CHECK_POSTGRES(1p)

📦

version 2.26.0 · 5 versions

2.26.0 · ubuntu resolute, ubuntu stonking (latest)
2.25.0 · ubuntu jammy
2.25.0 · debian bookworm
2.26.0 · ubuntu noble
2.26.0 · debian trixie, ubuntu questing

💖 CHECK_POSTGRES 💖

okay bestie, gather round, because this is check_postgres — a Postgres monitoring script for Nagios, MRTG, Cacti, and honestly whoever else wants in. ✨

This doc is describing check_postgres version 2.26.0, so keep that in mind, no cap.

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

here's the vibe, in code, because code is the only language that never lies:

## Create all symlinks
check_postgres --symlinks

## Check connection to Postgres database 'pluto':
check_postgres --action=connection --db=pluto

## Same things, but using the symlink
check_postgres_connection --db=pluto

## Warn if > 100 locks, critical if > 200, or > 20 exclusive
check_postgres_locks --warning=100 --critical="total=200:exclusive=20"

## Show the current number of idle connections on port 6543:
check_postgres_txn_idle --port=6543 --output=simple

## There are many other actions and options, please keep reading.

and the latest news + documentation can always be found at: https://bucardo.org/check_postgres/

slay. 🌈

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

so check_postgres is a Perl script — yes, Perl, we respect our elders — that runs a whole bunch of different tests against one or more Postgres databases. It uses the psql program to go gather the info, and then it gives you the results in one of three formats: Nagios, MRTG, or simple. iconic honestly.

🎀 Output Modes 🎀

you can switch the output up with the --output option. the default output is nagios, tho you can change that at the top of the script if that's your thing. the current option choices are nagios, mrtg, and simple.

and here's the lil party trick: so you don't have to type the output argument every single time, the type of output gets set automatically if you don't pass an --output argument AND the current directory has one of the output options in its name. like, if you make a directory called mrtg and fill it with symlinks via the --symlinks argument, then any actions run from that directory will always default to an output of "mrtg". directory name as config? the way that works?? 💅

and as a shortcut for --output=simple, you can just type --simple, which also overrides the whole directory-naming trick. periodt.

🌟 Nagios output

the default output format is for Nagios, which is a single line of information, plus four specific exit codes, bestie:

0 (OK)
1 (WARNING)
2 (CRITICAL)
3 (UNKNOWN)

the output line is one of the words above, then a colon, then a short description of what was measured. you can also get extra statistics info, plus the total time the command took, output as well — go check the docs on the arguments --showperf, --perflimit, and --showtime for that. 🔥

🌟 MRTG output

MRTG output is four lines, and the first line always gives a single number of importance. when possible, that number represents an actual value like a number of bytes, but it may also just be a 1 or a 0 for actions that only return "true" or "false", like check_postgres_version. the second line is an additional stat and is only used for some actions. the third line indicates an "uptime" and is not used. the fourth line is a description and usually tells you the name of the database the stat from the first line was pulled from, but it may be different depending on the action.

some actions accept an optional --mrtg argument to further control the output.

go read the docs on each action for the exact details of the MRTG output for each one. 💫

🌟 Simple output

simple output is literally just a truncated version of the MRTG one — it returns the first number and nothing else. so useful when you just wanna check the state of something regardless of any threshold. and you can transform that numeric output by appending KB, MB, GB, TB, or EB to the output argument, like:

--output=simple,MB

obsessed. 🦋

🌟 Cacti output

Cacti output is one or more items on the same line, with a simple name, a colon, and then a number. rn the only action with explicit Cacti output is 'dbstats', and you don't even need the --output option in that case, because Cacti is the only output for that action. for lots of other actions, --simple is enough to make Cacti happy. 🫶

👑 DATABASE CONNECTION OPTIONS 👑

every action accepts a common set of database options. let's go through them one by one, no skips.

-H NAME, --host=NAME — connect to the host indicated by NAME. can be a comma-separated list of names. multiple host arguments are allowed. if no host is given, it defaults to the PGHOST environment variable, or no host at all (which means it's using a local Unix socket). you may also use --dbhost. 🏠
-p PORT, --port=PORT — connects using the specified PORT number. can be a comma-separated list of port numbers, and multiple port arguments are allowed. if no port number is given, it defaults to the PGPORT environment variable. if that's not set either, it defaults to 5432. you may also use --dbport. 🔌
-db NAME, --dbname=NAME — specifies which database to connect to. can be a comma-separated list of names, and multiple dbname arguments are allowed. if no dbname option is provided, it defaults to the PGDATABASE environment variable. if that's not set either, it defaults to 'postgres' if psql is version 8 or greater, and 'template1' otherwise. 🗄️
-u USERNAME, --dbuser=USERNAME — the name of the database user to connect as. can be a comma-separated list of usernames, and multiple dbuser arguments are allowed. if this isn't provided, it defaults to the PGUSER environment variable, otherwise it defaults to 'postgres'. 👤
--dbpass=PASSWORD — provides the password to connect to the database with. > ngl bestie, use of this option is highly discouraged. instead, you should use a .pgpass or pg_service.conf file. do not put your password in the command line, i'm begging 😭
--dbservice=NAME — the name of a service inside of the pg_service.conf file. before version 9.0 of Postgres, this is a global file, usually found in /etc/pg_service.conf. if you're using version 9.0 or higher of Postgres, you can use the file .pg_service.conf in the home directory of the user running the script, e.g. nagios.

this file contains a simple list of connection options. you can also pass additional information when using this option, such as --dbservice="maindatabase sslmode=require"

the documentation for this file can be found at <https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/libpq-pgservice.html> ⭐

--role=ROLE — provides the role to switch to after connecting to the database but before running the given check. this gives you the ability to have superuser privileges assigned to a role without LOGIN access, for the purposes of audit and other security considerations. requires a local psql version 9.6 or higher. 🔐

🧚 how the connection options combine 🧚

the database connection options can be grouped: --host=a,b --host=c --port=1234 --port=3344 would connect to a-1234, b-1234, and c-3344. and note that once set, an option carries over until it's changed again.

examples, because this is the part where it clicks:

--host=a,b --port=5433 --db=c
Connects twice to port 5433, using database c, to hosts a and b: a-5433-c b-5433-c

--host=a,b --port=5433 --db=c,d
Connects four times: a-5433-c a-5433-d b-5433-c b-5433-d

--host=a,b --host=foo --port=1234 --port=5433 --db=e,f
Connects six times: a-1234-e a-1234-f b-1234-e b-1234-f foo-5433-e foo-5433-f

--host=a,b --host=x --port=5432,5433 --dbuser=alice --dbuser=bob -db=baz
Connects three times: a-5432-alice-baz b-5433-alice-baz x-5433-bob-baz

--dbservice="foo" --port=5433
Connects using the named service 'foo' in the pg_service.conf file, but overrides the port

ate. and that's only part of it — more coming, don't go anywhere. 💖

✨ OTHER OPTIONS ✨

bestie there are SO many more options, come look 👀

--action=NAME — tells the script which action we're running. It's required unless you're running through a symlinked file, in which case the filename itself is used to figure out the action. slay, self-identifying scripts 💅
--warning=VAL or -w VAL — sets the threshold where a warning alert fires. Which values are valid here depends entirely on the action you picked.
--critical=VAL or -c VAL — sets the threshold where a critical alert fires. Again, valid values depend on whatever action is being used.
-t VAL or --timeout=VAL — sets the timeout, in seconds, after which the script aborts whatever it's doing and returns an UNKNOWN status. The timeout is per Postgres cluster, not for the entire script, jsyk. Default value is 10; units are always seconds, no negotiation 💀
--assume-standby-mode — if you pass this, first it checks whether the server is in standby mode (--datadir is required for this). If it is, then every check that needs SQL queries gets skipped, and instead you get "Server in standby mode" with an OK status. iconic behavior honestly.

Example:

postgres@db$./check_postgres --action=version --warning=8.1 --datadir /var/lib/postgresql/8.3/main/ --assume-standby-mode
POSTGRES_VERSION OK:  Server in standby mode | time=0.00

--assume-prod — if specified, it checks whether the server is in production mode (--datadir is required). This option is only relevant for ("symlink: check_postgres_checkpoint").

Example:

postgres@db$./check_postgres --action=checkpoint --datadir /var/lib/postgresql/8.3/main/ --assume-prod
POSTGRES_CHECKPOINT OK: Last checkpoint was 72 seconds ago | age=72;;300 mode=MASTER

--assume-async — if specified, it means any replication happening between servers is asynchronous. This option is only relevant for ("symlink: check_postgres_same_schema").

Example:

postgres@db$./check_postgres --action=same_schema --assume-async
--dbhost=star,line

-h or --help — pops up a help screen with a summary of all the actions and options. your lil cheat sheet 🫶
--man — shows you the entire manual. the whole thing. every word. no skimming bestie.
-V or --version — shows the current version.
-v or --verbose — sets the verbosity level. You can call it more than once to pump the level up. Setting it to three or higher (in other words, literally issuing -v -v -v) turns on debugging information for this program, which gets sent to stderr. 🐛
--showperf=VAL — decides whether we output extra performance data in standard Nagios format (at the end of the string, after a pipe symbol, using name=value). VAL should be 0 or 1. Default is 1. Only takes effect if you're using Nagios output mode.
--perflimit=i — sets a limit on how many items of interest get reported back when you're using the showperf option. This only does anything for actions that return a big ol' pile of items, like table_size. Default is 0, meaning no limit. ⚠️ Be careful using this together with the --include or --exclude options, because those restrictions happen after the query has already run, so your limit might not include the items you actually wanted. Only takes effect if you're using Nagios output mode.
--showtime=VAL — decides whether the time taken to run each query is shown in the output. VAL should be 0 or 1. Default is 1. No effect unless showperf is on. Only takes effect if you're using Nagios output mode.
--test — enables test mode. Go read the "TEST MODE" section below. 🧪
--PGBINDIR=PATH — tells the script where to find the psql binaries. Super useful if you've got more than one version of the PostgreSQL executables on your system, or if they're just not in your path. Note this option is in all uppercase. By default, this option is not allowed. To enable it, you have to change the $NO_PSQL_OPTION near the top of the script to 0. Please avoid using this option if you can, and instead use the environment variable PGBINDIR or the hard-coded $PGBINDIR variable, which is also near the top of the script, to set the path to the PostgreSQL you want to use.
--PSQL=PATH — (deprecated, this option may be removed in a future release! 😭) tells the script where to find the psql program. Useful if you have more than one version of the psql executable on your system, or if there's no psql program in your path. Note this option is in all uppercase. By default, this option is not allowed. To enable it you must change the $NO_PSQL_OPTION near the top of the script to 0. Avoid using this option if you can, and instead hard-code your psql location into the $PSQL variable, also near the top of the script.
--symlinks — creates symlinks to the main program for each action. linky links 🔗
--output=VAL — decides the format of the output, for use in various programs. Default is 'nagios'. Available options are 'nagios', 'mrtg', 'simple' and 'cacti'.
--mrtg=VAL — used only for the MRTG or simple output, for a few specific actions.
--debugoutput=VAL — outputs the exact string returned by psql, for debugging purposes. The value is one or more letters, which determine whether the output is displayed or not, where 'a' = all, 'c' = critical, 'w' = warning, 'o' = ok, and 'u' = unknown. Letters can be combined, mix and match bestie ✨
--get_method=VAL — lets you specify which method is used to fetch information for the "new_version_cp", "new_version_pg", "new_version_bc", "new_version_box", and "new_version_tnm" checks. The following programs are tried, in order, to grab the info off the web: GET, wget, fetch, curl, lynx, links. To force the use of just one (and thus remove the overhead of trying all the others until one of them works), enter one of the names as the argument to get_method. For example, a BSD box might enter the following line in their .check_postgresrc file:

get_method=fetch

--language=VAL — sets the language used for all output messages. Normally this is detected by examining the environment variables LC_ALL, LC_MESSAGES, and LANG, but setting this option will override any such detection. 🌍

🎬 ACTIONS 🎬

okay so here's the whole vibe of how actions work: you pick which one to run using the --action flag, or by using a symlink to the main file that has the action's name inside of it. So for example, to run the action "timesync", you can either issue:

check_postgres --action=timesync

or use a program named:

check_postgres_timesync

All the symlinks are created for you in the current directory if you use the option --symlinks:

perl check_postgres --symlinks

If the filename already exists, it will not be overwritten. But if the file exists and is a symlink, you can force it to overwrite by using "--action=build_symlinks_force". 💪

Most actions take a --warning and a --critical option, indicating at what point we change from OK to WARNING, and at what point we go to CRITICAL. Note that because criticals are always checked first, setting the warning equal to the critical is an effective way to turn warnings off and always give a critical. sneaky but valid 💅

The current supported actions are:

archive_ready

("symlink: check_postgres_archive_ready") — checks how many WAL files with extension .ready exist in the pg_xlog/archive_status directory (PostgreSQL 10 and later: pg_wal/archive_status), which is found off of your data_directory. If the --lsfunc option is not used, then this action must be run as a superuser, in order to access the contents of the pg_xlog/archive_status directory. The minimum version to use this action is Postgres 8.1. The --warning and --critical options are simply the number of .ready files in the pg_xlog/archive_status directory. Usually these values should be low — when you turn on the archive mechanism, we usually want it to archive WAL files as fast as possible, periodt.

If the archive command fails, the number of WAL in your pg_xlog directory will grow until it exhausts all the disk space and forces PostgreSQL to stop immediately. 😱 (yeah. that's a whole emergency.)

