From 8d2e69f114f3aa99d314a997a0b6e734274db77a Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Thomas Munro Date: Fri, 1 Dec 2017 15:34:23 +1300 Subject: [PATCH] Update documentation to mention huge pages on other OSes. Currently the docs imply that only Linux can use huge pages. That's not quite true: it's just that Linux is the only OS where we know how to request them explicitly. Author: Thomas Munro Reviewed-By: Justin Pryzby, Peter Eisentraut Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CAEepm=3qzR-hfjepymohuC4XO5phxoSoipOjm6BEhnJHjNR+jg@mail.gmail.com --- doc/src/sgml/config.sgml | 13 ++++++++++--- 1 file changed, 10 insertions(+), 3 deletions(-) diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml index 3060597011d..8b6a8beb0a3 100644 --- a/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml +++ b/doc/src/sgml/config.sgml @@ -1363,14 +1363,21 @@ include_dir 'conf.d' - Enables/disables the use of huge memory pages. Valid values are - try (the default), on, - and off. + Controls whether huge memory pages are requested for the main shared + memory area. Valid values are try (the default), + on, and off. At present, this feature is supported only on Linux. The setting is ignored on other systems when set to try. + Note that some other operating systems including FreeBSD and Illumos + can use huge pages (also known as "super" pages or "large" pages) + automatically without an explicit request from + PostgreSQL. Linux + also has an optional "transparent huge pages" feature, but its + performance has shown to be inferior to that of explicitly requested + huge pages on some versions. -- 2.15.0