Re: Review: Patch to compute Max LSN of Data Pages

Started by Amit Kapilaabout 13 years ago32 messageshackers
Jump to latest
#1Amit Kapila
amit.kapila16@gmail.com

Please find the rebased Patch for Compute MAX LSN.

There was one compilation error as "undefined reference to XLByteLT " as earlier XLogRecPtr was a structure as
typedef struct XLogRecPtr
{
uint32 xlogid; /* log file #, 0 based */
uint32 xrecoff; /* byte offset of location in log file */
} XLogRecPtr;
So in order to compare two LSN, there was one macro as XLByteLT to compare both fields.
But now XLogRecPtr has been changed as just uint64 and so XLByteLT is removed.
So the change done is to replace XLByteLT(*maxlsn, pagelsn) with (*maxlsn < pagelsn).

Muhammad, Can you verify if every thing is okay, then this can be marked as "Ready for Committer"

With Regards,

Amit Kapila.

Attachments:

pg_computemaxlsn_v5.patchapplication/octet-stream; name=pg_computemaxlsn_v5.patchDownload+944-2
#2Dickson S. Guedes
listas@guedesoft.net
In reply to: Amit Kapila (#1)

2013/1/18 Amit kapila <amit.kapila@huawei.com>:

Please find the rebased Patch for Compute MAX LSN.

The function 'remove_parent_refernces' couldn't be called
'remove_parent_references' ?

Why not an extension in PGXN instead of a contrib?

Regards,
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#3Amit Kapila
amit.kapila16@gmail.com
In reply to: Dickson S. Guedes (#2)

On Sunday, January 20, 2013 4:04 AM Dickson S. Guedes wrote:
2013/1/18 Amit kapila <amit.kapila@huawei.com>:

Please find the rebased Patch for Compute MAX LSN.

The function 'remove_parent_refernces' couldn't be called
'remove_parent_references' ?

Shall fix this.

Why not an extension in PGXN instead of a contrib?

This functionality has similarity to pg_resetxlog, so we thought of putting it either in bin or in contrib.
Finally based on suggestions from other community members, we have added to contrib.

With Regards,
Amit Kapila.

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#4Dickson S. Guedes
listas@guedesoft.net
In reply to: Amit Kapila (#3)

2013/1/20 Amit kapila <amit.kapila@huawei.com>:

On Sunday, January 20, 2013 4:04 AM Dickson S. Guedes wrote:
2013/1/18 Amit kapila <amit.kapila@huawei.com>:

Please find the rebased Patch for Compute MAX LSN.

The function 'remove_parent_refernces' couldn't be called
'remove_parent_references' ?

Shall fix this.

Why not an extension in PGXN instead of a contrib?

This functionality has similarity to pg_resetxlog, so we thought of putting it either in bin or in contrib.
Finally based on suggestions from other community members, we have added to contrib.

Indeed.

--
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http://github.com/guedes - http://guedesoft.net
http://www.postgresql.org.br

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#5Amit Kapila
amit.kapila16@gmail.com
In reply to: Amit Kapila (#3)

On Sunday, January 20, 2013 10:50 AM Amit kapila wrote:
On Sunday, January 20, 2013 4:04 AM Dickson S. Guedes wrote:
2013/1/18 Amit kapila <amit.kapila@huawei.com>:

Please find the rebased Patch for Compute MAX LSN.

The function 'remove_parent_refernces' couldn't be called
'remove_parent_references' ?

Shall fix this.

Fixed in attached version.

With Regards,
Amit Kapila.

Attachments:

pg_computemaxlsn_v6.patchapplication/octet-stream; name=pg_computemaxlsn_v6.patchDownload+944-2
#6Josh Berkus
josh@agliodbs.com
In reply to: Amit Kapila (#5)

Hackers,

Amit posted a new version of this patch on January 23rd. But last
comment on it by Tom is "not sure everyone wants this".

https://commitfest.postgresql.org/action/patch_view?id=905

... so, what's the status of this patch?

--
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PostgreSQL Experts Inc.
http://pgexperts.com

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#7Andres Freund
andres@anarazel.de
In reply to: Josh Berkus (#6)

Hi,

On 2013-06-16 17:19:49 -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:

Amit posted a new version of this patch on January 23rd. But last
comment on it by Tom is "not sure everyone wants this".

https://commitfest.postgresql.org/action/patch_view?id=905

... so, what's the status of this patch?

That comment was referencing a mail of mine - so perhaps I better
explain:

I think the usecase for this utility isn't big enough to be included in
postgres since it really can only help in a very limited
circumstances. And I think it's too likely to be misused for stuff it's
not useable for (e.g. remastering).

The only scenario I see is that somebody deleted/corrupted
pg_controldata. In that scenario the tool is supposed to be used to find
the biggest lsn used so far so the user then can use pg_resetxlog to set
that as the wal starting point.
But that can be way much easier solved by just setting the LSN to
something very, very high. The database cannot be used for anything
reliable afterwards anyway.

