,--wal_buffers,
--checkpoint_segments, --effective_cache_size, --no_check_autovacuum, --no_check_fsync,
--no_check_enable, --no_check_track_counts.
Required privileges: unprivileged role.
connection (all)
Perform a simple connection test.
No perfdata is returned.
This service ignores critical and warning arguments.
Required privileges: unprivileged role.
custom_query (all)
Perform the given user query.
Specify the query with --query. The first column will be used to perform the test for the status if
warning and critical are provided.
The warning and critical arguments are optional. They can be of format integer (default), size or
time depending on the --type argument. Warning and Critical will be raised if they are greater than
the first column, or less if the --reverse option is used.
All other columns will be used to generate the perfdata. Each field name is used as the name of the
perfdata. The field value must contain your perfdata value and its unit appended to it. You can add
as many fields as needed. Eg.:
SELECT pg_database_size('postgres'),
pg_database_size('postgres')||'B' AS db_size
Required privileges: unprivileged role (depends on the query).
database_size (8.1+)
Check the variation of database sizes, and return the size of every databases.
This service uses the status file (see --status-file parameter).
Perfdata contains the size of each database and their size delta since last call.
Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They are a list of optional 'label=value' separated by
a comma. It allows to fine tune the alert based on the absolute size and/or the delta size. Eg.:
-w 'size=500GB' -c 'size=600GB'
-w 'delta=1%' -c 'delta=10%'
-w 'size=500GB,delta=1%' -c 'size=600GB,delta=10GB'
The size label accepts either a raw number or a size and checks the total database size. The delta
label accepts either a raw number, a percentage, or a size. The aim of the delta parameter is to
detect unexpected database size variations. Delta thresholds are absolute value, and delta
percentages are computed against the previous database size. A same label must be filled for both
warning and critical.
For backward compatibility, if a single raw number or percentage or size is given with no label, it
applies on the size difference for each database since the last execution. Both threshold bellow are
equivalent:
-w 'delta=1%' -c 'delta=10%'
-w '1%' -c '10%'
This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters.
Required privileges: unprivileged role.
extensions_versions (9.1+)
Check all extensions installed in all databases (including templates) and raise a critical alert if
the current version is not the default version available on the instance (according to
pg_available_extensions).
Typically, it is used to detect forgotten extension upgrades after package upgrades or a pg_upgrade.
Perfdata returns the number of outdated extensions in each database.
This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters. Schemas are ignored, as an
extension cannot be installed more than once in a database.
This service supports multiple --exclude argument to exclude one or more extensions from the check.
To ignore an extension only in a particular database, use 'dbname/extension_name' syntax.
Examples:
--dbexclude 'devdb' --exclude 'testdb/postgis' --exclude 'testdb/postgis_topology'
--dbinclude 'proddb' --dbinclude 'testdb' --exclude 'powa'
Required privileges: unprivileged role able to log in all databases
hit_ratio (all)
Check the cache hit ratio on the cluster.
This service uses the status file (see --status-file parameter).
Perfdata returns the cache hit ratio per database. Template databases and databases that do not allow
connections will not be checked, nor will the databases which have never been accessed.
Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They only accept a percentage.
This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters.
Required privileges: unprivileged role.
hot_standby_delta (9.0)
Check the data delta between a cluster and its hot standbys.
You must give the connection parameters for two or more clusters.
Perfdata returns the data delta in bytes between the master and each hot standby cluster listed.
Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They can take one or two values separated by a comma.
If only one value given, it applies to both received and replayed data. If two values are given, the
first one applies to received data, the second one to replayed ones. These thresholds only accept a
size (eg. 2.5G).
This service raises a Critical if it doesn't find exactly ONE valid master cluster (ie. critical when
0 or 2 and more masters).
Required privileges: unprivileged role.
is_hot_standby (9.0+)
Checks if the cluster is in recovery and accepts read only queries.
This service ignores critical and warning arguments.
No perfdata is returned.
Required privileges: unprivileged role.
is_master (all)
Checks if the cluster accepts read and/or write queries. This state is reported as "in production" by
pg_controldata.
This service ignores critical and warning arguments.
No perfdata is returned.
Required privileges: unprivileged role.
invalid_indexes (8.2+)
Check if there are invalid indexes in a database.
A critical alert is raised if an invalid index is detected.
This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters. The 'postgres' database and
templates are always excluded.
