In PM_WAIT_DEAD_END state, checkpointer process must be dead already.
But an immediate shutdown could make postmaster's state machine
transition to PM_WAIT_DEAD_END state even if checkpointer process is
still running, and which caused assertion failure. This bug was introduced
in commit 457d6cf049.
This patch ensures that postmaster's state machine doesn't transition to
PM_WAIT_DEAD_END state in an immediate shutdown while checkpointer
process is running.
Previously one had to use slist_delete(), implying an additional scan of
the list, making this infrastructure considerably less efficient than
traditional Lists when deletion of element(s) in a long list is needed.
Modify the slist_foreach_modify() macro to support deleting the current
element in O(1) time, by keeping a "prev" pointer in addition to "cur"
and "next". Although this makes iteration with this macro a bit slower,
no real harm is done, since in any scenario where you're not going to
delete the current list element you might as well just use slist_foreach
instead. Improve the comments about when to use each macro.
Back-patch to 9.3 so that we'll have consistent semantics in all branches
that provide ilist.h. Note this is an ABI break for callers of
slist_foreach_modify().
Andres Freund and Tom Lane
Per discussion on pgsql-hackers, these aren't really needed. Interim
versions of the background worker patch had the worker starting with
signals already unblocked, which would have made this necessary.
But the final version does not, so we don't really need it; and it
doesn't work well with the new facility for starting dynamic background
workers, so just rip it out.
Also per discussion on pgsql-hackers, back-patch this change to 9.3.
It's best to get the API break out of the way before we do an
official release of this facility, to avoid more pain for extension
authors later.
There is a new API, RegisterDynamicBackgroundWorker, which allows
an ordinary user backend to register a new background writer during
normal running. This means that it's no longer necessary for all
background workers to be registered during processing of
shared_preload_libraries, although the option of registering workers
at that time remains available.
When a background worker exits and will not be restarted, the
slot previously used by that background worker is automatically
released and becomes available for reuse. Slots used by background
workers that are configured for automatic restart can't (yet) be
released without shutting down the system.
This commit adds a new source file, bgworker.c, and moves some
of the existing control logic for background workers there.
Previously, there was little enough logic that it made sense to
keep everything in postmaster.c, but not any more.
This commit also makes the worker_spi contrib module into an
extension and adds a new function, worker_spi_launch, which can
be used to demonstrate the new facility.
In 9.3, there's no particular limit on the number of bgworkers;
instead, we just count up the number that are actually registered,
and use that to set MaxBackends. However, that approach causes
problems for Hot Standby, which needs both MaxBackends and the
size of the lock table to be the same on the standby as on the
master, yet it may not be desirable to run the same bgworkers in
both places. 9.3 handles that by failing to notice the problem,
which will probably work fine in nearly all cases anyway, but is
not theoretically sound.
A further problem with simply counting the number of registered
workers is that new workers can't be registered without a
postmaster restart. This is inconvenient for administrators,
since bouncing the postmaster causes an interruption of service.
Moreover, there are a number of applications for background
processes where, by necessity, the background process must be
started on the fly (e.g. parallel query). While this patch
doesn't actually make it possible to register new background
workers after startup time, it's a necessary prerequisite.
Patch by me. Review by Michael Paquier.
In patch 82233ce7ea, AbortStartTime wasn't being reset appropriately
after the restart sequence, causing subsequent iterations through
ServerLoop to malfunction.
On immediate shutdown, or during a restart-after-crash sequence,
postmaster used to send SIGQUIT (and then abandon ship if shutdown); but
this is not a good strategy if backends don't die because of that
signal. (This might happen, for example, if a backend gets tangled
trying to malloc() due to gettext(), as in an example illustrated by
MauMau.) This causes problems when later trying to restart the server,
because some processes are still attached to the shared memory segment.
Instead of just abandoning such backends to their fates, we now have
postmaster hang around for a little while longer, send a SIGKILL after
some reasonable waiting period, and then exit. This makes immediate
shutdown more reliable.