Greetings,

Andres Freund

--
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PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services

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#8Amit Kapila
amit.kapila16@gmail.com
In reply to: Andres Freund (#7)

On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 11:12 PM Andres Freund wrote:

Hi,

On 2013-06-16 17:19:49 -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:

Amit posted a new version of this patch on January 23rd. But last
comment on it by Tom is "not sure everyone wants this".

https://commitfest.postgresql.org/action/patch_view?id=905

... so, what's the status of this patch?

That comment was referencing a mail of mine - so perhaps I better
explain:

I think the usecase for this utility isn't big enough to be included in
postgres since it really can only help in a very limited
circumstances. And I think it's too likely to be misused for stuff it's
not useable for (e.g. remastering).

The only scenario I see is that somebody deleted/corrupted
pg_controldata. In that scenario the tool is supposed to be used to
find
the biggest lsn used so far so the user then can use pg_resetxlog to
set
that as the wal starting point.
But that can be way much easier solved by just setting the LSN to
something very, very high. The database cannot be used for anything
reliable afterwards anyway.

One of the main reason this was written was to make server up in case of
corruption and
user can take dump of some useful information if any.

By setting LSN very, very high user might loose the information which he
wants to take dump.
So I think in such scenario's it can be quite helpful to users, but such
scenarios are rare and so
it might not be a utility which user will need often.

With Regards,
Amit Kapila.

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#9Andres Freund
andres@anarazel.de
In reply to: Amit Kapila (#8)

On 2013-06-26 08:50:27 +0530, Amit Kapila wrote:

On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 11:12 PM Andres Freund wrote:

On 2013-06-16 17:19:49 -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:

Amit posted a new version of this patch on January 23rd. But last
comment on it by Tom is "not sure everyone wants this".

https://commitfest.postgresql.org/action/patch_view?id=905

... so, what's the status of this patch?

That comment was referencing a mail of mine - so perhaps I better
explain:

I think the usecase for this utility isn't big enough to be included in
postgres since it really can only help in a very limited
circumstances. And I think it's too likely to be misused for stuff it's
not useable for (e.g. remastering).

The only scenario I see is that somebody deleted/corrupted
pg_controldata. In that scenario the tool is supposed to be used to
find
the biggest lsn used so far so the user then can use pg_resetxlog to
set
that as the wal starting point.
But that can be way much easier solved by just setting the LSN to
something very, very high. The database cannot be used for anything
reliable afterwards anyway.

One of the main reason this was written was to make server up in case of
corruption and
user can take dump of some useful information if any.

By setting LSN very, very high user might loose the information which he
wants to take dump.

Which information would that loose? We don't currently use the LSN for
tuple visibility. And you sure wouldn't do anything but dump such a
cluster.
Now you could argue that you could modify this to find the current xid
used - but that's not that easy due to the wraparound semantics of
xids. And you are more likely to be successfull by looking at pg_clog.

Greetings,

Andres Freund

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PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services

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#10Amit Kapila
amit.kapila16@gmail.com
In reply to: Andres Freund (#9)

On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 1:20 PM Andres Freund wrote:

On 2013-06-26 08:50:27 +0530, Amit Kapila wrote:

On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 11:12 PM Andres Freund wrote:

On 2013-06-16 17:19:49 -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:

Amit posted a new version of this patch on January 23rd. But

last

comment on it by Tom is "not sure everyone wants this".

https://commitfest.postgresql.org/action/patch_view?id=905

... so, what's the status of this patch?

That comment was referencing a mail of mine - so perhaps I better
explain:

I think the usecase for this utility isn't big enough to be

included in

postgres since it really can only help in a very limited
circumstances. And I think it's too likely to be misused for stuff

it's

not useable for (e.g. remastering).

The only scenario I see is that somebody deleted/corrupted
pg_controldata. In that scenario the tool is supposed to be used to
find
the biggest lsn used so far so the user then can use pg_resetxlog

to

set
that as the wal starting point.
But that can be way much easier solved by just setting the LSN to
something very, very high. The database cannot be used for anything
reliable afterwards anyway.

One of the main reason this was written was to make server up in case

of

corruption and
user can take dump of some useful information if any.

By setting LSN very, very high user might loose the information which

he

wants to take dump.

Which information would that loose?

Information from WAL replay which can be more appropriate by selecting
LSN.
Also for a developer, guessing very high LSN might be easy, but for users
it might not be equally easy, and getting such value by utility would be
comfortable.

One more use case for which this utility was done is as below:
It will be used to decide that on new-standby (old-master) whether a full
backup is needed from
New-master(old-standby).
The backup is required when the data page in old-master precedes
the last applied LSN in old-standby (i.e., new-master) at the moment
of the failover.

