Hi Paul, thanks for your answer. Some notes.

"Paul Reeves" <paul@...> wrote:

> Omar Estepa wrote:
> >
> > Hi,
> >
> > We was having problems with our Linux database server (about 6 GB,
> > IBSS_LI-V6.0), it seems to be overloaded by garbage collection >>

(after mass

> > deletion, I think). No problem, I go to our backup/restore daily

script and

> > add the "-g" option to gbak commands and it works fine. The

database check

> > tells me everything is OK and backups works fine (with "-g").
>
> gbak -g causes gbak to run with garbage collection disabled. You

should only

> add this switch if you are going to use the subsequently restored

database in

> production.

Yes. That's right.

> > But few days later we have de same problem, the server slows down

again

> > (100% CPU time usage) when the users was working (no

backup/restore process

> > was running at this time). Auto-sweep is turned off.
>
> You shouldn't turn auto-sweep off in 6.0. That was a v4/v5 thing.

OK.

> > Can the IB server automatically run the garbage collection? If it

can, can I

> > dissable this feature? Does anybody have another idea?
>
> V6 saw the introduction of background threads to handle garbage

collection.

> You really shouldn't need to change sweep from its default value.
>
> If you are doing mass deletes then there are a couple of things to

look at.

> Firstly, if the contents of the entire table are to be deleted then

dropping

> the table and recreating it is cheaper than deleting records. There

is even a

> new command in Firebird to assist this.
>
> If you are not deleting all the records in a table then look at

disabling the

> non-system indexes on the table prior to the delete and activating

them again

> when the delete has been committed.

Hummm. That's not a good solution in our situation.... We should need
to edit many many procedures.
Aren't there some method to disable this "background garbage
collection"?

If no solution I will try to get the Firebird source code, edit,
compile and pride...
Does somebody known where/when the garbage collection
is "automatically" activated?

Omar