There is disagreement on whether it's best for postmaster to exit after
sending SIGKILL, or to stick around until all children have reported
death. If this controversy is resolved differently than what this patch
implements, it's an easy change to make.
Bug reported by MauMau in message 20DAEA8949EC4E2289C6E8E58560DEC0@maumau
MauMau and Álvaro Herrera
Latch activity was not being detected by non-database-connected workers; the
SIGUSR1 signal handler which is normally in charge of that was set to SIG_IGN.
Create a simple handler to call latch_sigusr1_handler instead.
Robert Haas (bug report and suggested fix)
Add a SignalUnconnectedWorkers() call so that non-database-connected background
workers are also notified when postmaster is SIGHUPped. Previously, only
database-connected workers were.
Michael Paquier (bug report and fix)
An oversight in commit e710b65c1c allowed
database names beginning with "-" to be treated as though they were secure
command-line switches; and this switch processing occurs before client
authentication, so that even an unprivileged remote attacker could exploit
the bug, needing only connectivity to the postmaster's port. Assorted
exploits for this are possible, some requiring a valid database login,
some not. The worst known problem is that the "-r" switch can be invoked
to redirect the process's stderr output, so that subsequent error messages
will be appended to any file the server can write. This can for example be
used to corrupt the server's configuration files, so that it will fail when
next restarted. Complete destruction of database tables is also possible.
Fix by keeping the database name extracted from a startup packet fully
separate from command-line switches, as had already been done with the
user name field.
The Postgres project thanks Mitsumasa Kondo for discovering this bug,
Kyotaro Horiguchi for drafting the fix, and Noah Misch for recognizing
the full extent of the danger.
Security: CVE-2013-1899
Commit da07a1e8 was broken for EXEC_BACKEND because I failed to realize
that the MaxBackends recomputation needed to be duplicated by
subprocesses in SubPostmasterMain. However, instead of having the value
be recomputed at all, it's better to assign the correct value at
postmaster initialization time, and have it be propagated to exec'ed
backends via BackendParameters.
MaxBackends stays as zero until after modules in
shared_preload_libraries have had a chance to register bgworkers, since
the value is going to be untrustworthy till that's finished.
Heikki Linnakangas and Álvaro Herrera
Before this patch, streaming replication would refuse to start replicating
if the timeline in the primary doesn't exactly match the standby. The
situation where it doesn't match is when you have a master, and two
standbys, and you promote one of the standbys to become new master.
Promoting bumps up the timeline ID, and after that bump, the other standby
would refuse to continue.
There's significantly more timeline related logic in streaming replication
now. First of all, when a standby connects to primary, it will ask the
primary for any timeline history files that are missing from the standby.
The missing files are sent using a new replication command TIMELINE_HISTORY,
and stored in standby's pg_xlog directory. Using the timeline history files,
the standby can follow the latest timeline present in the primary
(recovery_target_timeline='latest'), just as it can follow new timelines
appearing in an archive directory.
START_REPLICATION now takes a TIMELINE parameter, to specify exactly which
timeline to stream WAL from. This allows the standby to request the primary
to send over WAL that precedes the promotion. The replication protocol is
changed slightly (in a backwards-compatible way although there's little hope
of streaming replication working across major versions anyway), to allow
replication to stop when the end of timeline reached, putting the walsender
back into accepting a replication command.
Many thanks to Amit Kapila for testing and reviewing various versions of
this patch.
Background workers are postmaster subprocesses that run arbitrary
user-specified code. They can request shared memory access as well as
backend database connections; or they can just use plain libpq frontend
database connections.
Modules listed in shared_preload_libraries can register background
workers in their _PG_init() function; this is early enough that it's not
necessary to provide an extra GUC option, because the necessary extra
resources can be allocated early on. Modules can install more than one
bgworker, if necessary.
