When newly-added GUC parameter, wal_compression, is on, the PostgreSQL server
compresses a full page image written to WAL when full_page_writes is on or
during a base backup. A compressed page image will be decompressed during WAL
replay. Turning this parameter on can reduce the WAL volume without increasing
the risk of unrecoverable data corruption, but at the cost of some extra CPU
spent on the compression during WAL logging and on the decompression during
WAL replay.
This commit changes the WAL format (so bumping WAL version number) so that
the one-byte flag indicating whether a full page image is compressed or not is
included in its header information. This means that the commit increases the
WAL volume one-byte per a full page image even if WAL compression is not used
at all. We can save that one-byte by borrowing one-bit from the existing field
like hole_offset in the header and using it as the flag, for example. But which
would reduce the code readability and the extensibility of the feature.
Per discussion, it's not worth paying those prices to save only one-byte, so we
decided to add the one-byte flag to the header.
This commit doesn't introduce any new compression algorithm like lz4.
Currently a full page image is compressed using the existing PGLZ algorithm.
Per discussion, we decided to use it at least in the first version of the
feature because there were no performance reports showing that its compression
ratio is unacceptably lower than that of other algorithm. Of course,
in the future, it's worth considering the support of other compression
algorithm for the better compression.
Rahila Syed and Michael Paquier, reviewed in various versions by myself,
Andres Freund, Robert Haas, Abhijit Menon-Sen and many others.
Each WAL record now carries information about the modified relation and
block(s) in a standardized format. That makes it easier to write tools that
need that information, like pg_rewind, prefetching the blocks to speed up
recovery, etc.
There's a whole new API for building WAL records, replacing the XLogRecData
chains used previously. The new API consists of XLogRegister* functions,
which are called for each buffer and chunk of data that is added to the
record. The new API also gives more control over when a full-page image is
written, by passing flags to the XLogRegisterBuffer function.
This also simplifies the XLogReadBufferForRedo() calls. The function can dig
the relation and block number from the WAL record, so they no longer need to
be passed as arguments.
For the convenience of redo routines, XLogReader now disects each WAL record
after reading it, copying the main data part and the per-block data into
MAXALIGNed buffers. The data chunks are not aligned within the WAL record,
but the redo routines can assume that the pointers returned by XLogRecGet*
functions are. Redo routines are now passed the XLogReaderState, which
contains the record in the already-disected format, instead of the plain
XLogRecord.
The new record format also makes the fixed size XLogRecord header smaller,
by removing the xl_len field. The length of the "main data" portion is now
stored at the end of the WAL record, and there's a separate header after
XLogRecord for it. The alignment padding at the end of XLogRecord is also
removed. This compansates for the fact that the new format would otherwise
be more bulky than the old format.
Reviewed by Andres Freund, Amit Kapila, Michael Paquier, Alvaro Herrera,
Fujii Masao.
The xlogreader refactoring broke the logic to decide which timeline to start
streaming from. XLogPageRead() uses the timeline history to check which
timeline the requested WAL position falls into. However, after the
refactoring, XLogPageRead() is always first called with the first page in
the segment, to verify the segment header, and only then with the actual WAL
position we're interested in. That first read of the segment's header made
XLogPageRead() to always start streaming from the old timeline containing
the segment header, not the timeline containing the actual record, if there
was a timeline switch within the segment.
I thought I fixed this yesterday, but that fix was too narrow and only fixed
this for the corner-case that the timeline switch happened in the first page
of the segment. To fix this more robustly, pass explicitly the position of
the record we're actually interested in to XLogPageRead, and use that to
decide which timeline to read from, rather than deduce it from the page and
offset.
Per report from Fujii Masao.
This new facility can not only be used by xlog.c to carry out crash
recovery, but also by external programs. By supplying a function to
read XLog pages from somewhere, all the WAL reading can be used for
completely different purposes.
For the standard backend use, the behavior should be pretty much the
same as previously. As for non-backend programs, an hypothetical
pg_xlogdump program is now closer to reality, but some more backend
support is still necessary.
This patch was originally submitted by Andres Freund in a different
form, but Heikki Linnakangas opted for and authored another design of
the concept. Andres has advanced the patch since Heikki's initial
version. Review and some (mostly cosmetics) changes by me.