This service supports a --exclude REGEX parameter to exclude indexes matching a regular expression.
The regular expression applies to "database.schema_name.index_name". This enables you to filter
either on a relation name for all schemas and databases, on a qualified named index (schema + index)
for all databases or on a qualified named index in only one database.
You can use multiple --exclude REGEX parameters.
Perfdata will return the number of invalid indexes per database.
A list of invalid indexes will be returned after the perfdata. This list contains the fully qualified
index name. If excluded index is set, the number of exclude indexes is returned.
Required privileges: unprivileged role able to log in all databases.
is_replay_paused (9.1+)
Checks if the replication is paused. The service will return UNKNOWN if executed on a master server.
Thresholds are optional. They must be specified as interval. OK will always be returned if the
standby is not paused, even if replication delta time hits the thresholds.
Critical or warning are raised if last reported replayed timestamp is greater than given threshold
AND some data received from the master are not applied yet. OK will always be returned if the
standby is paused, or if the standby has already replayed everything from master and until some write
activity happens on the master.
Perfdata returned:
* paused status (0 no, 1 yes, NaN if master)
* lag time (in second)
* data delta with master (0 no, 1 yes)
Required privileges: unprivileged role.
last_analyze (8.2+)
Check on each databases that the oldest analyze (from autovacuum or not) is not older than the given
threshold.
This service uses the status file (see --status-file parameter) with PostgreSQL 9.1+.
Perfdata returns oldest analyze per database in seconds. With PostgreSQL 9.1+, the number of
[auto]analyses per database since last call is also returned.
Critical and Warning thresholds only accept an interval (eg. 1h30m25s) and apply to the oldest
execution of analyse.
Tables that were never analyzed, or whose analyze date was lost due to a crash, will raise a critical
alert.
NOTE: this service does not raise alerts if the database had strictly no writes since last call. In
consequence, a read-only database can have its oldest analyze reported in perfdata way after your
thresholds, but not raise any alerts.
This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters. The 'postgres' database and
templates are always excluded.
Required privileges: unprivileged role able to log in all databases.
last_vacuum (8.2+)
Check that the oldest vacuum (from autovacuum or otherwise) in each database in the cluster is not
older than the given threshold.
This service uses the status file (see --status-file parameter) with PostgreSQL 9.1+.
Perfdata returns oldest vacuum per database in seconds. With PostgreSQL 9.1+, it also returns the
number of [auto]vacuums per database since last execution.
Critical and Warning thresholds only accept an interval (eg. 1h30m25s) and apply to the oldest
vacuum.
Tables that were never vacuumed, or whose vacuum date was lost due to a crash, will raise a critical
alert.
NOTE: this service does not raise alerts if the database had strictly no writes since last call. In
consequence, a read-only database can have its oldest vacuum reported in perfdata way after your
thresholds, but not raise any alerts.
This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters. The 'postgres' database and
templates are always excluded.
Required privileges: unprivileged role able to log in all databases.
locks (all)
Check the number of locks on the hosts.
Perfdata returns the number of locks, by type.
Critical and Warning thresholds accept either a raw number of locks or a percentage. For percentage,
it is computed using the following limits for 7.4 to 8.1:
max_locks_per_transaction * max_connections
for 8.2+:
max_locks_per_transaction * (max_connections + max_prepared_transactions)
for 9.1+, regarding lockmode :
max_locks_per_transaction * (max_connections + max_prepared_transactions)
or max_pred_locks_per_transaction * (max_connections + max_prepared_transactions)
Required privileges: unprivileged role.
longest_query (all)
Check the longest running query in the cluster.
Perfdata contains the max/avg/min running time and the number of queries per database.
Critical and Warning thresholds only accept an interval.
This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters.
It also supports argument --exclude REGEX to exclude queries matching the given regular expression
from the check.
Above 9.0, it also supports --exclude REGEX to filter out application_name.
You can use multiple --exclude REGEX parameters.
Required privileges: an unprivileged role only checks its own queries; a pg_monitor (10+) or
superuser (<10) role is required to check all queries.
max_freeze_age (all)
Checks oldest database by transaction age.
Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They accept either a raw number or percentage for
PostgreSQL 8.2 and more. If percentage is given, the thresholds are computed based on the
"autovacuum_freeze_max_age" parameter. 100% means that some table(s) reached the maximum age and
will trigger an autovacuum freeze. Percentage thresholds should therefore be greater than 100%.