Care is taken that these extra processes do not interfere with other
postmaster tasks: only one such process is started on each ServerLoop
iteration. This means a large number of them could be waiting to be
started up and postmaster is still able to quickly service external
connection requests. Also, shutdown sequence should not be impacted by
a worker process that's reasonably well behaved (i.e. promptly responds
to termination signals.)
The current implementation lets worker processes specify their start
time, i.e. at what point in the server startup process they are to be
started: right after postmaster start (in which case they mustn't ask
for shared memory access), when consistent state has been reached
(useful during recovery in a HOT standby server), or when recovery has
terminated (i.e. when normal backends are allowed).
In case of a bgworker crash, actions to take depend on registration
data: if shared memory was requested, then all other connections are
taken down (as well as other bgworkers), just like it were a regular
backend crashing. The bgworker itself is restarted, too, within a
configurable timeframe (which can be configured to be never).
More features to add to this framework can be imagined without much
effort, and have been discussed, but this seems good enough as a useful
unit already.
An elementary sample module is supplied.
Author: Álvaro Herrera
This patch is loosely based on prior patches submitted by KaiGai Kohei,
and unsubmitted code by Simon Riggs.
Reviewed by: KaiGai Kohei, Markus Wanner, Andres Freund,
Heikki Linnakangas, Simon Riggs, Amit Kapila
Once we've received a shutdown signal (SIGINT or SIGTERM), we should not
launch any more child processes, even if we get signals requesting such.
The normal code path for spawning backends has always understood that,
but the postmaster's infrastructure for hot standby and autovacuum didn't
get the memo. As reported by Hari Babu in bug #7643, this could lead to
failure to shut down at all in some cases, such as when SIGINT is received
just before the startup process sends PMSIGNAL_RECOVERY_STARTED: we'd
launch a bgwriter and checkpointer, and then those processes would have no
idea that they ought to quit. Similarly, launching a new autovacuum worker
would result in waiting till it finished before shutting down.
Also, switch the order of the code blocks in reaper() that detect startup
process crash versus shutdown termination. Once we've sent it a signal,
we should not consider that exit(1) is surprising. This is just a cosmetic
fix since shutdown occurs correctly anyway, but better not to log a phony
complaint about startup process crash.
Back-patch to 9.0. Some parts of this might be applicable before that,
but given the lack of prior complaints I'm not going to worry too much
about older branches.
dlist_delete, dlist_insert_after, dlist_insert_before, slist_insert_after
do not need access to the list header, and indeed insisting on that negates
one of the main advantages of a doubly-linked list.
In consequence, revert addition of "cache_bucket" field to CatCTup.
Provide a common implementation of embedded singly-linked and
doubly-linked lists. "Embedded" in the sense that the nodes'
next/previous pointers exist within some larger struct; this design
choice reduces memory allocation overhead.
Most of the implementation uses inlineable functions (where supported),
for performance.
Some existing uses of both types of lists have been converted to the new
code, for demonstration purposes. Other uses can (and probably will) be
converted in the future. Since dllist.c is unused after this conversion,
it has been removed.
Author: Andres Freund
Some tweaks by me
Reviewed by Tom Lane, Peter Geoghegan
Our getnameinfo() replacement implementation in getaddrinfo.c failed
unless NI_NUMERICHOST and NI_NUMERICSERV were given as flags, because
it doesn't resolve host names, only numeric IPs. But per standard,
when those flags are not given, an implementation can still degrade to
not returning host names, so this restriction is unnecessary. When we
remove it, we can eliminate some code in postmaster.c that apparently
tried to work around that.
Similar changes were done to pg_hba.conf earlier already, this commit makes
pg_ident.conf to behave the same as pg_hba.conf.
This has two user-visible effects. First, if pg_ident.conf contains multiple
errors, the whole file is parsed at postmaster startup time and all the
errors are immediately reported. Before this patch, the file was parsed and
the errors were reported only when someone tries to connect using an
authentication method that uses the file, and the parsing stopped on first
error. Second, if you SIGHUP to reload the config files, and the new
pg_ident.conf file contains an error, the error is logged but the old file
stays in effect.