We don't currently use the LSN for
tuple visibility. And you sure wouldn't do anything but dump such a
cluster.
Now you could argue that you could modify this to find the current xid
used - but that's not that easy due to the wraparound semantics of
xids. And you are more likely to be successfull by looking at pg_clog.

With Regards,
Amit Kapila.

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#11Andres Freund
andres@anarazel.de
In reply to: Amit Kapila (#10)

Hi Amit,

On 2013-06-26 16:22:28 +0530, Amit Kapila wrote:

On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 1:20 PM Andres Freund wrote:

On 2013-06-26 08:50:27 +0530, Amit Kapila wrote:

On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 11:12 PM Andres Freund wrote:

On 2013-06-16 17:19:49 -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:

Amit posted a new version of this patch on January 23rd. But

last

comment on it by Tom is "not sure everyone wants this".

https://commitfest.postgresql.org/action/patch_view?id=905

... so, what's the status of this patch?

That comment was referencing a mail of mine - so perhaps I better
explain:

I think the usecase for this utility isn't big enough to be

included in

postgres since it really can only help in a very limited
circumstances. And I think it's too likely to be misused for stuff

it's

not useable for (e.g. remastering).

The only scenario I see is that somebody deleted/corrupted
pg_controldata. In that scenario the tool is supposed to be used to
find
the biggest lsn used so far so the user then can use pg_resetxlog

to

set
that as the wal starting point.
But that can be way much easier solved by just setting the LSN to
something very, very high. The database cannot be used for anything
reliable afterwards anyway.

One of the main reason this was written was to make server up in case

of

corruption and
user can take dump of some useful information if any.

By setting LSN very, very high user might loose the information which

he

wants to take dump.

Which information would that loose?

Information from WAL replay which can be more appropriate by selecting
LSN.

Sorry, I can't follow. If wal replay still is an option you can just
look at the WAL and get a sensible value way easier. The whole tool
seems to only make sense if you've lost pg_xlog.

Also for a developer, guessing very high LSN might be easy, but for users
it might not be equally easy, and getting such value by utility would be
comfortable.

Well, then we can just document some very high lsn and be done with
it. Like CF000000/00000000.
That would leave enough space for eventual writes caused while dumping
the database (say hint bit writes in a checksummed database) and cannot
yet be realistically be reached during normal operation.

One more use case for which this utility was done is as below:
It will be used to decide that on new-standby (old-master) whether a full
backup is needed from
New-master(old-standby).
The backup is required when the data page in old-master precedes
the last applied LSN in old-standby (i.e., new-master) at the moment
of the failover.

That's exactly what I was afraid of. Unless I miss something the tool is
*NOT* sufficient to do this. Look at the mail introducing pg_rewind and
the ensuing discussion for what's necessary for that.

Greetings,

Andres Freund

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PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services

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#12Amit Kapila
amit.kapila16@gmail.com
In reply to: Andres Freund (#11)

On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 4:40 PM Andres Freund wrote:

Hi Amit,

On 2013-06-26 16:22:28 +0530, Amit Kapila wrote:

On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 1:20 PM Andres Freund wrote:

On 2013-06-26 08:50:27 +0530, Amit Kapila wrote:

On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 11:12 PM Andres Freund wrote:

On 2013-06-16 17:19:49 -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:

Amit posted a new version of this patch on January 23rd. But

last

comment on it by Tom is "not sure everyone wants this".

https://commitfest.postgresql.org/action/patch_view?id=905

... so, what's the status of this patch?

That comment was referencing a mail of mine - so perhaps I

better

explain:

I think the usecase for this utility isn't big enough to be

included in

postgres since it really can only help in a very limited
circumstances. And I think it's too likely to be misused for

stuff

it's

not useable for (e.g. remastering).

The only scenario I see is that somebody deleted/corrupted
pg_controldata. In that scenario the tool is supposed to be

used to

find
the biggest lsn used so far so the user then can use

pg_resetxlog

to

set
that as the wal starting point.
But that can be way much easier solved by just setting the LSN

to

something very, very high. The database cannot be used for

anything

reliable afterwards anyway.

One of the main reason this was written was to make server up in

case

of

corruption and
user can take dump of some useful information if any.

By setting LSN very, very high user might loose the information

which

he

wants to take dump.

Which information would that loose?

Information from WAL replay which can be more appropriate by

selecting

LSN.

Sorry, I can't follow. If wal replay still is an option you can just
look at the WAL and get a sensible value way easier.

Originally 2 parts were proposed, one was to get LSN from data pages and
other from data pages.
Original proposal is:
/messages/by-id/6C0B27F7206C9E4CA54AE035729E9C382851FFA
1@szxeml509-mbs

The second part for looking into WAL was written but due to xlogreader
patch, it was postponed and I didn't get time after that
to pursue it.