To avoid running as a database superuser, a wrapper function around pg_ls_dir() should be defined as a superuser with SECURITY DEFINER, and the --lsfunc option used. This example function, if defined by a superuser, will allow the script to connect as a normal user nagios with --lsfunc=ls_archive_status_dir:

BEGIN;
CREATE FUNCTION ls_archive_status_dir()
    RETURNS SETOF TEXT
    AS $$ SELECT pg_ls_dir('pg_xlog/archive_status') $$
    LANGUAGE SQL
    SECURITY DEFINER;
REVOKE ALL ON FUNCTION ls_archive_status_dir() FROM PUBLIC;
GRANT EXECUTE ON FUNCTION ls_archive_status_dir() to nagios;
COMMIT;

Example 1: Check that the number of ready WAL files is 10 or less on host "pluto", using a wrapper function "ls_archive_status_dir" to avoid the need for superuser permissions 🪐

check_postgres_archive_ready --host=pluto --critical=10 --lsfunc=ls_archive_status_dir

For MRTG output, reports the number of ready WAL files on line 1.

autovac_freeze

("symlink: check_postgres_autovac_freeze") — checks how close each database is to the Postgres autovacuum_freeze_max_age setting. This action will only work for databases version 8.2 or higher. The --warning and --critical options should be expressed as percentages. The 'age' of the transactions in each database is compared to the autovacuum_freeze_max_age setting (200 million by default) to generate a rounded percentage. The default values are 90% for the warning and 95% for the critical. Databases can be filtered by use of the --include and --exclude options. See the "BASIC FILTERING" section for more details. 🧊

Example 1: Give a warning when any databases on port 5432 are above 97%

check_postgres_autovac_freeze --port=5432 --warning="97%"

For MRTG output, the highest overall percentage is reported on the first line, and the highest age is reported on the second line. All databases which have the percentage from the first line are reported on the fourth line, separated by a pipe symbol.

backends 👑

("symlink: check_postgres_backends") — okay so this one checks how many connections are currently open on one or more databases, and if you want, it'll compare that number to your max allowed, which it pulls straight from the Postgres config variable max_connections. 💅

The --warning and --critical options are flexible besties — they can take one of three forms:

A plain number, which is the number of connections at which the alert goes off. Ngl, this form does not touch the max_connections setting at all.
A percentage of the available connections.
A negative number, which means "how many connections are left until max_connections is reached".

The default values for --warning and --critical are '90%' and '95%'. ✨

You can also filter which databases get looked at using --include and --exclude — go peek at the "BASIC FILTERING" section for the full tea.

Wanna see only the non-idle processes? Pass --noidle. But real talk: the user you're running as (either connecting directly, or switching via --role) has to be a superuser</bad> — sorry, superuser — for that to work properly. No cap.

Example 1: Give a warning when the number of connections on host quirm reaches 120, and a critical if it reaches 150.

check_postgres_backends --host=quirm --warning=120 --critical=150

Example 2: Give a critical when we reach 75% of our max_connections setting on hosts lancre or lancre2.

check_postgres_backends --warning='75%' --critical='75%' --host=lancre,lancre2

Example 3: Give a warning when there are only 10 more connection slots left on host plasmid, and a critical when we have only 5 left.

check_postgres_backends --warning=-10 --critical=-5 --host=plasmid

Example 4: Check all databases except those with "test" in their name, but allow ones that are named "pg_greatest". Connect as port 5432 on the first two hosts, and as port 5433 on the third one. We want to always throw a critical when we reach 30 or more connections.

check_postgres_backends --dbhost=hong,kong --dbhost=fooey --dbport=5432 --dbport=5433 --warning=30 --critical=30 --exclude="~test" --include="pg_greatest,~prod"

For MRTG output, the number of connections is reported on the first line, and the fourth line gives you the name of the database, plus the current maximum_connections. If more than one database got queried, the one with the highest number of connections is what gets output. 🫶

bloat 🫧

("symlink: check_postgres_bloat") — checks how much bloat is chilling in your tables and indexes. (Bloat is, generally speaking, the amount of dead unused space taken up in a table or index. This space usually gets reclaimed by use of the VACUUM command.) This action requires that stats collection be enabled on the target databases, and it requires that ANALYZE gets run frequently. You can filter out which tables to look at with --include and --exclude — see the "BASIC FILTERING" section for more details. 💖

The --warning and --critical options can be specified as sizes, percents, or both. Valid size units are bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, exabytes, petabytes, and zettabytes — and you can abbreviate all of those with just the first letter. Anything without units is assumed to be 'bytes'. The default values are '1 GB' and '5 GB'. The value represents the number of "wasted bytes", aka the difference between what's actually used by the table and index, and what we compute that it should be.

⚠️ Heads up: this action has two hard-coded values to dodge false alarms on smaller relations. Tables must have at least 10 pages, and indexes at least 15, before this test will even consider them. If you're truly determined to adjust these, you can go looking for the variables $MINPAGES and $MINIPAGES at the top of the check_bloat subroutine. These values are ignored if either --exclude or --include is used.

Only the top 10 most bloated relations are shown. You can change this number with the --perflimit option to set your own limit. 👑

The schema named 'information_schema' is excluded from this test, because the only tables it contains are small and don't change.

Please note: the values computed by this action are not precise and should be used as a guideline only. Great effort was made to estimate the correct size of a table, but in the end it's only an estimate. The correct index size is even more of a guess than the correct table size, but both should still give you a rough idea of how bloated things are. 😭

Example 1: Warn if any table on port 5432 is over 100 MB bloated, and critical if over 200 MB

check_postgres_bloat --port=5432 --warning='100 M' --critical='200 M'

Example 2: Give a critical if table 'orders' on host 'sami' has more than 10 megs of bloat

check_postgres_bloat --host=sami --include=orders --critical='10 MB'

Example 3: Give a critical if table 'q4' on database 'sales' is over 50% bloated

check_postgres_bloat --db=sales --include=q4 --critical='50%'

Example 4: Give a critical any table is over 20% bloated and has over 150 MB of bloat:

check_postgres_bloat --port=5432 --critical='20% and 150 M'

Example 5: Give a critical any table is over 40% bloated or has over 500 MB of bloat:

check_postgres_bloat --port=5432 --warning='500 M or 40%'

For MRTG output, the first line gives the highest number of wasted bytes for the tables, and the second line gives the highest number of wasted bytes for the indexes. The fourth line gives the database name, table name, and index name information. If you'd rather output the bloat ratio instead (that's how many times larger the relation is compared to how large it should be), just pass in --mrtg=ratio.

checkpoint ⏰

("symlink: check_postgres_checkpoint") — figures out how long it's been since the last checkpoint ran. This one must run on the same server as the database being checked (so like, the -h flag will not work). This check is meant to run on a "warm standby" server that's actively processing shipped WAL files, and it's meant to confirm that your warm standby is truly 'warm'. 🥵

The data directory must be set, either by the environment variable PGDATA, or by passing the --datadir argument. It returns the number of seconds since the last checkpoint was run, as determined by parsing the call to pg_controldata. Because of that, the pg_controldata executable must be available in the current path. Alternatively, you can specify PGBINDIR as the directory that it lives in.

It's also possible to use the special options --assume-prod or --assume-standby-mode — and if the mode found isn't the one expected, a CRITICAL is emitted. 💀

At least one warning or critical argument must be set.

This action requires the Date::Parse module. 📦

For MRTG or simple output, it returns the number of seconds.

cluster_id 🆔

("symlink: check_postgres_cluster-id") — checks that the Database System Identifier handed over by pg_controldata is the same as last time you checked. This one must run on the same server as the database being checked (so again, the -h flag will not work).

Either the --warning or the --critical option should be given, but not both. The value of each one is the cluster identifier, an integer value. You can run with the special --critical=0 option to find out an existing cluster identifier. ✨

Example 1: Find the initial identifier

check_postgres_cluster_id --critical=0 --datadir=/var//lib/postgresql/9.0/main

Example 2: Make sure the cluster is the same and warn if not, using the result from above.

check_postgres_cluster_id  --critical=5633695740047915135

For MRTG output, it returns a 1 or 0 indicating success of failure of the identifier to match. A identifier must be provided as the --mrtg argument. The fourth line always gives the current identifier.

commitratio 📊

("symlink: check_postgres_commitratio") — checks the commit ratio of all databases and complains when they're too low. There's no need to run this command more than once per database cluster. Databases can be filtered with the --include and --exclude options — see the "BASIC FILTERING" section for more details. They can also be filtered by the owner of the database, with the --includeuser and --excludeuser options — see the "USER NAME FILTERING" section for that one. 💅

The warning and critical options should be specified as percentages. There are no defaults for this action: the warning and critical must be specified. The warning value cannot be greater than the critical value. The output returns all databases sorted by commitratio, smallest first. 🫶

Example: Warn if any database on host flagg is less than 90% in commitratio, and critical if less then 80%.

check_postgres_database_commitratio --host=flagg --warning='90%' --critical='80%'

For MRTG output, it returns the percentage of the database with the smallest commitratio on the first line, and the name of the database on the fourth line.

connection 🔌

("symlink: check_postgres_connection") — it simply connects, issues a 'SELECT version()', and leaves. That's it, that's the whole vibe. Takes no --warning or --critical options. 🎀

For MRTG output, it simply outputs a 1 (good connection) or a 0 (bad connection) on the first line.

custom_query 🧚

("symlink: check_postgres_custom_query") — runs a custom query of your own choosing and parses the results. The query itself is passed in through the query argument, and it should be kept as simple as possible. If it's at all possible, wrap it in a view or a function to keep things easier to manage.

The query should return one or two columns. It is required that one of the columns be named result — that's the item that gets checked against your warning and critical values. The second column is for the performance data, and any name can be used: this will be the 'value' inside the performance data section.

At least one warning or critical argument must be specified. What those are set to depends on the type of query you're running. There are four types of custom_queries that can be run, specified by the valtype argument. If none is specified, this action defaults to 'integer'. The four types are:

integer — Does a simple integer comparison. The first column should be a simple integer, and the warning and critical values should be the same.
string — The warning and critical are strings, and are triggered only if the value in the first column matches it exactly. This is case-sensitive.
time — The warning and the critical are times, and can have units of seconds, minutes, hours, or days. Each may be written singular or abbreviated to just the first letter. If no units are given, seconds are assumed. The first column should be an integer representing the number of seconds to check.

size: so when the warning AND the critical are both sizes, they can carry units — bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, or exabytes 💾. You can shorten each one down to just its first letter. If you give no units at all, bytes are what you get. And the first column? It should be an integer, and that integer is the number of bytes being checked.

Normally an alert fires if the values that come back are greater than or equal to the critical or warning value. But lowkey there's a plot twist: the --reverse option flips it, so the alert fires when the returned value is lower than or equal to the critical or warning value. 🌀

Example 1: Warn if any relation over 100 pages is named "rad", and drop the number of pages into the performance data section.

check_postgres_custom_query --valtype=string -w "rad" --query=
  "SELECT relname AS result, relpages AS pages FROM pg_class WHERE relpages > 100"

Example 2: Give a critical if the "foobar" function returns a number over 5MB:

check_postgres_custom_query --critical='5MB'--valtype=size --query="SELECT foobar() AS result"

Example 2: Warn if the function "snazzo" returns less than 42:

check_postgres_custom_query --critical=42 --query="SELECT snazzo() AS result" --reverse

If you come up with a useful custom_query, bestie, consider sending in a patch to this program to turn it into a standard action that other people can use 🫶.

This action does not support MRTG or simple output yet. 🚫

✨ `database_size` ✨

("symlink: check_postgres_database_size") — This one peeks at the size of all your databases and yells when they get too big 👀. There's genuinely no need to run this command more than once per database cluster. You can filter which databases show up with the --include and --exclude options — go check the "BASIC FILTERING" section for the deets. You can also filter by the owner of the database using the --includeuser and --excludeuser options — that's the "USER NAME FILTERING" section. 💅

The warning and critical options can be given as bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, or exabytes, and each one can be abbreviated to its first letter too. No unit given? Bytes it is. There are no defaults for this action — the warning and the critical must be specified, no skipping 😤. The warning value cannot be greater than the critical value. The output hands you all databases sorted by size, largest first, showing both the raw bytes and a "pretty" version of the size. 🎀

Example 1: Warn if any database on host flagg is over 1 TB in size, and critical if over 1.1 TB.

check_postgres_database_size --host=flagg --warning='1 TB' --critical='1.1 t'

Example 2: Give a critical if the database template1 on port 5432 is over 10 MB.

check_postgres_database_size --port=5432 --include=template1 --warning='10MB' --critical='10MB'

Example 3: Give a warning if any database on host 'tardis' owned by the user 'tom' is over 5 GB.

check_postgres_database_size --host=tardis --includeuser=tom --warning='5 GB' --critical='10 GB'

For MRTG output, it returns the size in bytes of the largest database on the first line, and the name of the database on the fourth line. 📏

📊 `dbstats` 📊

("symlink: check_postgres_dbstats") — Reports info straight outta the pg_stat_database view, and spits it out in a Cacti-friendly way 🦋. No other output is supported, because this output is informational and doesn't lend itself to alerts the way Nagios uses them. Give no options and you get all databases back, one per line. Want a specific one? Use the --include option, or roll with --dbname. ✨

Eleven items come back on each line, in the format name:value, separated by a single space. The items are:

backends — The number of currently running backends for this database.
commits — The total number of commits for this database since it was created or reset.
rollbacks — The total number of rollbacks for this database since it was created or reset.
read — The total number of disk blocks read.
hit — The total number of buffer hits.
ret — The total number of rows returned.
fetch — The total number of rows fetched.
ins — The total number of rows inserted.
upd — The total number of rows updated.
del — The total number of rows deleted.
dbname — The name of the database.

