CHECK_PGACTIVITY(1)

NAME
check_pgactivity - PostgreSQL plugin for Nagios

SYNOPSIS
  check_pgactivity {-w|--warning THRESHOLD} {-c|--critical THRESHOLD} [-s|--service SERVICE ] [-h|--host HOST] [-U|--username ROLE] [-p|--port PORT] [-d|--dbname DATABASE] [-S|--dbservice SERVICE_NAME] [-P|--psql PATH] [--debug] [--status-file FILE] [--path PATH] [-t|--timeout TIMEOUT]
  check_pgactivity [-l|--list]
  check_pgactivity [--help]

DESCRIPTION
check_pgactivity is designed to monitor PostgreSQL clusters from Nagios. It offers many options to measure and monitor useful performance metrics.

COMPATIBILITY
Each service is available from a different PostgreSQL version, from 7.4, as documented below.

Ideally, the psql client should be 8.4 at least, but it can be used with an older server. If your client is older, see --psql and --old-psql for more information.

Please report any undocumented incompatibility.

-s, --service SERVICE
    The Nagios service to run. See section SERVICES for a description of available services or use --list for a short service and description list.

-h, --host HOST
    Database server host or socket directory (default: $PGHOST or "localhost")

    See section CONNECTIONS for more informations.

-U, --username ROLE
    Database user name (default: $PGUSER or "postgres").

    See section CONNECTIONS for more informations.

-p, --port PORT
    Database server port (default: $PGPORT or "5432").

    See section CONNECTIONS for more informations.

-d, --dbname DATABASE
    Database name to connect to (default: $PGDATABASE or "template1").

    WARNING! This is not necessarily one of the database that will be checked. See --dbinclude and --dbexclude .

    See section CONNECTIONS for more informations.

-S, --dbservice SERVICE_NAME
    The connection service name from pg_service.conf to use.

    See section CONNECTIONS for more informations.

--dbexclude REGEXP
    Some services automatically check all the databases of your cluster (note: that does not mean they always need to connect on all of them to check them though). --dbexclude excludes any database whose name matches the given Perl regular expression. Repeat this option as many time as needed.

    See --dbinclude as well. If a database match both dbexclude and dbinclude arguments, it is excluded.

--dbinclude REGEXP
    Some services automatically check all the databases of your cluster (note: that does not imply that they always need to connect to all of them though). Some always exclude the 'postgres' database and templates. --dbinclude checks ONLY databases whose names match the given Perl regular expression. Repeat this option as many time as needed.

    See --dbexclude as well. If a database match both dbexclude and dbinclude arguments, it is excluded.

-w, --warning THRESHOLD
    The Warning threshold.

-c, --critical THRESHOLD
    The Critical threshold.

-F, --format OUTPUT_FORMAT
    The output format. Supported output are: binary, debug, human, nagios, nagios_strict, json and json_strict.

    Using the binary format, the results are written in a binary file (using perl module Storable) given in argument --output. If no output is given, defaults to file check_pgactivity.out in the same directory as the script.

    The nagios_strict and json_strict formats are equivalent to the nagios and json formats respectively. The only difference is that they enforce the units to follow the strict Nagios specs: B, c, s or %. Any unit absent from this list is dropped (Bps, Tps, etc).

--tmpdir DIRECTORY
    Path to a directory where the script can create temporary files. The script relies on the system default temporary directory if possible.

-P, --psql FILE
    Path to the psql executable (default: "psql").

    Because check_pgactivity uses psql -w, psql must be version 8.4 at least, but the server can be older. If your psql is older and does not support -w, look at argument --old-psql.

--old-psql
    Stay compatible with psql 8.3 and below.

    Can also be set be setting environment variable CHECK_PGA_OLD_PSQL.

    This option removes the -w argument from the psql argument list. This means that if your password-less authentication is not correctly setup, psql might either wait indefinitely for a password, effectively blocking check_pgactivity, or fail immediately with an explicit error message.

--status-file PATH
    Path to the file where service status information is kept between successive calls. Default is to save a file called check_pgactivity.data in the same directory as the script.

    Note that this file is protected from concurrent writes using a lock file located in the same directory, having the same name than the status file, but with the extension .lock.

    On some plateform, network filesystems may not be supported correctly by the locking mechanism. See perldoc -f flock for more information.

--dump-status-file
    Dump the content of the status file and exit. This is useful for debugging purpose.

--dump-bin-file [PATH]
    Dump the content of the given binary file previously created using --format binary. If no path is given, defaults to file check_pgactivity.out in the same directory as the script.

-t, --timeout TIMEOUT
    Timeout (default: "30s"), as raw (in seconds) or as an interval. This timeout will be used as statement_timeout for psql and URL timeout for minor_version service.

-l, --list
    List available services.

-V, --version
    Print version and exit.

--debug
    Print some debug messages.

-?, --help
    Show this help page.

  THRESHOLDS
THRESHOLDS provided as warning and critical values can be raw numbers, percentages, intervals or sizes. Each available service supports one or more formats (eg. a size and a percentage).

Percentage
    If THRESHOLD is a percentage, the value should end with a '%' (no space). For instance: 95%.

Interval
    If THRESHOLD is an interval, the following units are accepted (not case sensitive): s (second), m (minute), h (hour), d (day). You can use more than one unit per given value. If not set, the last unit is in seconds. For instance: "1h 55m 6" = "1h55m6s".

Size
    If THRESHOLD is a size, the following units are accepted (not case sensitive): b (Byte), kb (KB), mb (MB), gb (GB), tb (TB), pb (PB), eb (EB) or Zb (ZB). Only integers are accepted. Eg. 1.5MB will be refused, use 1500kB.