Also, regular expressions in pg_ident.conf are now compiled only once when
the file is loaded, rather than every time the a user is authenticated. That
should speed up authentication if you have a lot of regexps in the file.
Amit Kapila
Replace unix_socket_directory with unix_socket_directories, which is a list
of socket directories, and adjust postmaster's code to allow zero or more
Unix-domain sockets to be created.
This is mostly a straightforward change, but since the Unix sockets ought
to be created after the TCP/IP sockets for safety reasons (better chance
of detecting a port number conflict), AddToDataDirLockFile needs to be
fixed to support out-of-order updates of data directory lockfile lines.
That's a change that had been foreseen to be necessary someday anyway.
Honza Horak, reviewed and revised by Tom Lane
Should be limited to the maximum number of connections excluding
autovacuum workers, not including.
Add similar check for max_wal_senders, which should never be higher than
max_connections.
In the original coding of the log rotation stuff, we did not bother to make
the truncation logic work for the very first rotation after postmaster
start (or after a syslogger crash and restart). It just always appended
in that case. It did not seem terribly important at the time, but we've
recently had two separate complaints from people who expected it to work
unsurprisingly. (Both users tend to restart the postmaster about as often
as a log rotation is configured to happen, which is maybe not typical use,
but still...) Since the initial log file is opened in the postmaster,
fixing this requires passing down some more state to the syslogger child
process.
It's always been like this, so back-patch to all supported branches.
Management of timeouts was getting a little cumbersome; what we
originally had was more than enough back when we were only concerned
about deadlocks and query cancel; however, when we added timeouts for
standby processes, the code got considerably messier. Since there are
plans to add more complex timeouts, this seems a good time to introduce
a central timeout handling module.
External modules register their timeout handlers during process
initialization, and later enable and disable them as they see fit using
a simple API; timeout.c is in charge of keeping track of which timeouts
are in effect at any time, installing a common SIGALRM signal handler,
and calling setitimer() as appropriate to ensure timely firing of
external handlers.
timeout.c additionally supports pluggable modules to add their own
timeouts, though this capability isn't exercised anywhere yet.
Additionally, as of this commit, walsender processes are aware of
timeouts; we had a preexisting bug there that made those ignore SIGALRM,
thus being subject to unhandled deadlocks, particularly during the
authentication phase. This has already been fixed in back branches in
commit 0bf8eb2a, which see for more details.
Main author: Zoltán Böszörményi
Some review and cleanup by Álvaro Herrera
Extensive reworking by Tom Lane
All Unix-oid platforms that we currently support should have waitpid(),
since it's in V2 of the Single Unix Spec. Our git history shows that
the wait3 code was added to support NextStep, which we officially dropped
support for as of 9.2. So get rid of the configure test, and simplify the
macro spaghetti in reaper(). Per suggestion from Fujii Masao.
There was a wild mix of calling conventions: Some were declared to
return void and didn't return, some returned an int exit code, some
claimed to return an exit code, which the callers checked, but
actually never returned, and so on.
Now all of these functions are declared to return void and decorated
with attribute noreturn and don't return. That's easiest, and most
code already worked that way.
There is no reason to do this as early as possible in postmaster startup,
and good reason not to do it until we have completely created the
postmaster's lock file, namely that it might contribute to pg_ctl thinking
that postmaster startup has timed out. (This would require a rather
unusual amount of time to be spent scanning temp file directories, but we
have at least one field report of it happening reproducibly.)
Back-patch to 9.1. Before that, pg_ctl didn't wait for additional info to
be added to the lock file, so it wasn't a problem.
Note that this is not a complete fix to the slow-start issue in 9.1,
because we still had identify_system_timezone being run during postmaster
start in 9.1. But that's at least a reasonably well-defined delay, with
an easy workaround if needed, whereas the temp-files scan is not so
predictable and cannot be avoided.