Even with no threshold, this service will raise a critical alert if a database has a negative age.
Perfdata returns the age of each database.
This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters.
Required privileges: unprivileged role.
minor_version (all)
Check if the cluster is running the most recent minor version of PostgreSQL.
Latest versions of PostgreSQL can be fetched from PostgreSQL official website if check_pgactivity has
access to it, or must be given as a parameter.
Without --critical or --warning parameters, this service attempts to fetch the latest version numbers
online. A critical alert is raised if the minor version is not the most recent.
You can optionally set the path to your prefered retrieval tool using the --path parameter (eg.
--path '/usr/bin/wget'). Supported programs are: GET, wget, curl, fetch, lynx, links, links2.
If you do not want to (or cannot) query the PostgreSQL website, provide the expected versions using
either --warning OR --critical, depending on which return value you want to raise.
The given string must contain one or more MINOR versions separated by anything but a '.'. For
instance, the following parameters are all equivalent:
--critical "10.1 9.6.6 9.5.10 9.4.15 9.3.20 9.2.24 9.1.24 9.0.23 8.4.22"
--critical "10.1, 9.6.6, 9.5.10, 9.4.15, 9.3.20, 9.2.24, 9.1.24, 9.0.23, 8.4.22"
--critical "10.1,9.6.6,9.5.10,9.4.15,9.3.20,9.2.24,9.1.24,9.0.23,8.4.22"
--critical "10.1/9.6.6/9.5.10/9.4.15/9.3.20/9.2.24/9.1.24/9.0.23/8.4.22"
Any other value than 3 numbers separated by dots (before version 10.x) or 2 numbers separated by dots
(version 10 and above) will be ignored. If the running PostgreSQL major version is not found, the
service raises an unknown status.
Perfdata returns the numerical version of PostgreSQL.
Required privileges: unprivileged role; access to http://www.postgresql.org required to download
version numbers.
oldest_2pc (8.1+)
Check the oldest two-phase commit transaction (aka. prepared transaction) in the cluster.
Perfdata contains the max/avg age time and the number of prepared transactions per databases.
Critical and Warning thresholds only accept an interval.
Required privileges: unprivileged role.
oldest_idlexact (8.3+)
Check the oldest idle transaction.
Perfdata contains the max/avg age and the number of idle transactions per databases.
Critical and Warning thresholds only accept an interval.
This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters.
Above 9.2, it supports --exclude to filter out connections. Eg., to filter out pg_dump and
pg_dumpall, set this to 'pg_dump,pg_dumpall'.
Before 9.2, this services checks for idle transaction with their start time. Thus, the service can
mistakenly take account of transaction transiently in idle state. From 9.2 and up, the service
checks for transaction that really had no activity since the given thresholds.
Required privileges: an unprivileged role checks only its own queries; a pg_monitor (10+) or
superuser (<10) role is required to check all queries.
oldest_xmin (8.4+)
Check the xmin horizon from distinct sources of xmin retention.
Per default, Perfdata outputs the oldest known xmin age for each database among running queries,
opened or idle transactions, pending prepared transactions, replication slots and walsender. For
versions prior to 9.4, only 2pc source of xmin retention is checked.
Using --detailed, Perfdata contains the oldest xmin and maximum age for the following source of xmin
retention: query (a running query), active_xact (an opened transaction currently executing a query),
idle_xact (an opened transaction being idle), 2pc (a pending prepared transaction), repslot (a
replication slot) and walwender (a WAL sender replication process), for each connectable database.
If a source doesn't retain any transaction for a database, NaN is returned. For versions prior to
9.4, only 2pc source of xmin retention is available, so other sources won't appear in the perfdata.
Note that xmin retention from walsender is only set if hot_standby_feedback is enabled on remote
standby.
Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They only accept a raw number of transaction.
This service supports both --dbexclude" and --dbinclude" parameters.
Required privileges: a pg_read_all_stats (10+) or superuser (<10) role is required to check
pg_stat_replication. 2PC, pg_stat_activity, and replication slots don't require special privileges.
pg_dump_backup
Check the age and size of backups.
This service uses the status file (see --status-file parameter).
The --path argument contains the location to the backup folder. The supported format is a glob
pattern matching every folder or file that you need to check.