    The factor between units is 1024 bytes. Eg. 1g = 1G = 1024*1024*1024.

  CONNECTIONS
check_pgactivity allows two different connection specifications: by service or by specifying values for host, user, port, and database. Some services can run on multiple hosts, or needs to connect to multiple hosts.

You might specify one of the parameters below to connect to your PostgreSQL instance. If you don't, no connection parameters are given to psql: connection relies on binary defaults and environment.

The format for connection parameters is:

Parameter --dbservice SERVICE_NAME
    Define a new host using the given service. Multiple hosts can be defined by listing multiple services separated by a comma. Eg.

      --dbservice service1,service2

    For more information about service definition, see: <https://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/libpq-pgservice.html>

Parameters --host HOST, --port PORT, --user ROLE or --dbname DATABASE
    One parameter is enough to define a new host. Usual environment variables (PGHOST, PGPORT, PGDATABASE, PGUSER, PGSERVICE, PGPASSWORD) or default values are used for missing parameters.

    As for usual PostgreSQL tools, there is no command line argument to set the password, to avoid exposing it. Use PGPASSWORD, .pgpass or a service file (recommended).

    If multiple values are given, define as many host as maximum given values.

    Values are associated by position. Eg.:

      --host h1,h2 --port 5432,5433

    Means "host=h1 port=5432" and "host=h2 port=5433".

    If the number of values is different between parameters, any host missing a parameter will use the first given value for this parameter. Eg.:

      --host h1,h2 --port 5433

    Means: "host=h1 port=5433" and "host=h2 port=5433".

Services are defined first
    For instance:

      --dbservice s1 --host h1 --port 5433

    means: use "service=s1" and "host=h1 port=5433" in this order. If the service supports only one host, the second host is ignored.

Mutual exclusion between both methods
    You can not overwrite services connections variables with parameters --host HOST, --port PORT, --user ROLE or --dbname DATABASE

  SERVICES
Descriptions and parameters of available services.

archive_folder
    Check if all archived WALs exist between the oldest and the latest WAL in the archive folder and make sure they are 16MB. The given folder must have archived files from ONE cluster. The version of PostgreSQL that created the archives is only checked on the last one, for performance consideration.

    This service requires the argument --path on the command line to specify the archive folder path to check. Obviously, it must have access to this folder at the filesystem level: you may have to execute it on the archiving server rather than on the PostgreSQL instance.

    The optional argument --suffix defines the suffix of your archived WALs; this is useful for compressed WALs (eg. .gz, .bz2, ...). Default is no suffix.

    This service needs to read the header of one of the archives to define how many segments a WAL owns. Check_pgactivity automatically handles files with extensions .gz, .bz2, .xz, .zip or .7z using the following commands:

      gzip -dc
      bzip2 -dc
      xz -dc
      unzip -qqp
      7z x -so

    If needed, provide your own command that writes the uncompressed file to standard output with the --unarchiver argument.

    Optional argument --ignore-wal-size skips the WAL size check. This is useful if your archived WALs are compressed and check_pgactivity is unable to guess the original size. Here are the commands check_pgactivity uses to guess the original size of .gz, .xz or .zip files:

      gzip -ql
      xz -ql
      unzip -qql

    Default behaviour is to check the WALs size.

    Perfdata contains the number of archived WALs and the age of the most recent one.

    Critical and Warning define the max age of the latest archived WAL as an interval (eg. 5m or 300s ).

    Required privileges: unprivileged role; the system user needs read access to archived WAL files.

    Sample commands:

      check_pgactivity -s archive_folder --path /path/to/archives -w 15m -c 30m
      check_pgactivity -s archive_folder --path /path/to/archives --suffix .gz -w 15m -c 30m
      check_pgactivity -s archive_folder --path /path/to/archives --ignore-wal-size --suffix .bz2 -w 15m -c 30m
      check_pgactivity -s archive_folder --path /path/to/archives --unarchiver "unrar p" --ignore-wal-size --suffix .rar -w 15m -c 30m

archiver (8.1+)
    Check if the archiver is working properly and the number of WAL files ready to archive.

    Perfdata returns the number of WAL files waiting to be archived.

    Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They apply on the number of files waiting to be archived. They only accept a raw number of files.

    Whatever the given threshold, a critical alert is raised if the archiver process did not archive the oldest waiting WAL to be archived since last call.

    Required privileges: superuser (<v10), <v10: superuser, v10: nonsuper user but output will lack perfdata oldest_ready_wal or superuser, v10+: grant execute on function pg_stat_file(text, bool).

autovacuum (8.1+)
    Check the autovacuum activity on the cluster.

    Perfdata contains the age of oldest running autovacuum and the number of workers by type (VACUUM, VACUUM ANALYZE, ANALYZE, VACUUM FREEZE).

    Thresholds, if any, are ignored.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role.

backends (all)
    Check the total number of connections in the PostgreSQL cluster.

    Perfdata contains the number of connections per database.

    Critical and Warning thresholds accept either a raw number or a percentage (eg. 80%). When a threshold is a percentage, it is compared to the difference between the cluster parameters max_connections and superuser_reserved_connections.

    Autovacuum workers and walsender process are ignored. To check autovacuum, use the autovacuum service.

    Required privileges: an unprivileged user only sees its own queries; a pg_monitor (10+) or superuser (<10) role is required to see all queries.

backends_status (8.2+)
    Check the status of all backends. Depending on your PostgreSQL version, statuses are: idle, idle in transaction, idle in transaction (aborted) (>=9.0 only), fastpath function call, active, waiting for lock, undefined, disabled and insufficient privilege. insufficient privilege appears when you are not allowed to see the statuses of other connections.

