pg_crash

September 24, 2025 · View on GitHub

pg_crash provides a function to crash the PostgreSQL server.

This has been developed for researching how PostgreSQL starts up in recovery mode, so this is not a joke program.

Installation

$ cd contrib
$ git clone https://github.com/s-hironobu/pg_crash.git
$ cd pg_crash
$ make && make install

Add the line shown below in your postgresql.conf.

shared_preload_libraries = 'pg_crash'

After starting your server, issue CREATE EXTENSION statement shown below.

postgres=# CREATE EXTENSION pg_crash;

Execute the function below when you want to crash your server.

testdb=# SELECT pg_crash();