Heads up bestie 🚨: the ret, fetch, ins, upd, and del items will always be 0 if Postgres is version 8.2 or lower, because those stats just weren't available back then.

If the dbname argument is given, seven additional items come back:

idxscan — Total number of user index scans.
idxtupread — Total number of user index entries returned.
idxtupfetch — Total number of rows fetched by simple user index scans.
idxblksread — Total number of disk blocks read for all user indexes.
idxblkshit — Total number of buffer hits for all user indexes.
seqscan — Total number of sequential scans against all user tables.
seqtupread — Total number of tuples returned from all user tables.

Example 1: Grab the stats for a database named "products" on host "willow":

check_postgres_dbstats --dbhost willow --dbname products

The output returned will be like this (all on one line, not wrapped):

backends:82 commits:58374408 rollbacks:1651 read:268435543 hit:2920381758 idxscan:310931294 idxtupread:2777040927 idxtupfetch:1840241349 idxblksread:62860110 idxblkshit:1107812216 seqscan:5085305 seqtupread:5370500520 ret:0 fetch:0 ins:0 upd:0 del:0 dbname:willow

🚫 `disabled_triggers` 🚫

("symlink: check_postgres_disabled_triggers") — Checks on the number of disabled triggers inside the database. The --warning and --critical options are the number of such triggers found, and both default to "1" — because irl having disabled triggers is a whole dangerous event 😭. If the database being checked is 8.3 or higher, the check counts the number of triggers in a 'disabled' status (as opposed to being 'always' or 'replica'). The output shows the name of the table AND the name of the trigger for each disabled trigger. 👑

Example 1: Make sure that there are no disabled triggers

check_postgres_disabled_triggers

For MRTG output, it returns the number of disabled triggers on the first line. 🌈

💾 `disk_space` 💾

("symlink: check_postgres_disk_space") — Checks on the available physical disk space used by Postgres. This action requires that you have the executable /bin/df available to report on disk sizes, and it also needs to be run as a superuser (either connecting directly or switching via --role), so it can examine the data_directory setting inside of Postgres 🔍. The --warning and --critical options are given in either sizes or percentages or both. If using sizes, the standard unit types are allowed: bytes, kilobytes, gigabytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, or exabytes. Each may be abbreviated to the first letter only; no units at all indicates 'bytes'. The default values are '90%' and '95%'. 💅

This command checks the following things to figure out all of the different physical disks being used by Postgres:

data_directory — The disk that the main data directory is on.
log directory — The disk that the log files are on.
WAL file directory — The disk that the write-ahead logs are on (e.g. symlinked pg_xlog or pg_wal).
tablespaces — Each tablespace that is on a separate disk.

The output shows the total size used and available on each disk, plus the percentage, ordered by highest to lowest percentage used 📈. Each item above maps to a file system — and these can be included or excluded. See the "BASIC FILTERING" section for more. 🎀

Example 1: Make sure that no file system is over 90% for the database on port 5432.

check_postgres_disk_space --port=5432 --warning='90%' --critical='90%'

Example 2: Check that all file systems starting with /dev/sda are smaller than 10 GB and 11 GB (warning and critical).

check_postgres_disk_space --port=5432 --warning='10 GB' --critical='11 GB' --include="~^/dev/sda"

Example 4: Make sure that no file system is both over 50% and has over 15 GB.

check_postgres_disk_space --critical='50% and 15 GB'

Example 5: Issue a warning if any file system is either over 70% full or has more than 1T.

check_postgres_disk_space --warning='1T or 75'

For MRTG output, it returns the size in bytes of the file system on the first line, and the name of the file system on the fourth line. 📏

🌸 `fsm_pages` 🌸

("symlink: check_postgres_fsm_pages") — Checks how close a cluster is to the Postgres max_fsm_pages setting. This action will only work for databases of 8.2 or higher, and it requires the contrib module pg_freespacemap be installed 📦. The --warning and --critical options should be expressed as percentages. The number of used pages in the free-space-map is determined by looking in the pg_freespacemap_relations view, and running a formula based on the formula used for outputting free-space-map pageslots in the vacuum verbose command. The default values are 85% for the warning and 95% for the critical. ✨

Example 1: Give a warning when our cluster has used up 76% of the free-space pageslots, with pg_freespacemap installed in database robert.

check_postgres_fsm_pages --dbname=robert --warning="76%"

While you need to pass in the name of the database where pg_freespacemap is installed, you only need to run this check once per cluster. Also, checking this info does require obtaining special locks on the free-space-map, so it's recommend you do not run this check with short intervals. 😴

For MRTG output, it returns the percent of free-space-map on the first line, and the number of pages currently used on the second line. 🦋

🧚 `fsm_relations` 🧚

("symlink: check_postgres_fsm_relations") — Checks how close a cluster is to the Postgres max_fsm_relations setting. This action will only work for databases of 8.2 or higher, and it requires the contrib module pg_freespacemap be installed 📦. The --warning and --critical options should be expressed as percentages. The number of used relations in the free-space-map is determined by looking in the pg_freespacemap_relations view. The default values are 85% for the warning and 95% for the critical. 💜

Example 1: Give a warning when our cluster has used up 80% of the free-space relations, with pg_freespacemap installed in database dylan.

check_postgres_fsm_relations --dbname=dylan --warning="75%"

For MRTG output, it returns the percent of free-space-map on the first line, the number of relations currently used on the second line. 🌈

hot_standby_delay 🦋

so hot_standby_delay (symlink: check_hot_standby_delay) checks your streaming replication lag by computing the delta between the current xlog position of a master server and the replay location of a slave connected to it. the slave has to be in hot_standby (i.e. read only) mode, which is why the minimum Postgres version for this action is 9.0. no 8.x girlies here, sorry.

--warning and --critical are that delta between xlog locations. and because these values are byte offsets in the WAL, they should match the expected transaction volume of your application — otherwise you're gonna get false positives or negatives and look real silly. 🙈

The first --dbname, --host, --port, etc. options are considered the master; the second belongs to the slave.

Byte values should be based on the volume of transactions needed to have the streaming replication disconnect from the master because of too much lag — this is determined by the Postgres configuration variable wal_keep_segments. For units of time, valid units are 'seconds', 'minutes', 'hours', or 'days'. Each may be written singular or abbreviated to just the first letter. When specifying both, in the form 'bytes and time', both conditions must be true for the threshold to be met.

You must provide info on how to reach the databases by giving a comma separated list to the --dbhost and --dbport parameters, like "--dbport=5432,5543". If not given, the action fails. periodt.

💖 bestie reminder: two hosts, two ports, comma separated. that's the whole vibe.

Example 1: Warn a database with a local replica on port 5433 is behind on any xlog replay at all

check_hot_standby_delay --dbport=5432,5433 --warning='1'

Example 2: Give a critical if the last transaction replica1 receives is more than 10 minutes ago

check_hot_standby_delay --dbhost=master,replica1 --critical='10 min'

Example 3: Allow replica1 to be 1 WAL segment behind, if the master is momentarily seeing more activity than the streaming replication connection can handle, or 10 minutes behind, if the master is seeing very little activity and not processing any transactions, but not both, which would indicate a lasting problem with the replication connection.

check_hot_standby_delay --dbhost=master,replica1 --warning='1048576 and 2 min' --critical='16777216 and 10 min'

relation_size 🎀

index_size 🎀

table_size 🎀

indexes_size 🎀

total_relation_size 🎀

(symlinks: check_postgres_relation_size, check_postgres_index_size, check_postgres_table_size, check_postgres_indexes_size, and check_postgres_total_relation_size)

okay so this is a whole lil family of size-checkers, each one using a different Postgres function. lemme break it down:

The actions relation_size and index_size check for a relation (table, index, materialized view), respectively an index that has grown too big, using the pg_relation_size() function.
The action table_size checks tables and materialized views using pg_table_size(), i.e. including relation forks and TOAST table.
The action indexes_size checks tables and materialized views for the size of the attached indexes using pg_indexes_size().
The action total_relation_size checks relations using pg_total_relation_size(), i.e. including relation forks, indexes and TOAST table.

Relations can be filtered with --include and --exclude — slide into the BASIC FILTERING section for the details. Relations can also be filtered by the user that owns them, using --includeuser and --excludeuser, and the USER NAME FILTERING section has all of that tea too.

The values for --warning and --critical are file sizes, and may have units of bytes, kilobytes, megabytes, gigabytes, terabytes, or exabytes. Each can be abbreviated to the first letter. If no units are given, bytes are assumed. And there are no default values: both the warning and the critical option must be given. The return text shows the size of the largest relation found. 👑

If the --showperf option is enabled, all of the relations with their sizes will be given. To prevent this, it is recommended that you set the --perflimit option, which will cause the query to do a "ORDER BY size DESC LIMIT (perflimit)". lowkey genius.

Example 1: Give a critical if any table is larger than 600MB on host burrick.

check_postgres_table_size --critical='600 MB' --warning='600 MB' --host=burrick

Example 2: Warn if the table products is over 4 GB in size, and give a critical at 4.5 GB.

check_postgres_table_size --host=burrick --warning='4 GB' --critical='4.5 GB' --include=products

Example 3: Warn if any index not owned by postgres goes over 500 MB.

check_postgres_index_size --port=5432 --excludeuser=postgres -w 500MB -c 600MB

For MRTG output, it returns the size in bytes of the largest relation, and the name of the database and relation as the fourth line. 💅

last_analyze 🌸

last_vacuum 🌸

last_autoanalyze 🌸

last_autovacuum 🌸

(symlinks: check_postgres_last_analyze, check_postgres_last_vacuum, check_postgres_last_autoanalyze, and check_postgres_last_autovacuum)

This one checks how long it's been since vacuum (or analyze) was last run on each table in one or more databases. Using these actions requires that the target database is version 8.3 or greater, or that the version is 8.2 and the configuration variable stats_row_level has been enabled. old school, but okay.

Tables can be filtered with --include and --exclude — BASIC FILTERING section, you know the drill. Tables can also be filtered by their owner using --includeuser and --excludeuser — USER NAME FILTERING section, also you know the drill.

The units for --warning and --critical are specified as times. Valid units are seconds, minutes, hours, and days; all can be abbreviated to the first letter. If no units are given, 'seconds' are assumed. The default values are '1 day' and '2 days'.

😭 real talk: there are cases in which this field does not get automatically populated. If certain tables are giving you problems, make sure that they have dead rows to vacuum, or just exclude them from the test. no stress.

The schema named 'information_schema' is excluded from this test, as the only tables it contains are small and do not change. 🧚

Also, note that the non-'auto' versions will also check on the auto versions as well. In other words, using last_vacuum will report on the last vacuum, whether it was a normal vacuum, or one run by the autovacuum daemon. so you get the full picture either way.

Example 1: Warn if any table has not been vacuumed in 3 days, and give a critical at a week, for host wormwood

check_postgres_last_vacuum --host=wormwood --warning='3d' --critical='7d'

Example 2: Same as above, but skip tables belonging to the users 'eve' or 'mallory'

check_postgres_last_vacuum --host=wormwood --warning='3d' --critical='7d' --excludeuser=eve,mallory

For MRTG output, it returns (on the first line) the LEAST amount of time in seconds since a table was last vacuumed or analyzed. The fourth line returns the name of the database and name of the table. ✨

listener 💀

(symlink: check_postgres_listener)

Confirm that someone is listening for one or more specific strings (using the LISTEN/NOTIFY system), by looking at the pg_listener table. Only one of warning or critical is needed — we're not gonna demand both from you here. 🫶

The format is a simple string representing the LISTEN target, or a tilde character followed by a string for a regular expression check.

⚠️ heads up bestie: this check will not work on versions of Postgres 9.0 or higher. it's giving legacy. do with that what you will.

Example 1: Give a warning if nobody is listening for the string bucardo_mcp_ping on ports 5555 and 5556

check_postgres_listener --port=5555,5556 --warning=bucardo_mcp_ping

Example 2: Give a critical if there are no active LISTEN requests matching 'grimm' on database oskar

check_postgres_listener --db oskar --critical=~grimm

For MRTG output, it returns a 1 or a 0 on the first, indicating success or failure. The name of the notice must be provided via the --mrtg option.

locks 🔥

(symlink: check_postgres_locks)

Check the total number of locks on one or more databases. There is no need to run this more than once per database cluster, so chill. Databases can be filtered with --include and --exclude — yep, BASIC FILTERING section.

The --warning and --critical options can be specified as simple numbers, which represent the total number of locks, or they can be broken down by type of lock. Valid lock names are 'total', 'waiting', or the name of a lock type used by Postgres. These names are case-insensitive and do not need the "lock" part on the end, so exclusive will match 'ExclusiveLock'. The format is name=number, with different items separated by colons or semicolons (or any other symbol). whatever separator speaks to you, girlie.