    This service supports the argument --exclude REGEX to exclude queries matching the given regular expression.

    You can use multiple --exclude REGEX arguments.

    Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They accept a list of 'status_label=value' separated by a comma. Available labels are idle, idle_xact, aborted_xact, fastpath, active and waiting. Values are raw numbers or time units and empty lists are forbidden. Here is an example:

        -w 'waiting=5,idle_xact=10' -c 'waiting=20,idle_xact=30,active=1d'

    Perfdata contains the number of backends for each status and the oldest one for each of them, for 8.2+.

    Note that the number of backends reported in Nagios message includes excluded backends.

    Required privileges: an unprivileged user only sees its own queries; a pg_monitor (10+) or superuser (<10) role is required to see all queries.

checksum_errors (12+)
    Check for data checksums error, reported in pg_stat_database.

    This service requires that data checksums are enabled on the target instance. UNKNOWN will be returned if that's not the case.

    Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They only accept a raw number of checksums errors per database. If the thresholds are not provided, a default value of `1` will be used for both thresholds.

    Checksums errors are CRITICAL issues, so it's highly recommended to keep default threshold, as immediate action should be taken as soon as such a problem arises.

    Perfdata contains the number of error per database.

    Required privileges: unprivileged user.

backup_label_age (8.1+)
    Check the age of the backup label file.

    Perfdata returns the age of the backup_label file, -1 if not present.

    Critical and Warning thresholds only accept an interval (eg. 1h30m25s).

    Required privileges: grant execute on function pg_stat_file(text, boolean) (pg12+); unprivileged role (9.3+); superuser (<9.3)

bgwriter (8.3+)
    Check the percentage of pages written by backends since last check.

    This service uses the status file (see --status-file parameter).

    Perfdata contains the ratio per second for each pg_stat_bgwriter counter since last execution. Units Nps for checkpoints, max written clean and fsyncs are the number of "events" per second.

    Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. If set, they only accept a percentage.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role.

btree_bloat
    Estimate bloat on B-tree indexes.

    Warning and critical thresholds accept a comma-separated list of either raw number(for a size), size (eg. 125M) or percentage. The thresholds apply to bloat size, not object size. If a percentage is given, the threshold will apply to the bloat size compared to the total index size. If multiple threshold values are passed, check_pgactivity will choose the largest (bloat size) value.

    This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters. The 'postgres' database and templates are always excluded.

    It also supports a --exclude REGEX parameter to exclude relations matching a regular expression. The regular expression applies to "database.schema_name.relation_name". This enables you to filter either on a relation name for all schemas and databases, on a qualified named relation (schema + relation) for all databases or on a qualified named relation in only one database.

    You can use multiple --exclude REGEX parameters.

    Perfdata will return the number of indexes of concern, by warning and critical threshold per database.

    A list of the bloated indexes will be returned after the perfdata. This list contains the fully qualified bloated index name, the estimated bloat size, the index size and the bloat percentage.

    Required privileges: superuser (<10) able to log in all databases, or at least those in --dbinclude; superuser (<10); on PostgreSQL 10+, a user with the role pg_monitor suffices, provided that you grant SELECT on the system table pg_statistic to the pg_monitor role, in each database of the cluster: GRANT SELECT ON pg_statistic TO pg_monitor;

session_stats (14+)
    Gather miscellaneous session statistics.

    This service uses the status file (see --status-file parameter).

    Perfdata contains the session / active / idle-in-transaction times for each database since last call, as well as the number of sessions per second, and the number of sessions killed / abandoned / terminated by fatal errors.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role.

commit_ratio (all)
    Check the commit and rollback rate per second since last call.

    This service uses the status file (see --status-file parameter).

    Perfdata contains the commit rate, rollback rate, transaction rate and rollback ratio for each database since last call.

    Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They accept a list of comma separated 'label=value'. Available labels are rollbacks, rollback_rate and rollback_ratio, which will be compared to the number of rollbacks, the rollback rate and the rollback ratio of each database. Warning or critical will be raised if the reported value is greater than rollbacks, rollback_rate or rollback_ratio.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role.

configuration (8.0+)
    Check the most important settings.

    Warning and Critical thresholds are ignored.

    Specific parameters are : --work_mem, --maintenance_work_mem, --shared_buffers,--wal_buffers, --checkpoint_segments, --effective_cache_size, --no_check_autovacuum, --no_check_fsync, --no_check_enable, --no_check_track_counts.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role.

connection (all)
    Perform a simple connection test.

    No perfdata is returned.

    This service ignores critical and warning arguments.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role.

custom_query (all)
    Perform the given user query.

    Specify the query with --query. The first column will be used to perform the test for the status if warning and critical are provided.

    The warning and critical arguments are optional. They can be of format integer (default), size or time depending on the --type argument. Warning and Critical will be raised if they are greater than the first column, or less if the --reverse option is used.

    All other columns will be used to generate the perfdata. Each field name is used as the name of the perfdata. The field value must contain your perfdata value and its unit appended to it. You can add as many fields as needed. Eg.:

      SELECT pg_database_size('postgres'),
             pg_database_size('postgres')||'B' AS db_size

    Required privileges: unprivileged role (depends on the query).

database_size (8.1+)
    Check the variation of database sizes, and return the size of every databases.

    This service uses the status file (see --status-file parameter).

    Perfdata contains the size of each database and their size delta since last call.

    Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They are a list of optional 'label=value' separated by a comma. It allows to fine tune the alert based on the absolute size and/or the delta size. Eg.:

        -w 'size=500GB' -c 'size=600GB'
        -w 'delta=1%' -c 'delta=10%'
        -w 'size=500GB,delta=1%' -c 'size=600GB,delta=10GB'

    The size label accepts either a raw number or a size and checks the total database size. The delta label accepts either a raw number, a percentage, or a size. The aim of the delta parameter is to detect unexpected database size variations. Delta thresholds are absolute value, and delta percentages are computed against the previous database size. A same label must be filled for both warning and critical.

    For backward compatibility, if a single raw number or percentage or size is given with no label, it applies on the size difference for each database since the last execution. Both threshold bellow are equivalent:

        -w 'delta=1%' -c 'delta=10%'
        -w '1%' -c '10%'

    This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role.

extensions_versions (9.1+)
    Check all extensions installed in all databases (including templates) and raise a critical alert if the current version is not the default version available on the instance (according to pg_available_extensions).

    Typically, it is used to detect forgotten extension upgrades after package upgrades or a pg_upgrade.

    Perfdata returns the number of outdated extensions in each database.

    This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters. Schemas are ignored, as an extension cannot be installed more than once in a database.

    This service supports multiple --exclude argument to exclude one or more extensions from the check. To ignore an extension only in a particular database, use 'dbname/extension_name' syntax.

    Examples:

        --dbexclude 'devdb' --exclude 'testdb/postgis' --exclude 'testdb/postgis_topology'
        --dbinclude 'proddb' --dbinclude 'testdb'  --exclude 'powa'

    Required privileges: unprivileged role able to log in all databases

hit_ratio (all)
    Check the cache hit ratio on the cluster.

    This service uses the status file (see --status-file parameter).

    Perfdata returns the cache hit ratio per database. Template databases and databases that do not allow connections will not be checked, nor will the databases which have never been accessed.

    Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They only accept a percentage.

    This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role.

slru_hit_ratio (13+)
    Check the cache SLRU ratio on the cluster.

    This service uses the status file (see --status-file parameter).

    Perfdata returns the cache SLRU ratio for one cluster.

    Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They only accept a percentage.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role.

hot_standby_delta (9.0)
    Check the data delta between a cluster and its hot standbys.

    You must give the connection parameters for two or more clusters.

    Perfdata returns the data delta in bytes between the master and each hot standby cluster listed.

    Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They can take one or two values separated by a comma. If only one value given, it applies to both received and replayed data. If two values are given, the first one applies to received data, the second one to replayed ones. These thresholds only accept a size (eg. 2.5G).

    This service raises a Critical if it doesn't find exactly ONE valid master cluster (ie. critical when 0 or 2 and more masters).

    Required privileges: unprivileged role.

is_hot_standby (9.0+)
    Checks if the cluster is in recovery and accepts read only queries.

    This service ignores critical and warning arguments.

    No perfdata is returned.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role.

is_master (all)
    Checks if the cluster accepts read and/or write queries. This state is reported as "in production" by pg_controldata.

    This service ignores critical and warning arguments.

    No perfdata is returned.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role.

invalid_indexes (8.2+)
    Check if there are invalid indexes in a database.

    A critical alert is raised if an invalid index is detected.

    This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters. The 'postgres' database and templates are always excluded.

    This service supports a --exclude REGEX parameter to exclude indexes matching a regular expression. The regular expression applies to "database.schema_name.index_name". This enables you to filter either on a relation name for all schemas and databases, on a qualified named index (schema + index) for all databases or on a qualified named index in only one database.

    You can use multiple --exclude REGEX parameters.

    Perfdata will return the number of invalid indexes per database.

    A list of invalid indexes will be returned after the perfdata. This list contains the fully qualified index name. If excluded index is set, the number of exclude indexes is returned.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role able to log in all databases.

unused_indexes (8.2+)
    Check if there are unused indexes in a database.

    A warning alert is raised if an unused index is detected.

    This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters. The 'postgres' database and templates are always excluded.

    This service supports a --exclude REGEX parameter to exclude indexes matching a regular expression. The regular expression applies to "database.schema_name.index_name". This enables you to filter either on a relation name for all schemas and databases, on a qualified named index (schema + index) for all databases or on a qualified named index in only one database.

    You can use multiple --exclude REGEX parameters.

    Perfdata will return the number of unused indexes per database.

    A list of unused indexes will be returned after the perfdata. This list contains the fully qualified index name. If excluded index is set, the number of excluded indexes is returned.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role able to log in all databases.

is_replay_paused (9.1+)
    Checks if the replication is paused. The service will return UNKNOWN if executed on a master server.

    Thresholds are optional. They must be specified as interval. OK will always be returned if the standby is not paused, even if replication delta time hits the thresholds.

    Critical or warning are raised if last reported replayed timestamp is greater than given threshold AND some data received from the master are not applied yet. OK will always be returned if the standby is paused, or if the standby has already replayed everything from master and until some write activity happens on the master.

    Perfdata returned:
      * paused status (0 no, 1 yes, NaN if master)
      * lag time (in second)
      * data delta with master (0 no, 1 yes)

    Required privileges: unprivileged role.

last_analyze (8.2+)
    Check on each databases that the oldest analyze (from autovacuum or not) is not older than the given threshold. This is to check that a scheduled ANALYZE is working correctly.

    This service uses the status file (see --status-file parameter) with PostgreSQL 9.1+.

    Perfdata returns oldest analyze per database in seconds. With PostgreSQL 9.1+, the number of [auto]analyses per database since last call is also returned.

    Critical and Warning thresholds only accept an interval (eg. 24h30m) and apply to the oldest execution of analyse.

    Tables that were never analyzed, or whose analyze date was lost due to a crash, will raise a critical alert.

