Database Administration
Preventing WAL Growth on RDS Postgres
Learn how to prevent Write-Ahead Log (WAL) growth issues in your AWS RDS Postgres database, especially for low-traffic or test environments.
Last updated: 03/26/2025
🛡️ Preventing WAL Growth with Heartbeats
This solution is specifically designed for low-traffic or idle databases. Active databases don’t need this feature as their WAL naturally resets with regular data changes.
Setup Steps
- Create and configure the heartbeat table:
- Enable heartbeats in your deployment’s advanced settings.
Troubleshooting Guide
If you’re still experiencing WAL growth after enabling heartbeats, check these common issues:
1
Table Existence
Verify test_heartbeat_table
exists in your database
2
Publication Configuration
3
Permission Issues
Confirm the service account has proper write permissions
4
Long-Running Queries
Was this page helpful?