Example 1: Warn if the number of locks is 100 or more, and critical if 200 or more, on host garrett

check_postgres_locks --host=garrett --warning=100 --critical=200

Example 2: On the host artemus, warn if 200 or more locks exist, and give a critical if over 250 total locks exist, or if over 20 exclusive locks exist, or if over 5 connections are waiting for a lock.

check_postgres_locks --host=artemus --warning=200 --critical="total=250:waiting=5:exclusive=20"

For MRTG output, it returns the number of locks on the first line, and the name of the database on the fourth line. 🎀

🎀 `logfile`

"symlink: check_postgres_logfile" — this one makes sure your logfile is chilling in the spot it's supposed to be, and that stuff is actually getting written to it.

The way it works: it fires off a command that throws an error on every single database it's checking, then it goes and verifies that the message showed up in the logs. It scans all the various log_* settings inside of Postgres to suss out where the logs should be living. If you're on syslog, it does a rough (but not foolproof) scan of /etc/syslog.conf. Alternatively you can just hand it the name of the logfile with the --logfile option — which is highkey useful if your logs are on a custom rotation scheme driven by some external program. That --logfile option supports these escape characters: "%Y %m %d %H", which stand for the current year, month, date, and hour respectively. 📅

An error is always reported as critical unless the warning option has been passed in as a non-zero value. And other than that specific usage? Yeah, --warning and --critical should not be used. Periodt.

Example 1: On port 5432, make sure the logfile is being written to the file /home/greg/pg8.2.log

check_postgres_logfile --port=5432 --logfile=/home/greg/pg8.2.log

Example 2: Same as above, but raise a warning, not a critical

check_postgres_logfile --port=5432 --logfile=/home/greg/pg8.2.log -w 1

For MRTG output, it returns a 1 or 0 on the first line, indicating success or failure. And if it failed? The fourth line will give you more detail on what went wrong. 😭

🦋 `new_version_bc`

"symlink: check_postgres_new_version_bc" — checks if there's a newer version of the Bucardo program out there. It gets your current version by running bucardo_ctl --version. If a major upgrade is available, you get a warning. If a revision upgrade is available, you get a critical. (Bucardo is a master to slave, and master to master replication system for Postgres: see <https://bucardo.org/> for more info.) Also go peek at the --get_method option info. 👀

🦋 `new_version_box`

"symlink: check_postgres_new_version_box" — same energy, but for the boxinfo program. Current version comes from running boxinfo.pl --version. Major upgrade → warning. Revision upgrade → critical. (boxinfo is a program for grabbing important information from a server and putting it into a HTML format: see <https://bucardo.org/Boxinfo/> for more.) Also see the --get_method option info.

🦋 `new_version_cp`

"symlink: check_postgres_new_version_cp" — checks if a newer version of this very program (check_postgres) exists, by grabbing the version from a small text file on the main page of the home page for the project. Returns a warning if the returned version doesn't match the one you're running. Recommended interval to check is once a day. See also the info on the --get_method option.

🦋 `new_version_pg`

"symlink: check_postgres_new_version_pg" — checks if a newer revision of Postgres exists for each database connected to. Heads up: this only checks for revision, like going from 8.3.6 to 8.3.7. Revisions are always 100% binary compatible and involve no dump and restore to upgrade. Revisions exist to squash bugs, so upgrading as soon as possible is always the move. Returns a warning if you don't have the latest revision. It's recommended this check runs at least once a day. See also the info on the --get_method option. ✨

🦋 `new_version_tnm`

"symlink: check_postgres_new_version_tnm" — checks if a newer version of the tail_n_mail program is available. Current version comes from running tail_n_mail --version. If a major upgrade is available, a warning is returned. If a revision upgrade is available, a critical is returned. (tail_n_mail is a log monitoring tool that can send mail when interesting events appear in your Postgres logs. See: <https://bucardo.org/tail_n_mail/> for more.) See also the info on the --get_method option.

🧚 `partman_premake`

"symlink: check_postgres_partman_premake" — checks if all the partitions that pg_parman's maintenance routine should have created are actually present. Monthly and daily intervals are supported. 🗓️

👑 `pgb_pool_cl_active`

👑 `pgb_pool_cl_waiting`

👑 `pgb_pool_sv_active`

👑 `pgb_pool_sv_idle`

👑 `pgb_pool_sv_used`

👑 `pgb_pool_sv_tested`

👑 `pgb_pool_sv_login`

👑 `pgb_pool_maxwait`

(symlinks: "check_postgres_pgb_pool_cl_active", "check_postgres_pgb_pool_cl_waiting", "check_postgres_pgb_pool_sv_active", "check_postgres_pgb_pool_sv_idle", "check_postgres_pgb_pool_sv_used", "check_postgres_pgb_pool_sv_tested", "check_postgres_pgb_pool_sv_login", and "check_postgres_pgb_pool_maxwait")

Okay so this whole squad examines pgbouncer's pool statistics. Every pool has a set of "client" connections — those are connections coming in from external clients — and "server" connections — those are the connections going to PostgreSQL itself. The matching check_postgres actions are prefixed by "cl_" and "sv_" respectively, iykyk.

Active client connections are the ones currently linked up with an active server connection.
Client connections may also be "waiting" — meaning they haven't been allocated a server connection yet.
Server connections can be "active" (linked to a client), "idle" (standing by, waiting for a client connection to link with), "used" (just unlinked from a client and not yet returned to the idle pool), "tested" (currently being tested) and "login" (in the process of logging in).

And the maxwait value shows how long, in seconds, the oldest waiting client connection has been waiting. ⏳

🍓 `pgbouncer_backends`

"symlink: check_postgres_pgbouncer_backends" — checks the current number of connections for one or more databases through pgbouncer, and optionally compares it to the maximum allowed, which is determined by the pgbouncer config variable max_client_conn.

The --warning and --critical options can take one of three forms:

A simple number — that's the number of connections at which the alert fires. This choice does not use the max_connections setting.
The percentage of available connections.
A negative number — that represents the number of connections left until max_connections is reached.

The default values for --warning and --critical are '90%' and '95%'.

You can also filter the databases by use of the --include and --exclude options. See the "BASIC FILTERING" section for more details. 💅

To view only non-idle processes, you can use the --noidle argument. Note that the user you're running as (either connecting directly or switching via --role) must be a superuser for this to work properly.

Example 1: Give a warning when the number of connections on host quirm reaches 120, and a critical if it reaches 150.

check_postgres_pgbouncer_backends --host=quirm --warning=120 --critical=150 -p 6432 -u pgbouncer

Example 2: Give a critical when we reach 75% of our max_connections setting on hosts lancre or lancre2.

check_postgres_pgbouncer_backends --warning='75%' --critical='75%' --host=lancre,lancre2 -p 6432 -u pgbouncer

Example 3: Give a warning when there are only 10 more connection slots left on host plasmid, and a critical when we have only 5 left.

check_postgres_pgbouncer_backends --warning=-10 --critical=-5 --host=plasmid -p 6432 -u pgbouncer

For MRTG output, the number of connections is reported on the first line, and the fourth line gives the name of the database, plus the current max_client_conn. If more than one database has been queried, the one with the highest number of connections is output.

🔥 `pgbouncer_checksum`

"symlink: check_postgres_pgbouncer_checksum" — checks that all the pgBouncer settings are the same as last time you checked. It does this by generating a checksum of a sorted list of setting names and their values.

Heads up bestie: you shouldn't specify the database name here — it'll automatically default to pgbouncer.

Either the --warning or the --critical option should be given, but not both. The value of each one is the checksum, a 32-character hexadecimal value. And you can run with the special "--critical=0" option to find out an existing checksum. 🕵️

This action requires the Digest::MD5 module.

Example 1: Find the initial checksum for pgbouncer configuration on port 6432 using the default user (usually postgres)

check_postgres_pgbouncer_checksum --port=6432 --critical=0

Example 2: Make sure no settings have changed and warn if so, using the checksum from above.

check_postgres_pgbouncer_checksum --port=6432 --warning=cd2f3b5e129dc2b4f5c0f6d8d2e64231

For MRTG output, it returns a 1 or 0 indicating success of failure of the checksum to match. A checksum must be provided as the "--mrtg" argument. The fourth line always gives the current checksum.

🌸 `pgbouncer_maxwait`

"symlink: check_postgres_pgbouncer_maxwait" — checks how long the first (oldest) client in the queue has been waiting, in seconds. If this starts climbing, then your current pool of servers isn't handling requests quick enough. The reason may be either an overloaded server or just too small of a pool_size setting in the pbouncer config file. 💀

Databases can be filtered by use of the --include and --exclude options. See the "BASIC FILTERING" section for more details.

The values of the --warning and --critical options are units of time, and they must be provided (no default). Valid units are 'seconds', 'minutes', 'hours', or 'days'. Each may be written singular or abbreviated to just the first letter. If no units are given, the units are assumed to be seconds.

This action requires Postgres 8.3 or better.

Example 1: Give a critical if any transaction has been open for more than 10 minutes:

check_postgres_pgbouncer_maxwait -p 6432 -u pgbouncer --critical='10 minutes'

For MRTG output, it returns the maximum time in seconds a transaction has been open on the first line. The fourth line gives the name of the database.

💜 `pgagent_jobs`

"symlink: check_postgres_pgagent_jobs" — checks that all the pgAgent jobs that have executed in the preceding interval of time have succeeded. It does this by checking for any steps that have a non-zero result.

Either "--warning" or "--critical", or both, may be specified as times, and jobs will be checked for failures withing the specified periods of time before the current time. Valid units are seconds, minutes, hours, and days; all can be abbreviated to the first letter. If no units are given, 'seconds' are assumed. ⏱️

Example 1: Give a critical when any jobs executed in the last day have failed.

check_postgres_pgagent_jobs --critical=1d

Example 2: Give a warning when any jobs executed in the last week have failed.

check_postgres_pgagent_jobs --warning=7d

Example 3: Give a critical for jobs that have failed in the last 2 hours and a warning for jobs that have failed in the last 4 hours:

check_postgres_pgagent_jobs --critical=2h --warning=4h

💖 prepared_txns 💖

(the symlink is check_postgres_prepared_txns) — this one keeps an eye on the age of any prepared transactions that are currently hanging around. Real talk: most of y'all will NOT be using prepared transactions, because they're part of two-part commit and honestly a whole thing to maintain. Also pls do not confuse them with prepared STATEMENTS — that's what most people mean when they say "prepare", and it is a totally different creature. 🫶

The default warning value is 1 second, specifically so that we catch any use of prepared transactions at all — since on most systems that's probably a mistake. Warning and critical are the number of seconds a prepared transaction has been open before an alert fires. ⏱️

Example 1: Give a warning on detecting any prepared transactions:

check_postgres_prepared_txns -w 0

Example 2: Give a critical if any prepared transaction has been open longer than 10 seconds, but allow up to 360 seconds for the database 'shrike':

check_postgres_prepared_txns --critical=10 --exclude=shrike
check_postgres_prepared_txns --critical=360 --include=shrike

For MRTG output, it returns the number of seconds the oldest transaction has been open as the first line, and which database it came from as the final line. 💅

✨ query_runtime ✨

(the symlink is check_postgres_query_runtime) — checks how long a specific query takes to run, by executing a EXPLAIN ANALYZE against it. The --warning and --critical options are the maximum amount of time the query should take. Valid units are seconds, minutes, and hours; any of them can be abbreviated to the first letter. If no units are given, 'seconds' are assumed. Both the warning and the critical option must be given. The name of the view or function to be run must be passed in to the --queryname option. It must consist of a single word (or schema.word), with optional parens at the end.

Example 1: Give a critical if the function named "speedtest" fails to run in 10 seconds or less.

check_postgres_query_runtime --queryname='speedtest()' --critical=10 --warning=10

For MRTG output, it reports the time in seconds for the query to complete on the first line. The fourth line lists the database. 🦋

🌈 query_time 🌈

(the symlink is check_postgres_query_time) — checks the length of running queries on one or more databases. Nobody needs to run this more than once on the same database cluster, bestie, so don't be extra. 📢 Note that this already excludes queries that are "idle in transaction". Databases can be filtered by using the --include and --exclude options — see the "BASIC FILTERING" section for the deets. You can also filter on the user running the query with the --includeuser and --excludeuser options — see the "USER NAME FILTERING" section for those deets.

The values for the --warning and --critical options are amounts of time, and at least one must be provided (no defaults, sorry bestie 💀). Valid units are 'seconds', 'minutes', 'hours', or 'days'. Each may be written singular or abbreviated to just the first letter. If no units are given, the unit is assumed to be seconds.

This action requires Postgres 8.1 or better. 👑

Example 1: Give a warning if any query has been running longer than 3 minutes, and a critical if longer than 5 minutes.

check_postgres_query_time --port=5432 --warning='3 minutes' --critical='5 minutes'

Example 2: Using default values (2 and 5 minutes), check all databases except those starting with 'template'.

check_postgres_query_time --port=5432 --exclude=~^template

Example 3: Warn if user 'don' has a query running over 20 seconds

check_postgres_query_time --port=5432 --includeuser=don --warning=20s

For MRTG output, it returns the length in seconds of the longest running query on the first line. The fourth line gives the name of the database. 🌸

🎀 replicate_row 🎀

(the symlink is check_postgres_replicate_row) — checks that master-slave replication is working to one or more slaves. 🫡

The first "--dbname", "--host", and "--port", etc. options are considered the master; subsequent uses are the slaves. The values of the --warning and --critical options are units of time, and at least one must be provided (no defaults, fr fr). Valid units are 'seconds', 'minutes', 'hours', or 'days'. Each may be written singular or abbreviated to just the first letter. If no units are given, the units are assumed to be seconds.