    NOTE: this service does not raise alerts if the database had strictly no writes since last call. In consequence, a read-only database can have its oldest analyze reported in perfdata way after your thresholds, but not raise any alerts, unless you change a threshold.

    This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters. The 'postgres' database and templates are always excluded.

    This service supports a --exclude REGEX parameter to exclude relations matching a regular expression. The regular expression applies to "database.schema_name.relation_name". This enables you to filter either on a relation name for all schemas and databases, on a qualified named relation (schema + relation) for all databases or on a qualified named relation in only one database.

    You can use multiple --exclude REGEX parameters.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role able to log in all databases.

last_vacuum (8.2+)
    Check that the oldest vacuum (from autovacuum or otherwise) in each database in the cluster is not older than the given threshold. This is to check that a scheduled VACUUM is working correctly.

    This service uses the status file (see --status-file parameter) with PostgreSQL 9.1+.

    Perfdata returns oldest vacuum per database in seconds. With PostgreSQL 9.1+, it also returns the number of [auto]vacuums per database since last execution.

    Critical and Warning thresholds only accept an interval (eg. 24h30m) and apply to the oldest vacuum.

    Tables that were never vacuumed, or whose vacuum date was lost due to a crash, will raise a critical alert.

    NOTE: this service does not raise alerts if the database had strictly no writes since last call. In consequence, a read-only database can have its oldest vacuum reported in perfdata way after your thresholds, but not raise any alerts, unless you change a threshold.

    This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters. The 'postgres' database and templates are always excluded.

    This service supports a --exclude REGEX parameter to exclude relations matching a regular expression. The regular expression applies to "database.schema_name.relation_name". This enables you to filter either on a relation name for all schemas and databases, on a qualified named relation (schema + relation) for all databases or on a qualified named relation in only one database.

    You can use multiple --exclude REGEX parameters.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role able to log in all databases.

locks (all)
    Check the number of locks on the hosts.

    Perfdata returns the number of locks, by type.

    Critical and Warning thresholds accept either a raw number of locks or a percentage. For percentage, it is computed using the following limits for 7.4 to 8.1:

      max_locks_per_transaction * max_connections

    for 8.2+:

      max_locks_per_transaction * (max_connections + max_prepared_transactions)

    for 9.1+, regarding lockmode :

      max_locks_per_transaction * (max_connections + max_prepared_transactions)
    or max_pred_locks_per_transaction * (max_connections + max_prepared_transactions)

    Required privileges: unprivileged role.

longest_query (all)
    Check the longest running query in the cluster.

    Perfdata contains the max/avg/min running time and the number of queries per database.

    Critical and Warning thresholds only accept an interval.

    This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters.

    It also supports argument --exclude REGEX to exclude queries matching the given regular expression from the check.

    Above 9.0, it also supports --exclude REGEX to filter out application_name.

    You can use multiple --exclude REGEX parameters.

    Required privileges: an unprivileged role only checks its own queries; a pg_monitor (10+) or superuser (<10) role is required to check all queries.

max_freeze_age (all)
    Checks oldest database by transaction age.

    Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They accept either a raw number or percentage for PostgreSQL 8.2 and more. If percentage is given, the thresholds are computed based on the "autovacuum_freeze_max_age" parameter. 100% means that some table(s) reached the maximum age and will trigger an autovacuum freeze. Percentage thresholds should therefore be greater than 100%.

    Even with no threshold, this service will raise a critical alert if a database has a negative age.

    Perfdata returns the age of each database.

    This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role.

minor_version (all)
    Check if the cluster is running the most recent minor version of PostgreSQL.

    Latest versions of PostgreSQL can be fetched from PostgreSQL official website if check_pgactivity has access to it, or must be given as a parameter.

    Without --critical or --warning parameters, this service attempts to fetch the latest version numbers online. A critical alert is raised if the minor version is not the most recent.

    You can optionally set the path to your prefered retrieval tool using the --path parameter (eg. --path '/usr/bin/wget'). Supported programs are: GET, wget, curl, fetch, lynx, links, links2.

    If you do not want to (or cannot) query the PostgreSQL website, provide the expected versions using either --warning OR --critical, depending on which return value you want to raise.

    The given string must contain one or more MINOR versions separated by anything but a '.'. For instance, the following parameters are all equivalent:

      --critical "10.1 9.6.6 9.5.10 9.4.15 9.3.20 9.2.24 9.1.24 9.0.23 8.4.22"
      --critical "10.1, 9.6.6, 9.5.10, 9.4.15, 9.3.20, 9.2.24, 9.1.24, 9.0.23, 8.4.22"
      --critical "10.1,9.6.6,9.5.10,9.4.15,9.3.20,9.2.24,9.1.24,9.0.23,8.4.22"
      --critical "10.1/9.6.6/9.5.10/9.4.15/9.3.20/9.2.24/9.1.24/9.0.23/8.4.22"

    Any other value than 3 numbers separated by dots (before version 10.x) or 2 numbers separated by dots (version 10 and above) will be ignored. If the running PostgreSQL major version is not found, the service raises an unknown status.

    Perfdata returns the numerical version of PostgreSQL.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role; access to http://www.postgresql.org required to download version numbers.

oldest_2pc (8.1+)
    Check the oldest two-phase commit transaction (aka. prepared transaction) in the cluster.

    Perfdata contains the max/avg age time and the number of prepared transactions per databases.

    Critical and Warning thresholds only accept an interval.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role.

oldest_idlexact (8.3+)
    Check the oldest idle transaction.

    Perfdata contains the max/avg age and the number of idle transactions per databases.

    Critical and Warning thresholds only accept an interval.

    This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters.

