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Alvaro Herrera 1a917ae861 Fix race when updating a tuple concurrently locked by another process
If a tuple is locked, and this lock is later upgraded either to an
update or to a stronger lock, and in the meantime some other process
tries to lock, update or delete the same tuple, it (the tuple) could end
up being updated twice, or having conflicting locks held.

The reason for this is that the second updater checks for a change in
Xmax value, or in the HEAP_XMAX_IS_MULTI infomask bit, after noticing
the first lock; and if there's a change, it restarts and re-evaluates
its ability to update the tuple.  But it neglected to check for changes
in lock strength or in lock-vs-update status when those two properties
stayed the same.  This would lead it to take the wrong decision and
continue with its own update, when in reality it shouldn't do so but
instead restart from the top.

This could lead to either an assertion failure much later (when a
multixact containing multiple updates is detected), or duplicate copies
of tuples.

To fix, make sure to compare the other relevant infomask bits alongside
the Xmax value and HEAP_XMAX_IS_MULTI bit, and restart from the top if
necessary.

Also, in the belt-and-suspenders spirit, add a check to
MultiXactCreateFromMembers that a multixact being created does not have
two or more members that are claimed to be updates.  This should protect
against other bugs that might cause similar bogus situations.

Backpatch to 9.3, where the possibility of multixacts containing updates
was introduced.  (In prior versions it was possible to have the tuple
lock upgraded from shared to exclusive, and an update would not restart
from the top; yet we're protected against a bug there because there's
always a sleep to wait for the locking transaction to complete before
continuing to do anything.  Really, the fact that tuple locks always
conflicted with concurrent updates is what protected against bugs here.)

Per report from Andrew Dunstan and Josh Berkus in thread at
http://www.postgresql.org/message-id/534C8B33.9050807@pgexperts.com

Bug analysis by Andres Freund.
2014-04-24 15:41:55 -03:00
config Allow use of "z" flag in our printf calls, and use it where appropriate. 2014-01-23 17:18:33 -05:00
contrib copy: update docs for FORCE_NULL and FORCE_NOT_NULL combination 2014-04-22 16:06:37 -04:00
doc Allow polymorphic aggregates to have non-polymorphic state data types. 2014-04-23 19:17:41 -04:00
src Fix race when updating a tuple concurrently locked by another process 2014-04-24 15:41:55 -03:00
.dir-locals.el Update Emacs configuration 2013-08-13 20:08:44 -04:00
.gitattributes gitattributes: Make syntax compatible with older Git versions 2013-11-12 21:58:46 -05:00
.gitignore Add *.pot to .gitignore 2013-10-19 10:56:52 -04:00
COPYRIGHT Update copyright for 2014 2014-01-07 16:05:30 -05:00
GNUmakefile.in Add TAP tests for client programs 2014-04-14 21:33:46 -04:00
HISTORY Improve text of stub HISTORY file. 2014-02-12 18:16:17 -05:00
Makefile Allow make check in PL directories 2011-02-15 06:52:12 +02:00
README Don't generate plain-text HISTORY and src/test/regress/README anymore. 2014-02-10 20:48:04 -05:00
README.git Don't generate plain-text HISTORY and src/test/regress/README anymore. 2014-02-10 20:48:04 -05:00
aclocal.m4 Remove cvs keywords from all files. 2010-09-20 22:08:53 +02:00
configure Add TAP tests for client programs 2014-04-14 21:33:46 -04:00
configure.in Add TAP tests for client programs 2014-04-14 21:33:46 -04:00

README

PostgreSQL Database Management System
=====================================

This directory contains the source code distribution of the PostgreSQL
database management system.

PostgreSQL is an advanced object-relational database management system
that supports an extended subset of the SQL standard, including
transactions, foreign keys, subqueries, triggers, user-defined types
and functions.  This distribution also contains C language bindings.

PostgreSQL has many language interfaces, many of which are listed here:

	http://www.postgresql.org/download

See the file INSTALL for instructions on how to build and install
PostgreSQL.  That file also lists supported operating systems and
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The latest version of this software may be obtained at
http://www.postgresql.org/download/.  For more information look at our
web site located at http://www.postgresql.org/.