Here's the vibe: this check updates a single row on the master, and then measures how long it takes to be applied to the slaves. To do that, you need to pick a table that is being replicated, then find a row that can be changed, and is not going to be changed by any other process. A specific column of this row will be changed from one value to another. All of this is fed to the "repinfo" option, and it should contain the following options, separated by commas: table name, primary key, key id, column, first value, second value. 💅

Example 1: Slony is replicating a table named 'orders' from host 'alpha' to host 'beta', in the database 'sales'. The primary key of the table is named id, and we are going to test the row with an id of 3 (which is historical and never changed). There is a column named 'salesrep' that we are going to toggle from a value of 'slon' to 'nols' to check on the replication. We want to throw a warning if the replication does not happen within 10 seconds.

check_postgres_replicate_row --host=alpha --dbname=sales --host=beta
--dbname=sales --warning=10 --repinfo=orders,id,3,salesrep,slon,nols

Example 2: Bucardo is replicating a table named 'receipt' from host 'green' to hosts 'red', 'blue', and 'yellow'. The database for both sides is 'public'. The slave databases are running on port 5455. The primary key is named 'receipt_id', the row we want to use has a value of 9, and the column we want to change for the test is called 'zone'. We'll toggle between 'north' and 'south' for the value of this column, and throw a critical if the change is not on all three slaves within 5 seconds.

 check_postgres_replicate_row --host=green --port=5455 --host=red,blue,yellow
  --critical=5 --repinfo=receipt,receipt_id,9,zone,north,south

For MRTG output, it returns on the first line the time in seconds the replication takes to finish. The maximum time is set to 4 minutes 30 seconds: if no replication has taken place in that long a time, an error is thrown. 😭

💜 replication_slots 💜

(the symlink is check_postgres_replication_slots) — checks the quantity of WAL retained for any replication slots in the target database cluster. This is super handy for monitoring environments where all WAL archiving and replication is taking place over replication slots. 👑

Warning and critical are total bytes retained for the slot. E.g:

check_postgres_replication_slots --port=5432 --host=yellow -warning=32M -critical=64M

Specific named slots can be monitored using --include/--exclude 🌟

🧚 same_schema 🧚

(the symlink is check_postgres_same_schema) — verifies that two or more databases are identical as far as their schema (but not the data within). Unlike most other actions, this one has no warning or critical criteria — the databases are either in sync, or they are not, periodt. If they are different, a detailed list of the differences is presented. 📋

You may want to exclude or filter out certain differences. The way to do this is to add strings to the "--filter" option. To exclude a type of object, use "noname", where 'name' is the type of object, for example, "noschema". To exclude objects of a certain type by a regular expression against their name, use "noname=regex". See the examples below for a better understanding. 👀

The types of objects that can be filtered include:

user
schema
table
view
index
sequence
constraint
trigger
function

The filter option "noposition" prevents verification of the position of columns within a table.

The filter option "nofuncbody" prevents comparison of the bodies of all functions.

The filter option "noperm" prevents comparison of object permissions.

To provide the second database, just append the differences to the first one by a call to the appropriate connection argument. For example, to compare databases on hosts alpha and bravo, use "--dbhost=alpha,bravo". Also see the examples below. 🦋

If only a single host is given, it is assumed we are doing a "time-based" report. The first time this is run a snapshot of all the items in the database is saved to a local file. When you run it again, that snapshot is read in and becomes "database #2" and is compared to the current database.

To replace the old stored file with the new version, use the --replace argument.

If you need to write the stored file to a specific directory, use the --audit-file-dir argument.

To avoid false positives on value based checks caused by replication lag on asynchronous replicas, use the --assume-async option.

To enable snapshots at various points in time, you can use the "--suffix" argument to make the filenames unique to each run. See the examples below. ✨

Example 1: Verify that two databases on hosts star and line are the same:

check_postgres_same_schema --dbhost=star,line

Example 2: Same as before, but exclude any triggers with "slony" in their name

check_postgres_same_schema --dbhost=star,line --filter="notrigger=slony"

Example 3: Same as before, but also exclude all indexes

check_postgres_same_schema --dbhost=star,line --filter="notrigger=slony noindexes"

Example 4: Check differences for the database "battlestar" on different ports

check_postgres_same_schema --dbname=battlestar --dbport=5432,5544

Example 5: Create a daily and weekly snapshot file

check_postgres_same_schema --dbname=cylon --suffix=daily
check_postgres_same_schema --dbname=cylon --suffix=weekly

Example 6: Run a historical comparison, then replace the file

check_postgres_same_schema --dbname=cylon --suffix=daily --replace

Example 7: Verify that two databases on hosts star and line are the same, excluding value data (i.e. sequence last_val):

check_postgres_same_schema --dbhost=star,line --assume-async

🍓 sequence 🍓

(the symlink is check_postgres_sequence) — checks how much room is left on all sequences in the database. 📏 This is measured as the percent of total possible values that have been used for each sequence. The --warning and --critical options should be expressed as percentages. The default values are 85% for the warning and 95% for the critical. You may use --include and --exclude to control which sequences are to be checked.

Note that this check does account for unusual minvalue and increment by values. 👑 By default it does not care if the sequence is set to cycle or not, and by passing --skipcycled sequences set to cycle are reported with 0% usage. 💅

The Nagios output is giving you the sequence name, the percentage used, and how many 'calls' are left — i.e. how many more times nextval can be called on that sequence before it smacks into the maximum value. 💅

MRTG output? First line = the highest percentage across all the sequences. Fourth line = the name of each sequence sitting at that percentage, and if more than one sequence is at that percentage, they're separated by a "|" (pipe). 🫶

Example 1: Give a warning if any sequences are approaching 95% full.

check_postgres_sequence --dbport=5432 --warning=95%

Example 2: Check that the sequence named "orders_id_seq" is not more than half full.

check_postgres_sequence --dbport=5432 --critical=50% --include=orders_id_seq

🌸 settings_checksum 🌸

("symlink: check_postgres_settings_checksum") Confirms that all the Postgres settings are identical to the last time you checked. Bestie, how? By generating a checksum of a sorted list of setting names and their values. ✨

Heads up though: different users in the same database may end up with different checksums — that's because of ALTER USER usage, and also because superusers literally see more settings than ordinary users do. 🙈

This action requires the Digest::MD5 module.

Example 1: Find the initial checksum for the database on port 5555 using the default user (usually postgres)

check_postgres_settings_checksum --port=5555 --critical=0

Example 2: Make sure no settings have changed and warn if so, using the checksum from above.

check_postgres_settings_checksum --port=5555 --warning=cd2f3b5e129dc2b4f5c0f6d8d2e64231

For MRTG output, it returns a 1 or 0 indicating success of failure of the checksum to match. A checksum must be provided as the "--mrtg" argument. The fourth line always gives the current checksum.

🌈 slony_status 🌈

("symlink: check_postgres_slony_status") Checks in the status of a Slony cluster by peeking at the results of Slony's sl_status view. What comes back is the number of seconds of "lag time". ⏱️

The --warning and --critical options should be expressed as times. The default values are 60 seconds for the warning and 300 seconds for the critical.

The optional argument --schema indicated the schema that Slony is installed under. If it is not given, the schema will be determined automatically each time this check is run. 🧚

Example 1: Give a warning if any Slony is lagged by more than 20 seconds

check_postgres_slony_status --warning 20

Example 2: Give a critical if Slony, installed under the schema "_slony", is over 10 minutes lagged

check_postgres_slony_status --schema=_slony --critical=600

🦋 timesync 🦋

("symlink: check_postgres_timesync") Compares the local system time with the time reported by one or more databases. The --warning and --critical options represent the number of seconds between the two systems before an alert is given. If neither is specified, the default values are used, which are '2' and '5'. The warning value cannot be greater than the critical value. And due to the non-exact nature of this test, values of '0' or '1' are not recommended. 😭

The string returned shows the time difference as well as the time on each side written out.

Example 1: Check that databases on hosts ankh, morpork, and klatch are no more than 3 seconds off from the local time:

check_postgres_timesync --host=ankh,morpork,klatch --critical=3

For MRTG output, returns one the first line the number of seconds difference between the local time and the database time. The fourth line returns the name of the database.

💜 txn_idle 💜

("symlink: check_postgres_txn_idle") Checks the number and duration of "idle in transaction" queries on one or more databases. There is no need to run this more than once on the same database cluster. Databases can be filtered by using the --include and --exclude options — see the "BASIC FILTERING" section below for more details. 🔥

The --warning and --critical options are given as units of time, signed integers, or integers for units of time, and at least one must be provided (there are no defaults). Valid units are 'seconds', 'minutes', 'hours', or 'days'. Each may be written singular or abbreviated to just the first letter. If no units are given and the numbers are unsigned, the units are assumed to be seconds.

This action requires Postgres 8.3 or better.

As of PostgreSQL 10, you can just GRANT pg_read_all_stats to an unprivileged user account. 🎀 In all earlier versions, superuser privileges are required to see the queries of all users in the system; UNKNOWN is returned if queries cannot be checked. To only include queries by the connecting user, use --includeuser.

Example 1: Give a warning if any connection has been idle in transaction for more than 15 seconds:

check_postgres_txn_idle --port=5432 --warning='15 seconds'

Example 2: Give a warning if there are 50 or more transactions

check_postgres_txn_idle --port=5432 --warning='+50'

Example 3: Give a critical if 5 or more connections have been idle in transaction for more than 10 seconds:

check_postgres_txn_idle --port=5432 --critical='5 for 10 seconds'

For MRTG output, returns the time in seconds the longest idle transaction has been running. The fourth line returns the name of the database and other information about the longest transaction.

⭐ txn_time ⭐

("symlink: check_postgres_txn_time") Checks the length of open transactions on one or more databases. There is no need to run this command more than once per database cluster. Databases can be filtered by use of the --include and --exclude options — see the "BASIC FILTERING" section for more details. The owner of the transaction can also be filtered, by use of the --includeuser and --excludeuser options. See the "USER NAME FILTERING" section for more details. 🫶

The values or the --warning and --critical options are units of time, and at least one must be provided (no default). Valid units are 'seconds', 'minutes', 'hours', or 'days'. Each may be written singular or abbreviated to just the first letter. If no units are given, the units are assumed to be seconds.

This action requires Postgres 8.3 or better.

Example 1: Give a critical if any transaction has been open for more than 10 minutes:

check_postgres_txn_time --port=5432 --critical='10 minutes'

Example 1: Warn if user 'warehouse' has a transaction open over 30 seconds

check_postgres_txn_time --port-5432 --warning=30s --includeuser=warehouse

For MRTG output, returns the maximum time in seconds a transaction has been open on the first line. The fourth line gives the name of the database.

🍓 txn_wraparound 🍓

("symlink: check_postgres_txn_wraparound") Checks how close to transaction wraparound one or more databases are getting. The --warning and --critical options indicate the number of transactions done, and must be a positive integer. If either option is not given, the default values of 1.3 and 1.4 billion are used. There is no need to run this command more than once per database cluster. For a more detailed discussion of what this number represents and what to do about it, please visit the page <https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/routine-vacuuming.html#VACUUM-FOR-WRAPAROUND>

The warning and critical values can have underscores in the number for legibility, as Perl does. ✨

Example 1: Check the default values for the localhost database

check_postgres_txn_wraparound --host=localhost

Example 2: Check port 6000 and give a critical when 1.7 billion transactions are hit:

check_postgres_txn_wraparound --port=6000 --critical=1_700_000_000

For MRTG output, returns the highest number of transactions for all databases on line one, while line 4 indicates which database it is.

👑 version 👑

("symlink: check_postgres_version") Checks that the required version of Postgres is running. The --warning and --critical options (only one is required) must be of the format X.Y or X.Y.Z where X is the major version number, Y is the minor version number, and Z is the revision. 💅

Example 1: Give a warning if the database on port 5678 is not version 8.4.10:

check_postgres_version --port=5678 -w=8.4.10

Example 2: Give a warning if any databases on hosts valley,grain, or sunshine is not 8.3:

check_postgres_version -H valley,grain,sunshine --critical=8.3

For MRTG output, reports a 1 or a 0 indicating success or failure on the first line. The fourth line indicates the current version. The version must be provided via the "--mrtg" option.

🎀 wal_files 🎀

("symlink: check_postgres_wal_files") Checks how many WAL files exist in the pg_xlog directory (PostgreSQL 10 and later" pg_wal), which is found off of your data_directory, sometimes as a symlink to another physical disk for performance reasons. If the --lsfunc option is not used then this action must be run as a superuser, in order to access the contents of the pg_xlog directory. The minimum version to use this action is Postgres 8.1. The --warning and --critical options are simply the number of files in the pg_xlog directory. What number to set this to will vary, but a general guideline is to put a number slightly higher than what is normally there, to catch problems early. 🔥

Normally, WAL files are closed and then re-used, but a long-running open transaction, or a faulty archive_command script, may cause Postgres to create too many files. Ultimately, this will cause the disk they are on to run out of space, at which point Postgres will shut down. 💀

To avoid connecting as a database superuser, a wrapper function around pg_ls_dir() should be defined as a superuser with SECURITY DEFINER, and the --lsfunc option used. This example function, if defined by a superuser, will allow the script to connect as a normal user nagios with --lsfunc=ls_xlog_dir

BEGIN;
CREATE FUNCTION ls_xlog_dir()
    RETURNS SETOF TEXT
    AS $$ SELECT pg_ls_dir('pg_xlog') $$
    LANGUAGE SQL
    SECURITY DEFINER;
REVOKE ALL ON FUNCTION ls_xlog_dir() FROM PUBLIC;
GRANT EXECUTE ON FUNCTION ls_xlog_dir() to nagios;
COMMIT;

Example 1: Check that the number of ready WAL files is 10 or less on host "pluto", using a wrapper function "ls_xlog_dir" to avoid the need for superuser permissions

check_postgres_archive_ready --host=pluto --critical=10 --lsfunc=ls_xlog_dir

For MRTG output, reports the number of WAL files on line 1.