    Above 9.2, it supports --exclude to filter out connections. Eg., to filter out pg_dump and pg_dumpall, set this to 'pg_dump,pg_dumpall'.

    Before 9.2, this services checks for idle transaction with their start time. Thus, the service can mistakenly take account of transaction transiently in idle state. From 9.2 and up, the service checks for transaction that really had no activity since the given thresholds.

    Required privileges: an unprivileged role checks only its own queries; a pg_monitor (10+) or superuser (<10) role is required to check all queries.

oldest_xmin (8.4+)
    Check the xmin horizon from distinct sources of xmin retention.

    Per default, Perfdata outputs the oldest known xmin age for each database among running queries, opened or idle transactions, pending prepared transactions, replication slots and walsender. For versions prior to 9.4, only 2pc source of xmin retention is checked.

    Using --detailed, Perfdata contains the oldest xmin and maximum age for the following source of xmin retention: query (a running query), active_xact (an opened transaction currently executing a query), idle_xact (an opened transaction being idle), 2pc (a pending prepared transaction), repslot (a replication slot) and walwender (a WAL sender replication process), for each connectable database. If a source doesn't retain any transaction for a database, NaN is returned. For versions prior to 9.4, only 2pc source of xmin retention is available, so other sources won't appear in the perfdata. Note that xmin retention from walsender is only set if hot_standby_feedback is enabled on remote standby.

    Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They only accept a raw number of transaction.

    This service supports both --dbexclude" and --dbinclude" parameters.

    Required privileges: a pg_read_all_stats (10+) or superuser (<10) role is required to check pg_stat_replication. 2PC, pg_stat_activity, and replication slots don't require special privileges.

pg_dump_backup
    Check the age and size of backups.

    This service uses the status file (see --status-file parameter).

    The --path argument contains the location to the backup folder. The supported format is a glob pattern matching every folder or file that you need to check.

    The --pattern is required, and must contain a regular expression matching the backup file name, extracting the database name from the first matching group.

    Optionally, a --global-pattern option can be supplied to check for an additional global file.

    Examples:

    To monitor backups like:

        /var/lib/backups/mydb-20150803.dump
        /var/lib/backups/otherdb-20150803.dump
        /var/lib/backups/mydb-20150804.dump
        /var/lib/backups/otherdb-20150804.dump

    you must set:

        --path    '/var/lib/backups/*'
        --pattern '(\w+)-\d+.dump'

    If the path contains the date, like this:

       /var/lib/backups/2015-08-03-daily/mydb.dump
       /var/lib/backups/2015-08-03-daily/otherdb.dump

    then you can set:

        --path    '/var/lib/backups/*/*.dump'
        --pattern '/\d+-\d+-\d+-daily/(.*).dump'

    For compatibility with pg_back (https://github.com/orgrim/pg_back), you should use:

       --path '/path/*{dump,sql}'
       --pattern '(\w+)_[0-9-_]+.dump'
       --global-pattern 'pg_global_[0-9-_]+.sql'

    The --critical and --warning thresholds are optional. They accept a list of 'metric=value' separated by a comma. Available metrics are oldest and newest, respectively the age of the oldest and newest backups, and size, which must be the maximum variation of size since the last check, expressed as a size or a percentage. mindeltasize, expressed in B, is the minimum variation of size needed to raise an alert.

    This service supports the --dbinclude and --dbexclude arguments, to respectively test for the presence of include or exclude files.

    The argument --exclude enables you to exclude files younger than an interval. This is useful to ignore files from a backup in progress. Eg., if your backup process takes 2h, set this to '125m'.

    Perfdata returns the age of the oldest and newest backups, as well as the size of the newest backups.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role; the system user needs read access on the directory containing the dumps (but not on the dumps themselves).

pgss_dealloc (14+)
    Check number of pg_stat_statements deallocations.

    Too many deallocations can have a negative performance impact. This could be due to:
      * an application performing many different queries (ORM, lists of varying length, ...)
      * some utility statements (SET application_name...).
        In this case, try to disable pg_stat_statements.track_utility.
      * pg_stat_statements.max is too low

    This service uses the status file (see --status-file parameter).

    The --critical and --warning thresholds are optional. Warning or critical will be raised if the number of deallocations since the previous check exceeds the thresholds.

    Perfdata returns a counter of deallocs since last call.

    The pg_stat_statements extension must be installed in the database you're connecting into (including shared_preload_libraries setup).

    Required privileges: unprivileged role able to log in to any database in which the pg_stat_statements extension has been installed.

pga_version
    Check if this script is running the given version of check_pgactivity. You must provide the expected version using either --warning OR --critical.

    No perfdata is returned.

    Required privileges: none.

pgdata_permission (8.2+)
    Check that the instance data directory rights are 700, and belongs to the system user currently running postgresql.

    The check on rights works on all Unix systems.

    Checking the user only works on Linux systems (it uses /proc to avoid dependencies). Before 9.3, you need to provide the expected owner using the --uid argument, or the owner will not be checked.

    Required privileges:
     <11:superuser
     v11: user with pg_monitor or pg_read_all_setting The system user must also be able to read the folder containing PGDATA: the service has to be executed locally on the monitored server.

replication_slots (9.4+)
    Check the number of WAL files retained and spilled files for each replication slots.

    Perfdata returns the number of WAL kept for each slot and the number of spilled files in pg_replslot for each logical replication slot. Since v13, if max_slot_wal_keep_size is greater or equal to 0, perfdata reports the size of WAL to produce before each slot becomes unreserved or lost. Note that this size can become negative if the WAL status for the limited time where the slot becomes unreserved. It is set to zero as soon as the last checkpoint finished and the status becomes lost.

