What parts make up pg_database_size? I'm trying to write a munin plugin to graph DB sizes. Alongside using pg_database_size I want to graph the components thereof as well.

So far, I've come up with the following:

SELECT
    SUM(pg_relation_size(oid, 'main')) AS main_size,
    SUM(pg_relation_size(oid, 'vm')) AS vm_size,
    SUM(pg_relation_size(oid, 'fsm')) AS fsm_size,
    SUM(
        CASE reltoastrelid
        WHEN 0 THEN 0
        ELSE pg_total_relation_size(reltoastrelid)
        END
    ) AS toast_size,
    SUM(pg_indexes_size(oid)) AS indexes_size
    FROM pg_class
    WHERE reltype != 0 -- 0=indices, covered by pg_indexes_size


However, summing up those 5 values returns me something which is not the same as the result of pg_database_size. The difference seems to be less significant for larger DBs.

Example on a larger DB:

┌──────────┬────────┬─────────┬─────────┬──────────┬───────────────┬──────────────────┬─────────┐
│   main   │   vm   │   fsm   │  toast  │ indexes  │ sum_of_values │ pg_database_size │  diff   │
├──────────┼────────┼─────────┼─────────┼──────────┼───────────────┼──────────────────┼─────────┤
│ 72441856 │ 753664 │ 2392064 │ 4677632 │ 41377792 │ 116 MB        │ 111 MB           │ 5222 kB │
└──────────┴────────┴─────────┴─────────┴──────────┴───────────────┴──────────────────┴─────────┘
(1 row)


Example on a smaller DB:

┌─────────┬────────┬─────────┬────────┬─────────┬───────────────┬──────────────────┬─────────┐
│  main   │   vm   │   fsm   │ toast  │ indexes │ sum_of_values │ pg_database_size │  diff   │
├─────────┼────────┼─────────┼────────┼─────────┼───────────────┼──────────────────┼─────────┤
│ 2809856 │ 385024 │ 1351680 │ 557056 │ 2924544 │ 7840 kB       │ 6642 kB          │ 1198 kB │
└─────────┴────────┴─────────┴────────┴─────────┴───────────────┴──────────────────┴─────────┘
(1 row)


What am I missing?

Maybe related, maybe not: I'm shocked to see the index size. They are HUGE. Is something in my query wrong?



Here is a script I used to inspect the different values:

SELECT
    SUM(pg_relation_size(oid, 'main')) AS main,
    SUM(pg_relation_size(oid, 'vm')) AS vm,
    SUM(pg_relation_size(oid, 'fsm')) AS fsm,
    SUM(
        CASE reltoastrelid
        WHEN 0 THEN 0
        ELSE pg_total_relation_size(reltoastrelid)
        END
    ) AS toast,
    SUM(pg_indexes_size(oid)) AS indexes,
    pg_size_pretty(
        SUM(pg_relation_size(oid, 'main'))::bigint +
        SUM(pg_relation_size(oid, 'vm'))::bigint +
        SUM(pg_relation_size(oid, 'fsm'))::bigint +
        SUM(pg_indexes_size(oid))::bigint +
        SUM(
            CASE reltoastrelid
            WHEN 0 THEN 0
            ELSE pg_total_relation_size(reltoastrelid)
            END
        )::bigint
    ) AS sum_of_values,
    pg_size_pretty(pg_database_size(current_database())) AS pg_database_size,

    pg_size_pretty(
        SUM(pg_relation_size(oid, 'main'))::bigint +
        SUM(pg_relation_size(oid, 'vm'))::bigint +
        SUM(pg_relation_size(oid, 'fsm'))::bigint +
        SUM(pg_indexes_size(oid))::bigint +
        SUM(
            CASE reltoastrelid
            WHEN 0 THEN 0
            ELSE pg_total_relation_size(reltoastrelid)
            END
        )::bigint - pg_database_size(current_database())::bigint
    ) AS diff

FROM pg_class
WHERE reltype != 0;
You are counting the toast tables twice.  Once under their owner, as pg_total_relation_size(reltoastrelid), and again under their own entry in pg_class.  You should use relkind, not reltype, to filter what you want.

Also, trying to micromanage your RDBMS to this extent rarely pays off.