postgresql/src/backend/replication
Tom Lane ac8f2e1ef3 In walreceiver, don't try to do ereport() in a signal handler.
This is quite unsafe, even for the case of ereport(FATAL) where we won't
return control to the interrupted code, and despite this code's use of
a flag to restrict the areas where we'd try to do it.  It's possible
for example that we interrupt malloc or free while that's holding a lock
that's meant to protect against cross-thread interference.  Then, any
attempt to do malloc or free within ereport() will result in a deadlock,
preventing the walreceiver process from exiting in response to SIGTERM.
We hypothesize that this explains some hard-to-reproduce failures seen
in the buildfarm.

Hence, get rid of the immediate-exit code in WalRcvShutdownHandler,
as well as the logic associated with WalRcvImmediateInterruptOK.
Instead, we need to take care that potentially-blocking operations
in the walreceiver's data transmission logic (libpqwalreceiver.c)
will respond reasonably promptly to the process's latch becoming
set and then call ProcessWalRcvInterrupts.  Much of the needed code
for that was already present in libpqwalreceiver.c.  I refactored
things a bit so that all the uses of PQgetResult use latch-aware
waiting, but didn't need to do much more.

These changes should be enough to ensure that libpqwalreceiver.c
will respond promptly to SIGTERM whenever it's waiting to receive
data.  In principle, it could block for a long time while waiting
to send data too, and this patch does nothing to guard against that.
I think that that hazard is mostly theoretical though: such blocking
should occur only if we fill the kernel's data transmission buffers,
and we don't generally send enough data to make that happen without
waiting for input.  If we find out that the hazard isn't just
theoretical, we could fix it by using PQsetnonblocking, but that
would require more ticklish changes than I care to make now.

Back-patch of commit a1a789eb5.  This problem goes all the way back
to the origins of walreceiver; but given the substantial reworking
the module received during the v10 cycle, it seems unsafe to assume
that our testing on HEAD validates this patch for pre-v10 branches.
And we'd need to back-patch some prerequisite patches (at least
597a87ccc and its followups, maybe other things), increasing the risk
of problems.  Given the dearth of field reports matching this problem,
it's not worth much risk.  Hence back-patch to v10 and v11 only.

Patch by me; thanks to Thomas Munro for review.

Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/20190416070119.GK2673@paquier.xyz
2019-06-12 17:29:48 -04:00
..
libpqwalreceiver In walreceiver, don't try to do ereport() in a signal handler. 2019-06-12 17:29:48 -04:00
logical Fix logical replication's ideas about which type OIDs are built-in. 2019-05-13 17:23:00 -04:00
pgoutput Fix logical replication's ideas about which type OIDs are built-in. 2019-05-13 17:23:00 -04:00
.gitignore Support multiple synchronous standby servers. 2016-04-06 17:18:25 +09:00
basebackup.c Address set of issues with errno handling 2018-06-25 11:20:19 +09:00
Makefile Rethink flex flags for syncrep_scanner.l. 2017-05-19 18:05:20 -04:00
README Rename "pg_xlog" directory to "pg_wal". 2016-10-20 11:32:18 -04:00
repl_gram.y Add a WAIT option to DROP_REPLICATION_SLOT 2017-09-01 13:53:34 +02:00
repl_scanner.l Add a WAIT option to DROP_REPLICATION_SLOT 2017-09-01 13:53:34 +02:00
slot.c Fix copy-paste error in errhint() introduced in 691d79a079. 2018-11-05 12:05:39 -08:00
slotfuncs.c Add a WAIT option to DROP_REPLICATION_SLOT 2017-09-01 13:53:34 +02:00
syncrep.c Fix handling of synchronous replication for stopping WAL senders 2018-11-29 09:12:45 +09:00
syncrep_gram.y Update copyright via script for 2017 2017-01-03 13:48:53 -05:00
syncrep_scanner.l Rethink flex flags for syncrep_scanner.l. 2017-05-19 18:05:20 -04:00
walreceiver.c In walreceiver, don't try to do ereport() in a signal handler. 2019-06-12 17:29:48 -04:00
walreceiverfuncs.c Fix race condition with unprotected use of a latch pointer variable. 2017-10-03 14:00:57 -04:00
walsender.c Fix SHOW ALL command for non-superusers with replication connection 2019-04-15 12:35:02 +09:00