`rebuild_symlinks` & `rebuild_symlinks_force` — the symlink-crafting era ✨

Okay bestie, these two actions are so low-maintenance it’s giving main character energy. They require no other arguments, and they do not connect to any databases. All they do is create symlinks in the current directory for each action, in the form check_postgres_<action_name>. If the file already exists, it will not be overwritten. But if the action is rebuild_symlinks_force, then symlinks will be overwritten. And hello? The option --symlinks is a shorter way of saying --action=rebuild_symlinks. Periodt. 💅

✨ BASIC FILTERING ✨

The options --include and --exclude can be combined to limit which things are checked, depending on the action. The name of the database can be filtered when using the following actions: backends, database_size, locks, query_time, txn_idle, and txn_time. The name of a relation can be filtered when using the following actions: bloat, index_size, table_size, relation_size, last_vacuum, last_autovacuum, last_analyze, and last_autoanalyze. The name of a setting can be filtered when using the settings_checksum action. The name of a file system can be filtered when using the disk_space action.

If only an include option is given, then ONLY those entries that match will be checked. However, if given both exclude and include, the exclusion is done first, and the inclusion after, to reinstate things that may have been excluded. Both --include and --exclude can be given multiple times, and/or as comma-separated lists. A leading tilde will match the following word as a regular expression.

To match a schema, end the search term with a single period. Leading tildes can be used for schemas as well.

Be careful when using filtering: an inclusion rule on the backends, for example, may report no problems not only because the matching database had no backends, but because you misspelled the name of the database! 😭 PLEASE spell check, bestie.

Examples:

Only checks items named pg_class:

--include=pg_class

Only checks items containing the letters pg_:

--include=~pg_

Only check items beginning with pg_:

--include=~^pg_

Exclude the item named test:

--exclude=test

Exclude all items containing the letters test:

--exclude=~test

Exclude all items in the schema pg_catalog:

--exclude='pg_catalog.'

Exclude all items in the pg_temp_nnn per-session temporary schemas:

--exclude=~^pg_temp_.

Exclude all items containing the letters ace, but allow the item faceoff:

--exclude=~ace --include=faceoff

Exclude all items which start with the letters pg_, which contain the letters slon, or which are named sql_settings or green. Specifically check items with the letters prod in their names, and always check the item named pg_relname:

--exclude=~^pg_,~slon,sql_settings --exclude=green --include=~prod,pg_relname

🫶 USER NAME FILTERING 🫶

The options --includeuser and --excludeuser can be used on some actions to only examine database objects owned by (or not owned by) one or more users. An --includeuser option always trumps an --excludeuser option. You can give each option more than once for multiple users, or you can give a comma-separated list. The actions that currently use these options are:

database_size
last_analyze
last_autoanalyze
last_vacuum
last_autovacuum
query_time
relation_size
txn_time

Examples:

Only check items owned by the user named greg:

--includeuser=greg

Only check items owned by either watson or crick:

--includeuser=watson,crick

Only check items owned by crick, franklin, watson, or wilkins:

--includeuser=watson --includeuser=franklin --includeuser=crick,wilkins

Check all items except for those belonging to the user scott:

--excludeuser=scott

🧪 TEST MODE 🧪

To help in setting things up, this program can be run in a "test mode" by specifying the --test option. This will perform some basic tests to make sure that the databases can be contacted, and that certain per-action prerequisites are met, such as whether the user is a superuser, if the version of Postgres is new enough, and if stats_row_level is enabled. It’s like a vibe check for your database setup. ✨

📁 FILES 📁

In addition to command-line configurations, you can put any options inside of a file. The file .check_postgresrc in the current directory will be used if found. If not found, then the file ~/.check_postgresrc will be used. Finally, the file /etc/check_postgresrc will be used if available. The format of the file is option = value, one per line. Any line starting with a # will be skipped. Any values loaded from a check_postgresrc file will be overwritten by command-line options. All check_postgresrc files can be ignored by supplying a --no-checkpostgresrc argument.

🌈 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 🌈

The environment variable $ENV{HOME} is used to look for a .check_postgresrc file. The environment variable $ENV{PGBINDIR} is used to look for PostgreSQL binaries. Env vars are the invisible besties behind the scenes.

💅 TIPS AND TRICKS 💅

Since this program uses the psql program, make sure it is accessible to the user running the script. If run as a cronjob, this often means modifying the PATH environment variable.

If you are using Nagios in embedded Perl mode, use the --action argument instead of symlinks, so that the plugin only gets compiled one time. Efficiency queen behavior. 👑

🧚 DEPENDENCIES 🧚

Access to a working version of psql, and the following very standard Perl modules:

Cwd
Getopt::Long
File::Basename
File::Temp
Time::HiRes (if $opt{showtime} is set to true, which is the default)

The settings_checksum action requires the Digest::MD5 module.

The checkpoint action requires the Date::Parse module.

Some actions require access to external programs. If psql is not explicitly specified, the command which is used to find it. The program /bin/df is needed by the disk_space action.

🛠️ DEVELOPMENT 🛠️

Development happens using the git system. You can clone the latest version by doing:

https://github.com/bucardo/check_postgres
git clone https://github.com/bucardo/check_postgres.git

📬 MAILING LIST 📬

Three mailing lists are available. For discussions about the program, bug reports, feature requests, and commit notices, send email to check_postgres@bucardo.org

<https://mail.endcrypt.com/mailman/listinfo/check_postgres>

A low-volume list for announcement of new versions and important notices is the 'check_postgres-announce' list:

<https://mail.endcrypt.com/mailman/listinfo/check_postgres-announce>

Source code changes (via git-commit) are sent to the 'check_postgres-commit' list:

<https://mail.endcrypt.com/mailman/listinfo/check_postgres-commit>

📜 HISTORY 📜

Items not specifically attributed are by GSM (Greg Sabino Mullane).

Version 2.26.0 Released April 3, 2023

Add new action "pgbouncer_maxwait" (Ruslan Kabalin) [Github pull #59]
For the bloat check, add option to populate all known databases, as well as inclusion and exclusion regexes. (Giles Westwood) [Github pull #86]
Add Partman premake check (Jens Wilke) [Github pull #196]
Add --role flag to explicitly set the role of the user after connecting (David Christensen)
Fix check_replication_slots on recently promoted servers (Christoph Berg)
Allow the check_disk_space action to handle relative log_directory paths (jacksonfoz) [Github pull #174]
Fix MINPAGES and MINIPAGES in the "check_bloat" action (Christoph Moench-Tegeder) [Github pull #82]
Replace 'which' with 'command -v' (Christoph Berg)
Fix check_replication_slots on recently promoted servers (Christoph Berg)
Fix undefined variable warning (Michael van Bracht) [Github pull #158]
In the tests, force log_destination to stderr (Christoph Moench-Tegeder) [Github pull #185]
Add to docs how to exclude all items in the 'pg_temp_nnn' per-session temporary schemas (Michael Banck)
Various fixes for the CI system (Emre Hasegeli) [Github pull #181]
Various improvements to the tests (Christoph Berg, Emre Hasegeli)

Version 2.25.0 Released February 3, 2020

Allow same_schema objects to be included or excluded with --object and --skipobject (Greg Sabino Mullane)
Fix to allow mixing service names and other connection parameters for same_schema (Greg Sabino Mullane)

Version 2.24.0 Released May 30, 2018

Support new_version_pg for PG10 (Michael Pirogov)
Option to skip CYCLE sequences in action sequence (Christoph Moench-Tegeder)
Output per-database perfdata for pgbouncer pool checks (George Hansper)
German message translations (Holger Jacobs)
Consider only client backends in query_time and friends (David Christensen)

Version 2.23.0 Released October 31, 2017

Support PostgreSQL 10. (David Christensen, Christoph Berg)
Change table_size to use pg_table_size() on 9.0+, i.e. include the TOAST table size in the numbers reported. Add new actions indexes_size and total_relation_size, using the respective pg_indexes_size() and pg_total_relation_size() functions. All size checks will now also check materialized views where applicable. (Christoph Berg)
Connection errors are now always critical, not unknown. (Christoph Berg)
New action replication_slots checking if logical or physical replication slots have accumulated too much data (Glyn Astill)
Multiple same_schema improvements (Glyn Astill)
Add Spanish message translations (Luis Vazquez)
Allow a wrapper function to run wal_files and archive_ready actions as non-superuser (Joshua Elsasser)
Add some defensive casting to the bloat query (Greg Sabino Mullane)
Invoke psql with option -X (Peter Eisentraut)
Update postgresql.org URLs to use https. (Magnus Hagander)
check_txn_idle: Don't fail when query contains 'disabled' word (Marco Nenciarini)
check_txn_idle: Use state_change instead of query_start. (Sebastian Webber)
check_hot_standby_delay: Correct extra space in perfdata (Adrien Nayrat)
Remove \r from psql output as it can confuse some regexes (Greg Sabino Mullane)
Sort failed jobs in check_pgagent_jobs for stable output. (Christoph Berg)

Version 2.22.0 June 30, 2015

Add xact timestamp support to hot_standby_delay. Allow the hot_standby_delay check to accept xlog byte position or timestamp lag intervals as thresholds, or even both at the same time. (Josh Williams)
Query all sequences per DB in parallel for action=sequence. (Christoph Berg)
Fix bloat check to use correct SQL depending on the server version. (Adrian Vondendriesch)
Show actual long-running query in query_time output (Peter Eisentraut)
Add explicit ORDER BY to the slony_status check to get the most lagged server. (Jeff Frost)
Improved multi-slave support in replicate_row. (Andrew Yochum)
Change the way tables are quoted in replicate_row. (Glyn Astill)
Don't swallow space before the -c flag when reporting errors (Jeff Janes)
Fix and extend hot_standby_delay documentation (Michael Renner)
Declare POD encoding to be utf8. (Christoph Berg)

🌈 Version 2.21.0 — September 24, 2013

Fix issue with SQL steps in check_pgagent_jobs for sql steps which perform deletes (Rob Emery via github pull) 🐛
Install man page in section 1. (Peter Eisentraut, bug 53, github issue 26) 📖
Order lock types in check_locks output to make the ordering predictable; setting SKIP_NETWORK_TESTS will skip the new_version tests; other minor test suite fixes. (Christoph Berg)
Fix same_schema check on 9.3 by ignoring relminmxid differences in pg_class (Christoph Berg) 💅

🦋 Version 2.20.1 — June 24, 2013

Make connection check failures return CRITICAL not UNKNOWN (Dominic Hargreaves) 🔥
Fix --reverse option when using string comparisons in custom queries (Nathaniel Waisbrot)
Compute correct 'totalwastedbytes' in the bloat query (Michael Renner)
Do not use pg_stats "inherited" column in bloat query, if the database is 8.4 or older. (Greg Sabino Mullane, per bug 121)
Remove host reordering in hot_standby_delay check (Josh Williams, with help from Jacobo Blasco)
Better output for the "simple" flag (Greg Sabino Mullane)
Force same_schema to ignore the 'relallvisible' column (Greg Sabino Mullane)

🌸 Version 2.20.0 — March 13, 2013

Add check for pgagent jobs (David E. Wheeler) ✨
Force STDOUT to use utf8 for proper output (Greg Sabino Mullane; reported by Emmanuel Lesouef)
Fixes for Postgres 9.2: new pg_stat_activity view, and use pg_tablespace_location, (Josh Williams)
Allow for spaces in item lists when doing same_schema.
Allow txn_idle to work again for < 8.3 servers by switching to query_time.
Fix the check_bloat SQL to take inherited tables into account, and assume 2k for non-analyzed columns. (Geert Pante)
Cache sequence information to speed up same_schema runs.
Fix --excludeuser in check_txn_idle (Mika Eloranta)
Fix user clause handling in check_txn_idle (Michael van Bracht)
Adjust docs to show colon as a better separator inside args for locks (Charles Sprickman)
Fix undefined $SQL2 error in check_txn_idle [github issue 16] (Patric Bechtel)
Prevent "uninitialized value" warnings when showing the port (Henrik Ahlgren)
Do not assume everyone has a HOME [github issue 23] 🏠

💜 Version 2.19.0 — January 17, 2012

Add the --assume-prod option (Cédric Villemain)
Add the cluster_id check (Cédric Villemain)
Improve settings_checksum and checkpoint tests (Cédric Villemain)
Do not do an inner join to pg_user when checking database size (Greg Sabino Mullane; reported by Emmanuel Lesouef)
Use the full path when getting sequence information for same_schema. (Greg Sabino Mullane; reported by Cindy Wise)
Fix the formula for calculating xlog positions (Euler Taveira de Oliveira)
Better ordering of output for bloat check - make indexes as important as tables (Greg Sabino Mullane; reported by Jens Wilke)
Show the dbservice if it was used at top of same_schema output (Mike Blackwell)
Better installation paths (Greg Sabino Mullane, per bug 53)