The --pattern is required, and must contain a regular expression matching the backup file name,
extracting the database name from the first matching group.
Optionally, a --global-pattern option can be supplied to check for an additional global file.
Examples:
To monitor backups like:
/var/lib/backups/mydb-20150803.dump
/var/lib/backups/otherdb-20150803.dump
/var/lib/backups/mydb-20150804.dump
/var/lib/backups/otherdb-20150804.dump
you must set:
--path '/var/lib/backups/*'
--pattern '(\w+)-\d+.dump'
If the path contains the date, like this:
/var/lib/backups/2015-08-03-daily/mydb.dump
/var/lib/backups/2015-08-03-daily/otherdb.dump
then you can set:
--path '/var/lib/backups/*/*.dump'
--pattern '/\d+-\d+-\d+-daily/(.*).dump'
For compatibility with pg_back (https://github.com/orgrim/pg_back), you should use:
--path '/path/*{dump,sql}'
--pattern '(\w+)_[0-9-_]+.dump'
--global-pattern 'pg_global_[0-9-_]+.sql'
The --critical and --warning thresholds are optional. They accept a list of 'metric=value' separated
by a comma. Available metrics are oldest and newest, respectively the age of the oldest and newest
backups, and size, which must be the maximum variation of size since the last check, expressed as a
size or a percentage. mindeltasize, expressed in B, is the minimum variation of size needed to raise
an alert.
This service supports the --dbinclude and --dbexclude arguments, to respectively test for the
presence of include or exclude files.
The argument --exclude enables you to exclude files younger than an interval. This is useful to
ignore files from a backup in progress. Eg., if your backup process takes 2h, set this to '125m'.
Perfdata returns the age of the oldest and newest backups, as well as the size of the newest backups.
Required privileges: unprivileged role; the system user needs read access on the directory containing
the dumps (but not on the dumps themselves).
pga_version
Check if this script is running the given version of check_pgactivity. You must provide the expected
version using either --warning OR --critical.
No perfdata is returned.
Required privileges: none.
pgdata_permission (8.2+)
Check that the instance data directory rights are 700, and belongs to the system user currently
running postgresql.
The check on rights works on all Unix systems.
Checking the user only works on Linux systems (it uses /proc to avoid dependencies). Before 9.3, you
need to provide the expected owner using the --uid argument, or the owner will not be checked.
Required privileges:
<11:superuser
v11: user with pg_monitor or pg_read_all_setting The system user must also be able to read the
folder containing PGDATA: the service has to be executed locally on the monitored server.
replication_slots (9.4+)
Check the number of WAL files retained and spilled files for each replication slots.
Perfdata returns the number of WAL kept for each slot and the number of spilled files in pg_replslot
for each logical replication slot. Since v13, if max_slot_wal_keep_size is greater or equal to 0,
perfdata reports the size of WAL to produce before each slot becomes unreserved or lost. Note that
this size can become negative if the WAL status for the limited time where the slot becomes
unreserved. It is set to zero as soon as the last checkpoint finished and the status becomes lost.
This service needs superuser privileges to obtain the number of spill files or returns 0 in last
resort.
Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They accept either a raw number (for backward
compatibility, only wal threshold will be used) or a list of 'wal=value' and/or 'spilled=value'
and/or 'remaining=size'. Respectively number of kept wal files, number of spilled files in
pg_replslot for each logical slot and remaining bytes before a slot becomes unreserved or lost.
Moreover, with v13 and after, the service raises a warning alert if a slot becomes unreserved. It
raises a critical alert if the slot becomes lost.
Required privileges:
v9.4: unprivileged role, or superuser to monitor spilled files for logical replication
v11+: unprivileged user with GRANT EXECUTE on function pg_ls_dir(text)
Here is somes examples:
-w 'wal=50,spilled=20' -c 'wal=100,spilled=40'
-w 'spilled=20,remaining=160MB' -c 'spilled=40,remaining=48MB'
settings (9.0+)
Check if the current settings have changed since they were stored in the service file.
The "known" settings are recorded during the very first call of the service. To update the known
settings after a configuration change, call this service again with the argument --save.
No perfdata.
Critical and Warning thresholds are ignored.
A Critical is raised if at least one parameter changed.
Required privileges: unprivileged role.
sequences_exhausted (7.4+)
Check all sequences and raise an alarm if the column or sequences gets too close to the maximum
value. The maximum value is calculated from the maxvalue of the sequence or from the column type when
the sequence is owned by a column (the smallserial, serial and bigserial types).
