Breakout Session
summary
Captures Postgres traffic off the wire using VividCortex TCP sniffing libraries and a libpcap-based reassembly pipeline, emitting a MySQL slow‑query–style text stream that aggregates neatly. Demo records 50 calls and feeds them to PT Query Digest for heavy‑hitter analysis. Overhead measures under ~1% total CPU and ~20MB memory on typical hosts; works on Linux and FreeBSD. Limitations include inability to decode SSL without keys, occasional dropped packets and missed prepared‑statement context. Tool name: vc-pgsql-sniffer from VividCortex.
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chapters (4)
- 0:00Start
- 0:19BACKGROUND • VividCortex has an agent- based architecture • Agents are self-contained and written in Go • Sniffing/decoding TCP is a key competency • There is a lot of very smart code in them • Performance is critical
- 11:00I'VE DONE LOG ANALYSIS • I've built powerful tools for PG log analysis • But logs in general have a lot of problems • Performance overhead • Operational risk • Difficulty of enabling, collecting and analyzing
- 15:26TRAFFIC CAPTURE • TCP capture + decode is a good option! • Low overhead • No reconfiguration • No operational hazards • Cons: no SSL, no Unix socket capture, packet loss, unknown prepared statements...
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