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Heikki Linnakangas 74fc83869e Fix race between GetNewTransactionId and GetOldestActiveTransactionId.
The race condition goes like this:

1. GetNewTransactionId advances nextXid e.g. from 100 to 101
2. GetOldestActiveTransactionId reads the new nextXid, 101
3. GetOldestActiveTransactionId loops through the proc array. There are no
   active XIDs there, so it returns 101 as the oldest active XID.
4. GetNewTransactionid stores XID 100 to MyPgXact->xid

So, GetOldestActiveTransactionId returned XID 101, even though 100 only
just started and is surely still running.

This would be hard to hit in practice, and even harder to spot any ill
effect if it happens. GetOldestActiveTransactionId is only used when
creating a checkpoint in a master server, and the race condition can only
happen on an online checkpoint, as there are no backends running during a
shutdown checkpoint. The oldestActiveXid value of an online checkpoint is
only used when starting up a hot standby server, to determine the starting
point where pg_subtrans is initialized from. For the race condition to
happen, there must be no other XIDs in the proc array that would hold back
the oldest-active XID value, which means that the missed XID must be a top
transaction's XID. However, pg_subtrans is not used for top XIDs, so I
believe an off-by-one error is in fact inconsequential. Nevertheless, let's
fix it, as it's clearly wrong and the fix is simple.

This has been wrong ever since hot standby was introduced, so backport to
all supported versions.

Discussion: https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/e7258662-82b6-7a45-56d4-99b337a32bf7@iki.fi
2017-07-13 15:47:02 +03:00
config Make configure check for IPC::Run when --enable-tap-tests is specified. 2017-06-15 15:56:12 -04:00
contrib Forbid gen_random_uuid() with --disable-strong-random 2017-07-03 12:10:11 +03:00
doc Stamp 10beta2. 2017-07-10 16:26:20 -04:00
src Fix race between GetNewTransactionId and GetOldestActiveTransactionId. 2017-07-13 15:47:02 +03:00
.dir-locals.el emacs: Set indent-tabs-mode in perl-mode 2015-04-12 23:53:23 -04:00
.gitattributes Remove contrib/tsearch2. 2017-02-13 11:06:11 -05:00
.gitignore Allow .so minor version numbers above 9 in .gitignore. 2016-08-15 17:35:35 -04:00
aclocal.m4 Make configure check for IPC::Run when --enable-tap-tests is specified. 2017-06-15 15:56:12 -04:00
configure Stamp 10beta2. 2017-07-10 16:26:20 -04:00
configure.in Stamp 10beta2. 2017-07-10 16:26:20 -04:00
COPYRIGHT Update copyright for 2017 2017-01-03 12:37:53 -05:00
GNUmakefile.in Have "make coverage" recurse into contrib as well 2016-09-05 18:44:36 -03:00
HISTORY Change documentation references to PG website to use https: not http: 2017-05-20 21:50:47 -04:00
Makefile Allow make check in PL directories 2011-02-15 06:52:12 +02:00
README Change documentation references to PG website to use https: not http: 2017-05-20 21:50:47 -04:00
README.git Change documentation references to PG website to use https: not http: 2017-05-20 21:50:47 -04:00

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:

	https://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
hardware platforms and contains information regarding any other
software packages that are required to build or run the PostgreSQL
system.  Copyright and license information can be found in the
file COPYRIGHT.  A comprehensive documentation set is included in this
distribution; it can be read as described in the installation
instructions.

The latest version of this software may be obtained at
https://www.postgresql.org/download/.  For more information look at our
web site located at https://www.postgresql.org/.