src/backend/replication/README

Walreceiver - libpqwalreceiver API
----------------------------------

The transport-specific part of walreceiver, responsible for connecting to
the primary server, receiving WAL files and sending messages, is loaded
dynamically to avoid having to link the main server binary with libpq.
The dynamically loaded module is in libpqwalreceiver subdirectory.

The dynamically loaded module implements four functions:


bool walrcv_connect(char *conninfo, XLogRecPtr startpoint)

Establish connection to the primary, and starts streaming from 'startpoint'.
Returns true on success.

int walrcv_receive(char **buffer, pgsocket *wait_fd)

Retrieve any message available without blocking through the
connection.  If a message was successfully read, returns its
length. If the connection is closed, returns -1.  Otherwise returns 0
to indicate that no data is available, and sets *wait_fd to a socket
descriptor which can be waited on before trying again.  On success, a
pointer to the message payload is stored in *buffer. The returned
buffer is valid until the next call to walrcv_* functions, and the
caller should not attempt to free it.

void walrcv_send(const char *buffer, int nbytes)

Send a message to XLOG stream.

void walrcv_disconnect(void);

Disconnect.


This API should be considered internal at the moment, but we could open it
up for 3rd party replacements of libpqwalreceiver in the future, allowing
pluggable methods for receiving WAL.

Walreceiver IPC
---------------

When the WAL replay in startup process has reached the end of archived WAL,
restorable using restore_command, it starts up the walreceiver process
to fetch more WAL (if streaming replication is configured).

Walreceiver is a postmaster subprocess, so the startup process can't fork it
directly. Instead, it sends a signal to postmaster, asking postmaster to launch
it. Before that, however, startup process fills in WalRcvData->conninfo
and WalRcvData->slotname, and initializes the starting point in
WalRcvData->receiveStart.

As walreceiver receives WAL from the master server, and writes and flushes
it to disk (in pg_wal), it updates WalRcvData->receivedUpto and signals
the startup process to know how far WAL replay can advance.

Walreceiver sends information about replication progress to the master server
whenever it either writes or flushes new WAL, or the specified interval elapses.
This is used for reporting purpose.

Walsender IPC
-------------

At shutdown, postmaster handles walsender processes differently from regular
backends. It waits for regular backends to die before writing the
shutdown checkpoint and terminating pgarch and other auxiliary processes, but
that's not desirable for walsenders, because we want the standby servers to
receive all the WAL, including the shutdown checkpoint, before the master
is shut down. Therefore postmaster treats walsenders like the pgarch process,
and instructs them to terminate at PM_SHUTDOWN_2 phase, after all regular
backends have died and checkpointer has issued the shutdown checkpoint.

When postmaster accepts a connection, it immediately forks a new process
to handle the handshake and authentication, and the process initializes to
become a backend. Postmaster doesn't know if the process becomes a regular
backend or a walsender process at that time - that's indicated in the
connection handshake - so we need some extra signaling to let postmaster
identify walsender processes.

When walsender process starts up, it marks itself as a walsender process in
the PMSignal array. That way postmaster can tell it apart from regular
backends.

Note that no big harm is done if postmaster thinks that a walsender is a
regular backend; it will just terminate the walsender earlier in the shutdown
phase. A walsender will look like a regular backend until it's done with the
initialization and has marked itself in PMSignal array, and at process
termination, after unmarking the PMSignal slot.

Each walsender allocates an entry from the WalSndCtl array, and tracks
information about replication progress. User can monitor them via
statistics views.


Walsender - walreceiver protocol
--------------------------------

See manual.