Description
ipcclean removes all shared memory segments and
semaphore sets owned by the current user. It is intended to be
used for cleaning up after a crashed
PostgreSQL server (postmaster). Note that immediately restarting the
server will also clean up shared memory and semaphores, so this
command is of little real utility.
Only the database administrator should execute this program as it
can cause bizarre behavior (i.e., crashes) if run during multiuser
execution. If this command is executed while a
postmaster is running, the shared memory
and semaphores allocated by the
postmaster will be deleted. This will
result in a general failure of the backend servers started by that
postmaster.
Notes
This script is a hack, but in the many years since it was written,
no one has come up with an equally effective and portable solution.
Since the postmaster can now clean up by
itself, it is unlikely that ipcclean will be
improved upon in the future.
The script makes assumption about the format of output of the
ipcs
utility which may not be true across different operating systems.
Therefore, it may not work on your particular OS.
