147

I'm investigating an issue with DB connections being left open indefinitely, causing problems on the DB server. How do I see currently open connections to a PostgreSQL server, particularly those using a specific database? Ideally I'd like to see what command is executing there as well. Basically, I'm looking for something equivalent to the "Current Activity" view in MSSQL.

1
  • from PostgreSQL 9.0 on you will even see the name of the application causing the problem. maybe this is helpful for future checks. Commented Apr 5, 2010 at 18:19

6 Answers 6

197

OK, got it from someone else. This query should do the trick:

select * from pg_stat_activity where datname = 'mydatabasename'; 
34

See also pg-top, which acts like top except it shows postgres activity.

  • Install pg-top (in Debian, the package is called "ptop").
  • Become the postgres user (e.g. sudo su postgres)
  • Run pg_top
4
  • So hard to find a windows executable. You (almost) never have the full GCC suite or Mingw on a Windows server (not my choice, don't blame me). Commented May 22, 2019 at 15:29
  • @oligofren Running Postgresql on Windows is a bit of an adventure, if for no other reason than that so many of the utilities and tools are written for Linux. Commented May 22, 2019 at 15:45
  • 3
    On buster, the debian package is called pgtop Commented Mar 7, 2020 at 12:28
  • The link is dead. Commented Mar 7, 2023 at 17:38
19

Reference taken from this article.

SELECT pid ,datname ,usename ,application_name ,client_hostname ,client_port ,backend_start ,query_start ,query FROM pg_stat_activity WHERE state <> 'idle' AND pid<>pg_backend_pid(); 
1
  • query and pid were named current_query and procpid, and state is not available in pg_stat_activity prior to PostgreSQL 9.2. Commented May 3, 2016 at 3:27
4

Two ways to monitor in Ubuntu 18.04, just for reference

One using pg_top:

$ sudo apt-get install ptop $ pg_top # similar to top as others mentioned 

Two using pgAdmin4:

$ sudo apt-get install pgadmin4 pgadmin4-apache2 # type in password and use default url $ pgadmin4 

In the dashboard, check the total/active as

enter image description here

2

PostgreSQL ASH Viewer (PASH Viewer) provides graphical view of active session history data. https://github.com/dbacvetkov/PASH-Viewer It's free and open source.

ScreenShot

1

DBeaver is also showing the active/idle/total server sessions very nicely.

You must log in to answer this question.

Start asking to get answers

Find the answer to your question by asking.

Ask question

Explore related questions

See similar questions with these tags.