Per a suggestion from Peter Geoghegan, make WaitLatch responsible for
verifying that the WL_POSTMASTER_DEATH bit it returns is truthful (by
testing PostmasterIsAlive). Then simplify its callers, who no longer
need to do that for themselves. Remove weasel wording about falsely-set
result bits from WaitLatch's API contract.
In checkpointer and walwriter, avoid calling PostmasterIsAlive unless
WaitLatch has reported WL_POSTMASTER_DEATH. This saves a kernel call per
iteration of the process's outer loop, which is not all that much, but a
cycle shaved is a cycle earned. I had already removed the unconditional
PostmasterIsAlive calls in bgwriter and pgstat in previous patches, but
forgot that WL_POSTMASTER_DEATH is supposed to be treated as untrustworthy
(per comment in unix_latch.c); so adjust those two cases to match.
There are a few other places where the same idea might be applied, but only
after substantial code rearrangement, so I didn't bother.
Get rid of some more naming choices that only make sense if you know that
this code used to be in the bgwriter, as well as some stray comments
referencing the bgwriter.
This patch modifies the walwriter process so that, when it has not found
anything useful to do for many consecutive wakeup cycles, it extends its
sleep time to reduce the server's idle power consumption. It reverts to
normal as soon as it's done any successful flushes. It's still true that
during any async commit, backends check for completed, unflushed pages of
WAL and signal the walwriter if there are any; so that in practice the
walwriter can get awakened and returned to normal operation sooner than the
sleep time might suggest.
Also, improve the checkpointer so that it uses a latch and a computed delay
time to not wake up at all except when it has something to do, replacing a
previous hardcoded 0.5 sec wakeup cycle. This also is primarily useful for
reducing the server's power consumption when idle.
In passing, get rid of the dedicated latch for signaling the walwriter in
favor of using its procLatch, since that comports better with possible
generic signal handlers using that latch. Also, fix a pre-existing bug
with failure to save/restore errno in walwriter's signal handlers.
Peter Geoghegan, somewhat simplified by Tom
Base backup follows recommended procedure, plus goes to great
lengths to ensure that partial page writes are avoided.
Jun Ishizuka and Fujii Masao, with minor modifications
Tom Lane
Simon Riggs
Robert Haas
Bruce Momjian