🎀 Version 2.18.0 — October 2, 2011

Redo the same_schema action. Use new --filter argument for all filtering.
Allow comparisons between any number of databases.
Remove the dbname2, dbport2, etc. arguments.
Allow comparison of the same db over time.
Swap db1 and db2 if the slave is 1 for the hot standby check (David E. Wheeler)
Allow multiple --schema arguments for the slony_status action (GSM and Jehan-Guillaume de Rorthais)
Fix ORDER BY in the last vacuum/analyze action (Nicolas Thauvin)
Fix check_hot_standby_delay perfdata output (Nicolas Thauvin)
Look in the correct place for the .ready files with the archive_ready action (Nicolas Thauvin)
New action: commitratio (Guillaume Lelarge) 🎉
New action: hitratio (Guillaume Lelarge) 🎉
Make sure --action overrides the symlink naming trick.
Set defaults for archive_ready and wal_files (Thomas Guettler, GSM)
Better output for wal_files and archive_ready (GSM)
Fix warning when client_port set to empty string (bug #79)
Account for "empty row" in -x output (i.e. source of functions).
Fix some incorrectly named data fields (Andy Lester)
Expand the number of pgbouncer actions (Ruslan Kabalin)
Give detailed information and refactor txn_idle, txn_time, and query_time (Per request from bug #61)
Set maxalign to 8 in the bloat check if box identified as '64-bit' (Michel Sijmons, bug #66)
Support non-standard version strings in the bloat check. (Michel Sijmons and Gurjeet Singh, bug #66)
Do not show excluded databases in some output (Ruslan Kabalin)
Allow "and", "or" inside arguments (David E. Wheeler)
Add the "new_version_box" action.
Fix psql version regex (Peter Eisentraut, bug #69)
Add the --assume-standby-mode option (Ruslan Kabalin)
Note that txn_idle and query_time require 8.3 (Thomas Guettler)
Standardize and clean up all perfdata output (bug #52)
Exclude "idle in transaction" from the query_time check (bug #43)
Fix the perflimit for the bloat action (bug #50)
Clean up the custom_query action a bit.
Fix space in perfdata for hot_standby_delay action (Nicolas Thauvin)
Handle undef percents in check_fsm_relations (Andy Lester)
Fix typo in dbstats action (Stas Vitkovsky)
Fix MRTG for last vacuum and last_analyze actions.

Version 2.17.0 — no public release

bestie there are literally no notes here. it's giving ghost version 👻

💖 Version 2.16.0 — January 20, 2011

Add new action 'hot_standby_delay' (Nicolas Thauvin)
Add cache-busting for the version-grabbing utilities.
Fix problem with going to next method for new_version_pg (Greg Sabino Mullane, reported by Hywel Mallett in bug #65)
Allow /usr/local/etc as an alternative location for the check_postgresrc file (Hywel Mallett)
Do not use tgisconstraint in same_schema if Postgres >= 9 (Guillaume Lelarge)

🍓 Version 2.15.4 — January 3, 2011

Fix warning when using symlinks (Greg Sabino Mullane, reported by Peter Eisentraut in bug #63)

Version 2.15.3 — December 30, 2010

Show OK for no matching txn_idle entries.

Version 2.15.2 — December 28, 2010

Better formatting of sizes in the bloat action output.
Remove duplicate perfs in bloat action output.

Version 2.15.1 — December 27, 2010

Fix problem when examining items in pg_settings (Greg Sabino Mullane)
For connection test, return critical, not unknown, on FATAL errors (Greg Sabino Mullane, reported by Peter Eisentraut in bug #62)

👑 Version 2.15.0 — November 8, 2010

Add --quiet argument to suppress output on OK Nagios results
Add index comparison for same_schema (Norman Yamada and Greg Sabino Mullane)
Use $ENV{PGSERVICE} instead of "service=" to prevent problems (Guillaume Lelarge)
Add --man option to show the entire manual. (Andy Lester)
Redo the internal run_command() sub to use -x and hashes instead of regexes.
Fix error in custom logic (Andreas Mager)
Add the "pgbouncer_checksum" action (Guillaume Lelarge)
Fix regex to work on WIN32 for check_fsm_relations and check_fsm_pages (Luke Koops)
Don't apply a LIMIT when using --exclude on the bloat action (Marti Raudsepp)
Change the output of query_time to show pid,user,port, and address (Giles Westwood)
Fix to show database properly when using slony_status (Guillaume Lelarge)
Allow warning items for same_schema to be comma-separated (Guillaume Lelarge)
Constraint definitions across Postgres versions match better in same_schema.
Work against "EnterpriseDB" databases (Sivakumar Krishnamurthy and Greg Sabino Mullane)
Separate perfdata with spaces (Jehan-Guillaume (ioguix) de Rorthais)
Add new action "archive_ready" (Jehan-Guillaume (ioguix) de Rorthais)

Version 2.14.3 (March 1, 2010)

Allow slony_status action to handle more than one slave.
Use commas to separate function args in same_schema output (Robert Treat)

Version 2.14.2 (February 18, 2010)

Change autovac_freeze default warn/critical back to 90%/95% (Robert Treat)
Put all items one-per-line for relation size actions if --verbose=1

Version 2.14.1 (February 17, 2010)

Don't use $^T in logfile check, as script may be long-running
Change the error string for the logfile action for easier exclusion by programs like tail_n_mail

Version 2.14.0 (February 11, 2010)

Added the 'slony_status' action.
Changed the logfile sleep from 0.5 to 1, as 0.5 gets rounded to 0 on some boxes!

Version 2.13.2 (February 4, 2010)

Allow timeout option to be used for logtime 'sleep' time.

Version 2.13.2 (February 4, 2010)

not me double-checking the changelog and seeing this exact same heading TWICE 💀 it's literally what's written, bestie, I'm not making it up

Show offending database for query_time action.
Apply perflimit to main output for sequence action.
Add 'noowner' option to same_schema action.
Raise sleep timeout for logfile check to 15 seconds.

Version 2.13.1 (February 2, 2010)

Fix bug preventing column constraint differences from 2 > 1 for same_schema from being shown.
Allow aliases 'dbname1', 'dbhost1', 'dbport1',etc.
Added "nolanguage" as a filter for the same_schema option.
Don't track "generic" table constraints (e.. $1, $2) using same_schema

Version 2.13.0 (January 29, 2010)

Allow "nofunctions" as a filter for the same_schema option.
Added "noperm" as a filter for the same_schema option.
Ignore dropped columns when considered positions for same_schema (Guillaume Lelarge)

Version 2.12.1 (December 3, 2009)

Change autovac_freeze default warn/critical from 90%/95% to 105%/120% (Marti Raudsepp)

🎀 Version 2.12.0 (December 3, 2009)

You can now point the temporary directory wherever you want with the tempdir argument — for those systems that literally need it (like when /tmp isn't owned by root, awkward 💀).
Fixed so old versions of Postgres (< 8.0) actually use the correct default database (Giles Westwood). slay.
For same_schema trigger mismatches, it now shows you the attached table. as it should 💅
New new_version_bc check added for Bucardo version checking 👑
Database name now shows up in perf output for last_vacuum|analyze (Guillaume Lelarge)
Fixed the bloat action against old versions of Postgres that don't have the block_size param.

✨ Version 2.11.1 (August 27, 2009)

Proper Nagios output for last_vacuum|analyze actions (Cédric Villemain)
Proper Nagios output for the locks action (Cédric Villemain)
Proper Nagios output for the txn_wraparound action (Cédric Villemain)
Fix for constraints with embedded newlines for same_schema
--exclude now works for all items when you're using same_schema

🌸 Version 2.11.0 (August 23, 2009)

Nagios perf output added to the wal_files check (Cédric Villemain)
Support for .check_postgresrc — this was per a request from Albe Laurenz, so, you're welcome Albe 🫶
The list of web fetch methods can now be changed with the --get_method option
Support for the --language argument, which overrides any ENV
New --no-check_postgresrc flag
check_postgresrc options are now completely overridden by command-line options (no sneaky leftovers bestie)
Fixed incorrect warning > critical logic in replicate_rows (Glyn Astill)

🦋 Version 2.11.0, wait, no — Version 2.10.0 (August 3, 2009)

For same_schema: it now compares view definitions, and compares languages ✨
The script is now a global executable via the Makefile.PL file
Better output when comparing two databases
Proper Nagios output syntax for the autovac_freeze and backends checks (Cédric Villemain)

💜 Version 2.9.5 (July 24, 2009)

No more LIMIT in check_bloat when --include is used. Per complaint from Jeff Frost 🙈

💖 Version 2.9.4 (July 21, 2009)

More French translations (Guillaume Lelarge) 🥐

⭐ Version 2.9.3 (July 14, 2009)

Quote dbname in perf output for the backends check (Davide Abrigo)
Added fetch as an alternative method for new_version checks, since this comes by default with FreeBSD (Hywel Mallett)

🌈 Version 2.9.2 (July 12, 2009)

Dots and dashes are now allowed in database names for the backends check (Davide Abrigo)
The database is now checked and displayed for each match in the bloat check (Cédric Villemain)
A 'too many connections' FATAL error in the backends check now gives a critical, rather than a generic error (Greg, idea by Jürgen Schulz-Brüssel)
perflimit is no longer allowed to interfere with exclusion rules in the vacuum and analyze tests (Greg, bug reported by Jeff Frost)

🧚 Version 2.9.1 (June 12, 2009)

Fix for multiple databases with the check_bloat action (Mark Kirkwood)
Fixes and improvements to the same_schema action (Jeff Boes)
Tests written for same_schema, plus other minor test fixes (Jeff Boes)

👑 Version 2.9.0 (May 28, 2009)

The same_schema action was added (Greg). main character entry fr.

🍓 Version 2.8.1 (May 15, 2009)

Timeout added via statement_timeout in addition to the perl alarm (Greg)

🌟 Version 2.8.0 (May 4, 2009)

okay this one is a big one, buckle up bestie:

Added internationalization support (Greg)
Added the disabled_triggers check (Greg)
Added the prepared_txns check (Greg)
Added the new_version_cp and new_version_pg checks (Greg)
French translations (Guillaume Lelarge)
The backends search now returns ok if there are no matches due to inclusion rules, per a report by Guillaume Lelarge (Greg)
Added comprehensive unit tests (Greg, Jeff Boes, Selena Deckelmann)
fsm_pages and fsm_relations now handle 8.4 servers smoothly (Greg)
Fixed the missing upd field in show_dbstats (Andras Fabian)
ENV{PGCONTROLDATA} and ENV{PGBINDIR} are now allowed (Greg)
Added various Perl module infrastructure (e.g. Makefile.PL) (Greg)
Fixed an incorrect regex in txn_wraparound (Greg)
For txn_wraparound: consistent ordering and duplicate fixes in perf output (Andras Fabian)
Added the missing exabyte regex check (Selena Deckelmann)
Stats are set to zero if we bail early due to USERWHERECLAUSE (Andras Fabian)
Additional items added to dbstats output (Andras Fabian)
Removed the --schema option from the fsm_ checks (Greg Mullane and Robert Treat)
Handle the case when ENV{PGUSER} is set (Andy Lester)
Many various fixes (Jeff Boes)
Fixed --dbservice: check version and use ENV{PGSERVICE} for old versions (Cédric Villemain)

💅 Version 2.7.3 (February 10, 2009)

The sequence action now checks if the sequence is being used for an int4 column and reacts appropriately (Michael Glaesemann)

✨ Version 2.7.2 (February 9, 2009)

Fix to prevent multiple groupings if db arguments are given

🎀 Version 2.7.1 (February 6, 2009)

The -p argument for port works again. it's giving "we fixed it" 💀

🌸 Version 2.7.0 (February 4, 2009)

No connection argument required anymore — it uses defaults and ENV variables when possible: PGHOST, PGPORT, PGUSER, PGDATABASE

🦋 Version 2.6.1 (February 4, 2009)

Date::Parse is only required to be loaded if you're using the checkpoint action

💜 Version 2.6.0 (January 26, 2009)

The checkpoint action was added

💖 Version 2.5.4 (January 7, 2009)

Better checking of the $opt{dbservice} structure (Cédric Villemain)
Fixed time display in timesync action output (Selena Deckelmann)
Fixed documentation typos (Josh Tolley)

⭐ Version 2.5.3 (December 17, 2008)

Minor fix to the regex in verify_version (Lee Jensen)

🌈 Version 2.5.2 (December 16, 2008)

Minor documentation tweak

🧚 Version 2.5.1 (December 11, 2008)

Support for the --noidle flag, which stops the backends action from counting idle processes. Patch by Selena Deckelmann.
Fixed a small undefined warning when not using --dbservice.

👑 Version 2.5.0 (December 4, 2008)

Support for the pg_Service.conf file with the --dbservice option

🍓 Version 2.4.3 (November 7, 2008)

Fixed options for the replicate_row action, per a report from Jason Gordon

🌟 Version 2.4.2 (November 6, 2008)

File::Temp::cleanup() calls are now wrapped in eval, in case File::Temp is an older version. Patch by Chris Butler.

💅 Version 2.4.1 (November 5, 2008)

Numbers are cast to numeric to support sequences ranges > bigint in the check_sequence action. Thanks to Scott Marlowe for reporting this.

✨ Version 2.4.0 (October 26, 2008)

Added Cacti support with the dbstats action
Pretty-up of the time output for the last vacuum and analyze actions
The percentage of backends is now shown on the check_backends action

🎀 Version 2.3.10 (October 23, 2008)

Fixed a minor warning in the check_bloat action with multiple databases
Warning is now allowed to be greater than critical when using the --reverse option
Support for the --perflimit option for the check_sequence action

🌸 Version 2.3.9 (October 23, 2008)

Minor tweak to the way we store the default port

🦋 Version 2.3.8 (October 21, 2008)

The default port can now be changed easily
Transform of simple output by MB, GB, etc. is allowed

💜 Version 2.3.7 (October 14, 2008)

Multiple databases are now allowed in the sequence action. Reported by Christoph Zwerschke.