Perfdata returns the sequences that trigger the alert.
This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters. The 'postgres' database and
templates are always excluded.
Critical and Warning thresholds accept a percentage of the sequence filled.
Required privileges: unprivileged role able to log in all databases
stat_snapshot_age (9.5 to 14 included)
Check the age of the statistics snapshot (statistics collector's statistics). This probe helps to
detect a frozen stats collector process.
Perfdata returns the statistics snapshot age.
Critical and Warning thresholds only accept an interval (eg. 1h30m25s).
Required privileges: unprivileged role.
streaming_delta (9.1+)
Check the data delta between a cluster and its standbys in streaming replication.
Optional argument --slave allows you to specify some slaves that MUST be connected. This argument can
be used as many times as desired to check multiple slave connections, or you can specify multiple
slaves connections at one time, using comma separated values. Both methods can be used in a single
call. The provided values must be of the form "APPLICATION_NAME IP". Both following examples will
check for the presence of two slaves:
--slave 'slave1 192.168.1.11' --slave 'slave2 192.168.1.12'
--slave 'slave1 192.168.1.11','slave2 192.168.1.12'
This service supports a --exclude REGEX parameter to exclude every result matching a regular
expression on application_name or IP address fields.
You can use multiple --exclude REGEX parameters.
Perfdata returns the data delta in bytes between the master and every standbies found, the number of
standbies connected and the number of excluded standbies.
Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They can take one or two values separated by a comma.
If only one value is supplied, it applies to both flushed and replayed data. If two values are
supplied, the first one applies to flushed data, the second one to replayed data. These thresholds
only accept a size (eg. 2.5G).
Required privileges: unprivileged role.
table_unlogged (9.5+)
Check if tables are changed to unlogged. In 9.5, you can switch between logged and unlogged.
Without --critical or --warning parameters, this service attempts to fetch all unlogged tables.
A critical alert is raised if an unlogged table is detected.
This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters. The 'postgres' database and
templates are always excluded.
This service supports a --exclude REGEX parameter to exclude relations matching a regular
expression. The regular expression applies to "database.schema_name.relation_name". This enables you
to filter either on a relation name for all schemas and databases, on a qualified named relation
(schema + relation) for all databases or on a qualified named relation in only one database.
You can use multiple --exclude REGEX parameters.
Perfdata will return the number of unlogged tables per database.
A list of the unlogged tables will be returned after the perfdata. This list contains the fully
qualified table name. If --exclude REGEX is set, the number of excluded tables is returned.
Required privileges: unprivileged role able to log in all databases, or at least those in
--dbinclude.
table_bloat
Estimate bloat on tables.
Warning and critical thresholds accept a comma-separated list of either raw number(for a size), size
(eg. 125M) or percentage. The thresholds apply to bloat size, not object size. If a percentage is
given, the threshold will apply to the bloat size compared to the table + TOAST size. If multiple
threshold values are passed, check_pgactivity will choose the largest (bloat size) value.
This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters. The 'postgres' database and
templates are always excluded.
This service supports a --exclude REGEX parameter to exclude relations matching the given regular
expression. The regular expression applies to "database.schema_name.relation_name". This enables you
to filter either on a relation name for all schemas and databases, on a qualified named relation
(schema + relation) for all databases or on a qualified named relation in only one database.
You can use multiple --exclude REGEX parameters.
Warning: With a non-superuser role, this service can only check the tables that the given role is
granted to read!
Perfdata will return the number of tables matching the warning and critical thresholds, per database.
A list of the bloated tables will be returned after the perfdata. This list contains the fully
qualified bloated table name, the estimated bloat size, the table size and the bloat percentage.
Required privileges: superuser (<10) able to log in all databases, or at least those in --dbinclude;
superuser (<10); on PostgreSQL 10+, a user with the role pg_monitor suffices, provided that you grant
SELECT on the system table pg_statistic to the pg_monitor role, in each database of the cluster:
GRANT SELECT ON pg_statistic TO pg_monitor;
temp_files (8.1+)
Check the number and size of temp files.
This service uses the status file (see --status-file parameter) for 9.2+.
Perfdata returns the number and total size of temp files found in pgsql_tmp folders. They are
aggregated by database until 8.2, then by tablespace (see GUC temp_tablespaces).