    This service needs superuser privileges to obtain the number of spill files or returns 0 in last resort.

    Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They accept either a raw number (for backward compatibility, only wal threshold will be used) or a list of 'wal=value' and/or 'spilled=value' and/or 'remaining=size'. Respectively number of kept wal files, number of spilled files in pg_replslot for each logical slot and remaining bytes before a slot becomes unreserved or lost.

    Moreover, with v13 and after, the service raises a warning alert if a slot becomes unreserved. It raises a critical alert if the slot becomes lost.

    Required privileges:
     v9.4: unprivileged role, or superuser to monitor spilled files for logical replication
     v11+: unprivileged user with GRANT EXECUTE on function pg_ls_dir(text)

    Here is somes examples:

        -w 'wal=50,spilled=20' -c 'wal=100,spilled=40'
        -w 'spilled=20,remaining=160MB' -c 'spilled=40,remaining=48MB'

settings (9.0+)
    Check if the current settings have changed since they were stored in the service file.

    The "known" settings are recorded during the very first call of the service. To update the known settings after a configuration change, call this service again with the argument --save.

    No perfdata.

    The Critical thresholds is ignored.

    Warning is raised when the time since configuration change is less than the warning threshold. Obviously these alerts will disappear from themselves once enough time has passed. This doesn't apply for configuration changes with pending restart warnings.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role.

sequences_exhausted (7.4+)
    Check all sequences and raise an alarm if the column or sequences gets too close to the maximum value. The maximum value is calculated from the maxvalue of the sequence or from the column type when the sequence is owned by a column (the smallserial, serial and bigserial types).

    Perfdata returns the sequences that trigger the alert.

    This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters. The 'postgres' database and templates are always excluded.

    Critical and Warning thresholds accept a percentage of the sequence filled.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role able to log in all databases

stat_snapshot_age (9.5 to 14 included)
    Check the age of the statistics snapshot (statistics collector's statistics). This probe helps to detect a frozen stats collector process.

    Perfdata returns the statistics snapshot age.

    Critical and Warning thresholds only accept an interval (eg. 1h30m25s).

    Required privileges: unprivileged role.

streaming_delta (9.1+)
    Check the data delta between a cluster and its standbys in streaming replication.

    Optional argument --slave allows you to specify some slaves that MUST be connected. This argument can be used as many times as desired to check multiple slave connections, or you can specify multiple slaves connections at one time, using comma separated values. Both methods can be used in a single call. The provided values must be of the form "APPLICATION_NAME IP". Both following examples will check for the presence of two slaves:

      --slave 'slave1 192.168.1.11' --slave 'slave2 192.168.1.12'
      --slave 'slave1 192.168.1.11','slave2 192.168.1.12'

    This service supports a --exclude REGEX parameter to exclude every result matching a regular expression on application_name or IP address fields.

    You can use multiple --exclude REGEX parameters.

    Perfdata returns the data delta in bytes between the master and every standbies found, the number of standbies connected and the number of excluded standbies.

    Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They can take one or two values separated by a comma. If only one value is supplied, it applies to both flushed and replayed data. If two values are supplied, the first one applies to flushed data, the second one to replayed data. These thresholds only accept a size (eg. 2.5G).

    Required privileges: unprivileged role.

table_unlogged (9.5+)
    Check if tables are changed to unlogged. In 9.5, you can switch between logged and unlogged.

    Without --critical or --warning parameters, this service attempts to fetch all unlogged tables.

    A critical alert is raised if an unlogged table is detected.

    This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters. The 'postgres' database and templates are always excluded.

    This service supports a --exclude REGEX parameter to exclude relations matching a regular expression. The regular expression applies to "database.schema_name.relation_name". This enables you to filter either on a relation name for all schemas and databases, on a qualified named relation (schema + relation) for all databases or on a qualified named relation in only one database.

    You can use multiple --exclude REGEX parameters.

    Perfdata will return the number of unlogged tables per database.

    A list of the unlogged tables will be returned after the perfdata. This list contains the fully qualified table name. If --exclude REGEX is set, the number of excluded tables is returned.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role able to log in all databases, or at least those in --dbinclude.

relation_size (9.0+)
    Check relations' size.

    Without --critical or --warning parameters, this service attempts to fetch all relations' size.

    An alert is raised if an relation's size is above the warning or critical level.

    This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters. The 'postgres' database and templates are always excluded.

    This service supports a --exclude REGEX parameter to exclude relations matching a regular expression. The regular expression applies to "database.schema_name.relation_name". This enables you to filter either on a relation name for all schemas and databases, on a qualified named relation (schema + relation) for all databases or on a qualified named relation in only one database.

    You can use multiple --exclude REGEX parameters.

    Perfdata will return the number of relations per database.

    A list of the relations and their sizes will be returned after the perfdata. This list contains the fully qualified relation name. If --exclude REGEX is set, the number of excluded relations is returned.

    Required privileges: unprivileged role able to log in all databases, or at least those in --dbinclude.

table_bloat
    Estimate bloat on tables.

    Warning and critical thresholds accept a comma-separated list of either raw number(for a size), size (eg. 125M) or percentage. The thresholds apply to bloat size, not object size. If a percentage is given, the threshold will apply to the bloat size compared to the table + TOAST size. If multiple threshold values are passed, check_pgactivity will choose the largest (bloat size) value.

    This service supports both --dbexclude and --dbinclude parameters. The 'postgres' database and templates are always excluded.

    This service supports a --exclude REGEX parameter to exclude relations matching the given regular expression. The regular expression applies to "database.schema_name.relation_name". This enables you to filter either on a relation name for all schemas and databases, on a qualified named relation (schema + relation) for all databases or on a qualified named relation in only one database.