💖 Version 2.3.6 (October 13, 2008)

Added the missing $schema to check_fsm_pages (Robert Treat)

⭐ Version 2.3.5 (October 9, 2008)

Option checktype changed to valtype to prevent collisions with -c[ritical]
Better handling of errors

🌈 Version 2.3.4 (October 9, 2008)

Explicit cleanups of the temp directory, per problems reported by sb@nnx.com

🧚 Version 2.3.3 (October 8, 2008)

Accounted for cases where some rounding queries give -0 instead of 0. Thanks to Glyn Astill for helping track this down.

👑 Version 2.3.2 (October 8, 2008)

Identifiers are now always quoted in the check_replicate_row action

🍓 Version 2.3.1 (October 7, 2008)

A better error is given if one of the databases cannot be reached

🌟 Version 2.3.0 (October 4, 2008)

The sequence action was added, thanks to Gavin M. Roy for the idea
Fixed a minor problem with the autovac_freeze action when using MRTG output
The output argument is now case-insensitive
Documentation fixes

💅 Version 2.2.4 (October 3, 2008)

Fixed some minor typos

✨ Version 2.2.3 (October 1, 2008)

Expanded the range of allowed names for the --repinfo argument (Glyn Astill)
Documentation tweaks

🎀 Version 2.2.2 (September 30, 2008)

Fixes for minor output and scoping problems

🌸 Version 2.2.1 (September 28, 2008)

MRTG output added to fsm_pages and fsm_relations
Error messages are forced to one line for proper Nagios output
Invalid prereqs are now checked for on a failed command. From conversations with Euler Taveira de Oliveira.
Tweaked the fsm_pages formula a little

🦋 Version 2.2.0 (September 25, 2008)

fsm_pages and fsm_relations actions were added (Robert Treat)

💜 Version 2.1.4 (September 22, 2008)

Fix for a race condition in the txn_time action
Added the --debugoutput option

💖 Version 2.1.3 (September 22, 2008)

Alternate arguments dbhost for host and dbport for port are now allowed
A zero is output as the default value for the second line of MRTG output

⭐ Version 2.1.2 (July 28, 2008)

Fixed a sorting error in the disk_space action for non-Nagios output
--simple is now allowed as a shortcut for --output=simple

🌈 Version 2.1.1 (July 22, 2008)

Databases with datallowconn false are no longer checked for the autovac_freeze action

🧚 Version 2.1.0 (July 18, 2008)

The autovac_freeze action was added, thanks to Robert Treat for the idea and design
An ORDER BY was put on the txn_wraparound action

👑 Version 2.0.1 (July 16, 2008)

Optimizations to speed up the bloat action quite a bit
Fixed the version action so it doesn't always output in mrtg mode

🍓 Version 2.0.0 (July 15, 2008)

Support for MRTG and simple output options was added
Many small improvements to nearly all actions

🌟 Version 1.9.1 (June 24, 2008)

Fixed an error in the bloat SQL in 1.9.0
Percentage arguments are now allowed to be over 99%
Percentages are now allowed in the bloat --warning and --critical (thanks to Robert Treat for the idea)

💅 Version 1.9.0 (June 22, 2008)

information_schema is no longer included in certain checks (Jeff Frost)
--include and --exclude can now use schemas by using a trailing period

✨ Version 1.8.5 (June 22, 2008)

Schema name is now output before the table name where appropriate. Thanks to Jeff Frost.

🎀 Version 1.8.4 (June 19, 2008)

Better detection of problems in --replicate_row

✨ Version 1.8.3 (June 18, 2008) ✨

Fixed the backends action, bestie, because sometimes there are literally no rows in pg_stat_activity, so now it runs a second query if it needs to in order to find the max_connections setting. 🙈
Shoutout to Jeff Frost for the bug report! 💖

🦋 Version 1.8.2 (June 10, 2008) 🦋

Changes so it can work under Nagios' embedded Perl mode. (Ioannis Tambouras) ✨

🎀 Version 1.8.1 (June 9, 2008) 🎀

The bloat action now works on Postgres version 8.0. 💅
Different commands can now be run for each action depending on the server version.
Better warnings now show up when you're running actions that aren't available on older Postgres servers.

🌸 Version 1.8.0 (June 3, 2008) 🌸

Added the --reverse option to the custom_query action.

🧚 Version 1.7.1 (June 2, 2008) 🧚

Fixed the query_time action: now it accounts for that race condition where zero rows show up in pg_stat_activity. Thanks to Dustin Black for the bug report! 🫶

💜 Version 1.7.0 (May 11, 2008) 💜

Added the --replicate_row action. Iconic, honestly.

⭐ Version 1.6.1 (May 11, 2008) ⭐

Added the --symlinks option as a shortcut to --action=rebuild_symlinks.

🌈 Version 1.6.0 (May 11, 2008) 🌈

Added the custom_query action. No cap.

💀 Version 1.5.2 (May 2, 2008) 💀

Fixed the problem where the custom pgpass file was being created way too eagerly.

🍓 Version 1.5.1 (April 17, 2008) 🍓

Added example Nagios configuration settings (Brian A. Seklecki).

👑 Version 1.5.0 (April 16, 2008) 👑

Added the --includeuser and --excludeuser options. Documentation cleanup too.

🦋 Version 1.4.3 (April 16, 2008) 🦋

Added the 'output' concept for future support of non-Nagios programs.

✨ Version 1.4.2 (April 8, 2008) ✨

Fixed the bug that was preventing the --dbpass argument from working (Robert Treat).

🎀 Version 1.4.1 (April 4, 2008) 🎀

Minor documentation fixes.

💖 Version 1.4.0 (April 2, 2008) 💖

The wal_files action now uses pg_ls_dir (idea by Robert Treat).
For last_vacuum and last_analyze, it now respects autovacuum effects, plus there are separate autovacuum checks (ideas by Robert Treat).

🌸 Version 1.3.1 (April 2, 2008) 🌸

txn_idle now uses query_start, not xact_start.

🧚 Version 1.3.0 (March 23, 2008) 🧚

Added the txn_idle and txn_time actions.

💜 Version 1.2.0 (February 21, 2008) 💜

Added the wal_files action, which counts the number of WAL files in your pg_xlog directory.
Fixed some typos in the docs.
-v is now explicitly allowed as an argument.
A syslog_facility of null is now allowed in the logfile action.

⭐ Version 1.1.2 (February 5, 2008) ⭐

Fixed the error that was preventing --action=rebuild_symlinks from working.

💀 Version 1.1.1 (February 3, 2008) 💀

Switched the vacuum and analyze date output to use 'DD', not 'D'. (Glyn Astill)

🍓 Version 1.1.0 (December 16, 2008) 🍓

Fixes, enhancements, and performance tracking. We love a glow-up. 💅
Added performance data tracking via --showperf and --perflimit.
Lots of refactoring and cleanup of how actions handle arguments.
Does basic checks to figure out the syslog file for the logfile action.
Allows for exact matching of beta versions with the version action.
Redid the default arguments so they only populate when neither 'warning' nor 'critical' is provided.
You can now give just warning OR critical for the timesync action.
Removed the 'redirect_stderr' requirement from logfile thanks to 8.3 changes.
The actions last_vacuum and last_analyze are 8.2 only (Robert Treat).

👑 Version 1.0.16 (December 7, 2007) 👑

First public release, December 2007. The origin story. 🫶

💀 BUGS AND LIMITATIONS 💀

Okay bestie, listen up, because there are some real ones here:

The index bloat size optimization is rough. It's giving approximate, not exact.
Some actions may not work on older versions of Postgres (before 8.0).
Please report any problems to check_postgres@bucardo.org — the maintainers genuinely want to hear about it. 🫶

👑 AUTHOR 👑

Greg Sabino Mullane <greg@turnstep.com> — the icon, the legend. ✨

🎀 NAGIOS EXAMPLES 🎀

Some example Nagios configuration settings using this script, copy-paste ready, no notes:

 define command {
     command_name    check_postgres_size
     command_line    $USER2$/check_postgres -H $HOSTADDRESS$ -u pgsql -db postgres --action database_size -w $ARG1$ -c $ARG2$
 }

 define command {
     command_name    check_postgres_locks
     command_line    $USER2$/check_postgres -H $HOSTADDRESS$ -u pgsql -db postgres --action locks -w $ARG1$ -c $ARG2$
 }

 define service {
     use                    generic-other
     host_name              dbhost.gtld
     service_description    dbhost PostgreSQL Service Database Usage Size
     check_command          check_postgres_size!256000000!512000000
 }

 define service {
     use                    generic-other
     host_name              dbhost.gtld
     service_description    dbhost PostgreSQL Service Database Locks
     check_command          check_postgres_locks!2!3
 }

So you can launch a whole monitoring setup without even breaking a nail. 💅

📜 LICENSE AND COPYRIGHT 📜

Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions are met:

Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.

And here's the part in ALL CAPS, because THE LEGAL BADDIES ALWAYS SCREAM IT, and because we're keeping it word-for-word, fr fr:

 THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE AUTHOR "AS IS" AND ANY EXPRESS OR
 IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED
 WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE
 DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT,
 INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES
 (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR
 SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
 HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT,
 STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN
 ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE
 POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.

tl;dr — that's the whole page, bestie. This one came from perl v5.40.1, dated 2026-01-14, and it's filed under CHECK_POSTGRES(1p). Go check your Postgres, stay hydrated, and remember: monitoring is self-care. 💖✨🎀🦋

📦 where this page comes from

ubuntu resolute: check-postgres 2.26.0-2build1 · 2-BSD
ubuntu stonking: check-postgres 2.26.0-2build1 · 2-BSD
💖 girlified by deepseek-ai/DeepSeek-V4.1-Flash on 2026-11-03: a language model's rewrite of the original, under its terms

CHECK_POSTGRES(1p)

💖 CHECK_POSTGRES 💖

✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

🎀 Output Modes 🎀

🌟 Nagios output

🌟 MRTG output

🌟 Simple output

🌟 Cacti output

👑 DATABASE CONNECTION OPTIONS 👑

🧚 how the connection options combine 🧚

✨ OTHER OPTIONS ✨

🎬 ACTIONS 🎬

archive_ready

autovac_freeze

backends 👑

bloat 🫧

checkpoint ⏰

cluster_id 🆔

commitratio 📊

connection 🔌

custom_query 🧚

✨ database_size ✨

📊 dbstats 📊

🚫 disabled_triggers 🚫

💾 disk_space 💾

🌸 fsm_pages 🌸

🧚 fsm_relations 🧚

hot_standby_delay 🦋

relation_size 🎀

index_size 🎀

table_size 🎀

indexes_size 🎀

total_relation_size 🎀

last_analyze 🌸

last_vacuum 🌸

last_autoanalyze 🌸

last_autovacuum 🌸

listener 💀

locks 🔥

🎀 logfile

🦋 new_version_bc

🦋 new_version_box

🦋 new_version_cp

🦋 new_version_pg

🦋 new_version_tnm

🧚 partman_premake

👑 pgb_pool_cl_active

👑 pgb_pool_cl_waiting

👑 pgb_pool_sv_active

👑 pgb_pool_sv_idle

👑 pgb_pool_sv_used

👑 pgb_pool_sv_tested

👑 pgb_pool_sv_login

👑 pgb_pool_maxwait

🍓 pgbouncer_backends

🔥 pgbouncer_checksum

🌸 pgbouncer_maxwait

💜 pgagent_jobs

💖 prepared_txns 💖

✨ query_runtime ✨

🌈 query_time 🌈

🎀 replicate_row 🎀

💜 replication_slots 💜

🧚 same_schema 🧚

🍓 sequence 🍓

🌸 settings_checksum 🌸

🌈 slony_status 🌈

🦋 timesync 🦋

💜 txn_idle 💜

⭐ txn_time ⭐

🍓 txn_wraparound 🍓

👑 version 👑

🎀 wal_files 🎀

rebuild_symlinks & rebuild_symlinks_force — the symlink-crafting era ✨

✨ BASIC FILTERING ✨

🫶 USER NAME FILTERING 🫶

🧪 TEST MODE 🧪

📁 FILES 📁

🌈 ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES 🌈

✨ `database_size` ✨

📊 `dbstats` 📊

🚫 `disabled_triggers` 🚫

💾 `disk_space` 💾

🌸 `fsm_pages` 🌸

🧚 `fsm_relations` 🧚

🎀 `logfile`

🦋 `new_version_bc`

🦋 `new_version_box`

🦋 `new_version_cp`

🦋 `new_version_pg`

🦋 `new_version_tnm`

🧚 `partman_premake`

👑 `pgb_pool_cl_active`

👑 `pgb_pool_cl_waiting`

👑 `pgb_pool_sv_active`

👑 `pgb_pool_sv_idle`

👑 `pgb_pool_sv_used`

👑 `pgb_pool_sv_tested`

👑 `pgb_pool_sv_login`

👑 `pgb_pool_maxwait`

🍓 `pgbouncer_backends`

🔥 `pgbouncer_checksum`

🌸 `pgbouncer_maxwait`

💜 `pgagent_jobs`

`rebuild_symlinks` & `rebuild_symlinks_force` — the symlink-crafting era ✨