An Overview of PostgreSQL Backend Architecture
1. Introduction PostgreSQL backend is a collection of processes forked from the main process called Postmaster . Each forked process has different roles and responsibilities in the backend. This article describes the responsibility of core backend processes that power the PostgreSQL system as we know it today. The overall PostgreSQL backend architecture can be illustrated by the image below: Postmaster is the first process to be started who has control of all the backend processes and is responsible for accepting and closing the database connections. At start up, the postmaster forks several backend processes that are intended to process different aspects of backend tasks, which we will be covering in this blog. When a user initiates a connection to the PostgreSQL database, the client process will send an authentication message to the Postmaster main process. The Postmaster main process authenticates the user according to the authentication methods configured and will fork a new ses