Starting with 9.2, perfdata returns as well the number of temp files per database since last run, the
total size of temp files per database since last run and the rate at which temp files were generated.
Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They accept either a number of file (raw value), a size
(unit is mandatory to define a size) or both values separated by a comma.
Thresholds are applied on current temp files being created AND the number/size of temp files created
since last execution.
Required privileges:
<10: superuser
v10: an unprivileged role is possible but it will not monitor databases that it cannot access, nor
live temp files
v11: an unprivileged role is possible but must be granted EXECUTE on functions pg_ls_dir(text),
pg_read_file(text), pg_stat_file(text, boolean); the same restrictions than on v10 will still apply
v12+: a role with pg_monitor privilege.
uptime (8.1+)
Returns time since postmaster start ("uptime", from 8.1), since configuration reload (from 8.4), and
since shared memory initialization (from 10).
Please note that the uptime is unaffected when the postmaster resets all its children (for example
after a kill -9 on a process or a failure).
From 10+, the 'time since shared memory init' aims at detecting this situation: in fact we use the
age of the oldest non-client child process (usually checkpointer, writer or startup). This needs
pg_monitor access to read pg_stat_activity.
Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. If both are set, Critical is raised when the postmaster
uptime or the time since shared memory initialization is less than the critical threshold.
Warning is raised when the time since configuration reload is less than the warning threshold. If
only a warning or critical threshold is given, it will be used for both cases. Obviously these
alerts will disappear from themselves once enough time has passed.
Perfdata contain the three values (when available).
Required privileges: pg_monitor on PG10+; otherwise unprivileged role.
wal_files (8.1+)
Check the number of WAL files.
Perfdata returns the total number of WAL files, current number of written WAL, the current number of
recycled WAL, the rate of WAL written to disk since the last execution on the master cluster and the
current timeline.
Critical and Warning thresholds accept either a raw number of files or a percentage. In case of
percentage, the limit is computed based on:
100% = 1 + checkpoint_segments * (2 + checkpoint_completion_target)
For PostgreSQL 8.1 and 8.2:
100% = 1 + checkpoint_segments * 2
If wal_keep_segments is set for 9.0 to 9.4, the limit is the greatest of the following formulas:
100% = 1 + checkpoint_segments * (2 + checkpoint_completion_target)
100% = 1 + wal_keep_segments + 2 * checkpoint_segments
For 9.5 to 12, the limit is:
100% = max_wal_size (as a number of WAL)
+ wal_keep_segments (if set)
For 13 and above:
100% = max_wal_size + wal_keep_size (as numbers of WAL)
Required privileges:
<10:superuser (<10)
v10:unprivileged user with pg_monitor
v11+ :unprivileged user with pg_monitor, or with grant EXECUTE on function pg_ls_waldir
EXAMPLES
Execute service "last_vacuum" on host "host=localhost port=5432":
check_pgactivity -h localhost -p 5432 -s last_vacuum -w 30m -c 1h30m
Execute service "hot_standby_delta" between hosts "service=pg92" and "service=pg92s":
check_pgactivity --dbservice pg92,pg92s --service hot_standby_delta -w 32MB -c 160MB
Execute service "streaming_delta" on host "service=pg92" to check its slave "stby1" with the IP address
"192.168.1.11":
check_pgactivity --dbservice pg92 --slave "stby1 192.168.1.11" --service streaming_delta -w 32MB -c 160MB
Execute service "hit_ratio" on host "slave" port "5433, excluding database matching the regexps "idelone"
and "(?i:sleep)":
check_pgactivity -p 5433 -h slave --service hit_ratio --dbexclude idelone --dbexclude "(?i:sleep)" -w 90% -c 80%
Execute service "hit_ratio" on host "slave" port "5433, only for databases matching the regexp
"importantone":
check_pgactivity -p 5433 -h slave --service hit_ratio --dbinclude importantone -w 90% -c 80%
VERSION
check_pgactivity version 2.7, released on Mon Sep 25 2023.
LICENSING
This program is open source, licensed under the PostgreSQL license. For license terms, see the LICENSE
provided with the sources.
AUTHORS
Author: Open PostgreSQL Monitoring Development Group
Copyright: (C) 2012-2023 Open PostgreSQL Monitoring Development Group
Debian 2023-10-01 CHECK_PGACTIVITY(1)