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4.7.2 When To Log

client_min_messages (string)

Controls which message levels are sent to the client. Valid values are DEBUG5, DEBUG4, DEBUG3, DEBUG2, DEBUG1, LOG, NOTICE, WARNING, ERROR, FATAL, and PANIC. Each level includes all the levels that follow it. The later the level, the fewer messages are sent. The default is NOTICE. Note that LOG has a different rank here than in log_min_messages.

log_min_messages (string)

Controls which message levels are written to the server log. Valid values are DEBUG5, DEBUG4, DEBUG3, DEBUG2, DEBUG1, INFO, NOTICE, WARNING, ERROR, LOG, FATAL, and PANIC. Each level includes all the levels that follow it. The later the level, the fewer messages are sent to the log. The default is NOTICE. Note that LOG has a different rank here than in client_min_messages. Only superusers can change this setting.

log_error_verbosity (string)

Controls the amount of detail written in the server log for each message that is logged. Valid values are TERSE, DEFAULT, and VERBOSE, each adding more fields to displayed messages. Only superusers can change this setting.

log_min_error_statement (string)

Controls whether or not the SQL statement that causes an error condition will be recorded in the server log. The current SQL statement is included in the log entry for any message of the specified severity or higher. Valid values are DEBUG5, DEBUG4, DEBUG3, DEBUG2, DEBUG1, INFO, NOTICE, WARNING, ERROR, FATAL, and PANIC. The default is ERROR, which means statements causing errors, fatal errors, or panics will be logged. To effectively turn off logging of failing statements, set this parameter to PANIC. Only superusers can change this setting.

log_min_duration_statement (integer)

Causes the duration of each completed statement to be logged if the statement ran for at least the specified number of milliseconds. Setting this to zero prints all statement durations. Minus-one (the default) disables logging statement durations. For example, if you set it to 250ms then all SQL statements that run 250ms or longer will be logged. Enabling this parameter can be helpful in tracking down unoptimized queries in your applications. Only superusers can change this setting. For clients using extended query protocol, durations of the Parse, Bind, and Execute steps are logged independently.

Note: When using this option together with log_statement, the text of statements that are logged because of log_statement will not be repeated in the duration log message. If you are not using syslog, it is recommended that you log the PID or session ID using log_line_prefix so that you can link the statement message to the later duration message using the process ID or session ID.

silent_mode (boolean)

Runs the server silently. If this parameter is set, the server will automatically run in background and any controlling terminals are disassociated. The server's standard output and standard error are redirected to /dev/null, so any messages sent to them will be lost. Unless syslog logging is selected or redirect_stderr is enabled, using this parameter is discouraged because it makes it impossible to see error messages. This parameter can only be set at server start.

Here is a list of the various message severity levels used in these settings:

DEBUG[1-5]

Provides information for use by developers.

INFO

Provides information implicitly requested by the user, e.g., during VACUUM VERBOSE.

NOTICE

Provides information that may be helpful to users, e.g., truncation of long identifiers and the creation of indexes as part of primary keys.

WARNING

Provides warnings to the user, e.g., COMMIT outside a transaction block.

ERROR

Reports an error that caused the current command to abort.

LOG

Reports information of interest to administrators, e.g., checkpoint activity.

FATAL

Reports an error that caused the current session to abort.

PANIC

Reports an error that caused all sessions to abort.