    You can use multiple --exclude REGEX parameters.

    Warning: With a non-superuser role, this service can only check the tables that the given role is granted to read!

    Perfdata will return the number of tables matching the warning and critical thresholds, per database.

    A list of the bloated tables will be returned after the perfdata. This list contains the fully qualified bloated table name, the estimated bloat size, the table size and the bloat percentage.

    Required privileges: superuser (<10) able to log in all databases, or at least those in --dbinclude; superuser (<10); on PostgreSQL 10+, a user with the role pg_monitor suffices, provided that you grant SELECT on the system table pg_statistic to the pg_monitor role, in each database of the cluster: GRANT SELECT ON pg_statistic TO pg_monitor;

temp_files (8.1+)
    Check the number and size of temp files.

    This service uses the status file (see --status-file parameter) for 9.2+.

    Perfdata returns the number and total size of temp files found in pgsql_tmp folders. They are aggregated by database until 8.2, then by tablespace (see GUC temp_tablespaces).

    Starting with 9.2, perfdata returns as well the number of temp files per database since last run, the total size of temp files per database since last run and the rate at which temp files were generated.

    Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. They accept either a number of file (raw value), a size (unit is mandatory to define a size) or both values separated by a comma.

    Thresholds are applied on current temp files being created AND the number/size of temp files created since last execution.

    Required privileges:
     <10: superuser
     v10: an unprivileged role is possible but it will not monitor databases that it cannot access, nor live temp files
     v11: an unprivileged role is possible but must be granted EXECUTE on functions pg_ls_dir(text), pg_read_file(text), pg_stat_file(text, boolean); the same restrictions than on v10 will still apply
     v12+: a role with pg_monitor privilege.

hugepages (17+)
    Check whether huge pages are in use.

    The default is to expect the huge pages to be unused, if --with-hugepages is specified the service expects them to be in use.

    The perfdata returns the status where 0 is off, 1 is on and 2 is unknown.

uptime (8.1+)
    Returns time since postmaster start ("uptime", from 8.1), since configuration reload (from 8.4), and since shared memory initialization (from 10).

    Please note that the uptime is unaffected when the postmaster resets all its children (for example after a kill -9 on a process or a failure).

    From 10+, the 'time since shared memory init' aims at detecting this situation: in fact we use the age of the oldest non-client child process (usually checkpointer, writer or startup). This needs pg_monitor access to read pg_stat_activity.

    Critical and Warning thresholds are optional. If both are set, Critical is raised when the postmaster uptime or the time since shared memory initialization is less than the critical threshold.

    Warning is raised when the time since configuration reload is less than the warning threshold. If only a warning or critical threshold is given, it will be used for both cases. Obviously these alerts will disappear from themselves once enough time has passed.

    Perfdata contain the three values (when available).

    Required privileges: pg_monitor on PG10+; otherwise unprivileged role.

wal_files (8.1+)
    Check the number of WAL files.

    Perfdata returns the total number of WAL files, current number of written WAL, the current number of recycled WAL, the rate of WAL written to disk since the last execution on the master cluster and the current timeline.

    Critical and Warning thresholds accept either a raw number of files or a percentage. In case of percentage, the limit is computed based on:

      100% = 1 + checkpoint_segments * (2 + checkpoint_completion_target)

    For PostgreSQL 8.1 and 8.2:

      100% = 1 + checkpoint_segments * 2

    If wal_keep_segments is set for 9.0 to 9.4, the limit is the greatest of the following formulas:

      100% = 1 + checkpoint_segments * (2 + checkpoint_completion_target)
      100% = 1 + wal_keep_segments + 2 * checkpoint_segments

    For 9.5 to 12, the limit is:

      100% =  max_wal_size      (as a number of WAL)
            + wal_keep_segments (if set)

    For 13 and above:

      100% =  max_wal_size + wal_keep_size (as numbers of WAL)

    Required privileges:
     <10:superuser (<10)
     v10:unprivileged user with pg_monitor
     v11+ :unprivileged user with pg_monitor, or with grant EXECUTE on function pg_ls_waldir

  EXAMPLES

Execute service "last_vacuum" on host "host=localhost port=5432":
      check_pgactivity -h localhost -p 5432 -s last_vacuum -w 30m -c 1h30m

Execute service "hot_standby_delta" between hosts "service=pg92" and "service=pg92s":
      check_pgactivity --dbservice pg92,pg92s --service hot_standby_delta -w 32MB -c 160MB

Execute service "streaming_delta" on host "service=pg92" to check its slave "stby1" with the IP address "192.168.1.11":
      check_pgactivity --dbservice pg92 --slave "stby1 192.168.1.11" --service streaming_delta -w 32MB -c 160MB

Execute service "hit_ratio" on host "slave" port "5433, excluding database matching the regexps "idelone" and "(?i:sleep)":
      check_pgactivity -p 5433 -h slave --service hit_ratio --dbexclude idelone --dbexclude "(?i:sleep)" -w 90% -c 80%

Execute service "hit_ratio" on host "slave" port "5433, only for databases matching the regexp "importantone":
      check_pgactivity -p 5433 -h slave --service hit_ratio --dbinclude importantone -w 90% -c 80%

VERSION
check_pgactivity version 2.10, released on Mon May 18 2026.

LICENSING
This program is open source, licensed under the PostgreSQL license. For license terms, see the LICENSE provided with the sources.

AUTHORS
Author: Open PostgreSQL Monitoring Development Group Copyright: (C) 2012-2026 Open PostgreSQL Monitoring Development Group