Introduction

I get asked many questions about parameter settings in PostgreSQL.

Everybody's busy and most people want the five minute tour of how things work. That's exactly what a Cookbook does, so we'll do our best.

Some people believe that there are some magic parameter settings that will improve their performance, spending hours combing the pages of books to glean insights. Others already feel comfortable because they found some website somewhere that "explains everything", and they "know" they have their database configured OK.

For the most part, the settings are easy to understand. Finding the best setting can be difficult, and the optimal setting may change over time in some cases. This section is mostly about knowing how, when and where to change parameter settings.