We used to only initialize the stack base pointer when starting up a regular
backend, not in other processes. In particular, autovacuum workers can run
arbitrary user code, and without stack-depth checking, infinite recursion
in e.g an index expression will bring down the whole cluster.
The comment about PL/Java using set_stack_base() is not yet true. As the
code stands, PL/java still modifies the stack_base_ptr variable directly.
However, it's been discussed in the PL/Java mailing list that it should be
changed to use the function, because PL/Java is currently oblivious to the
register stack used on Itanium. There's another issues with PL/Java, namely
that the stack base pointer it sets is not really the base of the stack, it
could be something close to the bottom of the stack. That's a separate issue
that might need some further changes to this code, but that's a different
story.
Backpatch to all supported releases.
Postmaster sets max_safe_fds by testing how many open file descriptors it
can open, and that is normally inherited by all child processes at fork().
Not so on EXEC_BACKEND, ie. Windows, however. Because of that, we
effectively ignored max_files_per_process on Windows, and always assumed
a conservative default of 32 simultaneous open files. That could have an
impact on performance, if you need to access a lot of different files
in a query. After this patch, the value is passed to child processes by
save/restore_backend_variables() among many other global variables.
It has been like this forever, but given the lack of complaints about it,
I'm not backpatching this.
The postmaster was coded to treat any unexpected exit of the startup
process (i.e., the WAL replay process) as a catastrophic crash, and not try
to restart it. This was OK so long as the startup process could not have
any sibling postmaster children. However, if a hot-standby backend
crashes, we SIGQUIT the startup process along with everything else, and the
resulting exit is hardly "unexpected". Treating it as such meant we failed
to restart a standby server after any child crash at all, not only a crash
of the WAL replay process as intended. Adjust that. Back-patch to 9.0
where hot standby was introduced.
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
This speeds up snapshot-taking and reduces ProcArrayLock contention.
Also, the PGPROC (and PGXACT) structures used by two-phase commit are
now allocated as part of the main array, rather than in a separate
array, and we keep ProcArray sorted in pointer order. These changes
are intended to minimize the number of cache lines that must be pulled
in to take a snapshot, and testing shows a substantial increase in
performance on both read and write workloads at high concurrencies.
Pavan Deolasee, Heikki Linnakangas, Robert Haas
bgwriter is now a much less important process, responsible for page
cleaning duties only. checkpointer is now responsible for checkpoints
and so has a key role in shutdown. Later patches will correct doc
references to the now old idea that bgwriter performs checkpoints.
Has beneficial effect on performance at high write rates, but mainly
refactoring to more easily allow changes for power reduction by
simplifying previously tortuous code around required to allow page
cleaning and checkpointing to time slice in the same process.
Patch by me, Review by Dickson Guedes
Avoid possibly dumping core when pgstat_track_activity_query_size has a
less-than-default value; avoid uselessly searching for the query string
of a successfully-exited backend; don't bother putting out an ERRDETAIL if
we don't have a query to show; some other minor stylistic improvements.
To avoid minimize risk inside the postmaster, we subject this feature
to a number of significant limitations. We very much wish to avoid
doing any complex processing inside the postmaster, due to the
posssibility that the crashed backend has completely corrupted shared
memory. To that end, no encoding conversion is done; instead, we just
replace anything that doesn't look like an ASCII character with a
question mark. We limit the amount of data copied to 1024 characters,
and carefully sanity check the source of that data. While these
restrictions would doubtless be unacceptable in a general-purpose
logging facility, even this limited facility seems like an improvement
over the status quo ante.
Marti Raudsepp, reviewed by PDXPUG and myself
Fujii Masao
Tom Lane
Robert Haas
Peter Eisentraut
Alvaro Herrera
Bruce Momjian
Heikki Linnakangas
Magnus Hagander
Simon Riggs