Type: bool
Default: off
Context: sighup
Restart: false

Specifies whether or not a hot standby will send feedback to the primary or upstream standby about queries currently executing on the standby. This parameter can be used to eliminate query cancels caused by cleanup records, but can cause database bloat on the primary for some workloads. Feedback messages will not be sent more frequently than once per wal_receiver_status_interval. The default value is off. This parameter can only be set in the postgresql.conf file or on the server command line.

If cascaded replication is in use the feedback is passed upstream until it eventually reaches the primary. Standbys make no other use of feedback they receive other than to pass upstream.

This setting does not override the behavior of old_snapshot_threshold on the primary; a snapshot on the standby which exceeds the primary's age threshold can become invalid, resulting in cancellation of transactions on the standby. This is because old_snapshot_threshold is intended to provide an absolute limit on the time which dead rows can contribute to bloat, which would otherwise be violated because of the configuration of a standby.

Recommendations

Helps avoid query cancel on the replicas in most cases. Turn it off for a replica which does long-running reports and is allowed to lag.

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