The whole tool
seems to only make sense if you've lost pg_xlog.

The tool's initial intent was if pg_controldata is lost and this idea is
originated in below mail chain:
/messages/by-id/4274.1340084598@sss.pgh.pa.us

Also for a developer, guessing very high LSN might be easy, but for

users

it might not be equally easy, and getting such value by utility

would be

comfortable.

Well, then we can just document some very high lsn and be done with
it. Like CF000000/00000000.
That would leave enough space for eventual writes caused while dumping
the database (say hint bit writes in a checksummed database) and cannot
yet be realistically be reached during normal operation.

Can we be ultra sure, that this LSN is not reached. I think it will take
vary long to reach such LSN, but still theoretically it can be possible.
I don't have any evidence.

One more use case for which this utility was done is as below:
It will be used to decide that on new-standby (old-master) whether

a full

backup is needed from
New-master(old-standby).
The backup is required when the data page in old-master precedes
the last applied LSN in old-standby (i.e., new-master) at the

moment

of the failover.

That's exactly what I was afraid of. Unless I miss something the tool
is
*NOT* sufficient to do this.

You mean to say if user knows the max LSN of data pages in old-master and
last applied LSN in new master, he cannot decide whether
Full backup is needed? It should be straightforward decision that skip a
backup if that old-master LSN is less than the new-master (i.e., last
applied LSN, IOW, timeline switch LSN).
It was proposed as a usecase in this below mail:
/messages/by-id/CAHGQGwHyd1fY0hF0qKh0-uKDh-gcbYxMOFBYVk
Kh4jzji-FCfg@mail.gmail.com

Look at the mail introducing pg_rewind and
the ensuing discussion for what's necessary for that.

I had briefly looked into that discussion at the time it was going on, but I
will look into it more carefully.

With Regards,
Amit Kapila.

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#13Fujii Masao
masao.fujii@gmail.com
In reply to: Amit Kapila (#1)

On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 8:57 PM, Amit Kapila <amit.kapila@huawei.com> wrote:

On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 4:40 PM Andres Freund wrote:

Hi Amit,

On 2013-06-26 16:22:28 +0530, Amit Kapila wrote:

On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 1:20 PM Andres Freund wrote:

On 2013-06-26 08:50:27 +0530, Amit Kapila wrote:

On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 11:12 PM Andres Freund wrote:

On 2013-06-16 17:19:49 -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:

Amit posted a new version of this patch on January 23rd. But

last

comment on it by Tom is "not sure everyone wants this".

https://commitfest.postgresql.org/action/patch_view?id=905

... so, what's the status of this patch?

That comment was referencing a mail of mine - so perhaps I

better

explain:

I think the usecase for this utility isn't big enough to be

included in

postgres since it really can only help in a very limited
circumstances. And I think it's too likely to be misused for

stuff

it's

not useable for (e.g. remastering).

The only scenario I see is that somebody deleted/corrupted
pg_controldata. In that scenario the tool is supposed to be

used to

find
the biggest lsn used so far so the user then can use

pg_resetxlog

to

set
that as the wal starting point.
But that can be way much easier solved by just setting the LSN

to

something very, very high. The database cannot be used for

anything

reliable afterwards anyway.

One of the main reason this was written was to make server up in

case

of

corruption and
user can take dump of some useful information if any.

By setting LSN very, very high user might loose the information

which

he

wants to take dump.

Which information would that loose?

Information from WAL replay which can be more appropriate by

selecting

LSN.

Sorry, I can't follow. If wal replay still is an option you can just
look at the WAL and get a sensible value way easier.

Originally 2 parts were proposed, one was to get LSN from data pages and
other from data pages.
Original proposal is:
/messages/by-id/6C0B27F7206C9E4CA54AE035729E9C382851FFA
1@szxeml509-mbs

The second part for looking into WAL was written but due to xlogreader
patch, it was postponed and I didn't get time after that
to pursue it.

The whole tool
seems to only make sense if you've lost pg_xlog.

The tool's initial intent was if pg_controldata is lost and this idea is
originated in below mail chain:
/messages/by-id/4274.1340084598@sss.pgh.pa.us

Also for a developer, guessing very high LSN might be easy, but for

users

it might not be equally easy, and getting such value by utility

would be

comfortable.

Well, then we can just document some very high lsn and be done with
it. Like CF000000/00000000.
That would leave enough space for eventual writes caused while dumping
the database (say hint bit writes in a checksummed database) and cannot
yet be realistically be reached during normal operation.

Can we be ultra sure, that this LSN is not reached. I think it will take
vary long to reach such LSN, but still theoretically it can be possible.
I don't have any evidence.

One more use case for which this utility was done is as below:
It will be used to decide that on new-standby (old-master) whether

a full

backup is needed from
New-master(old-standby).
The backup is required when the data page in old-master precedes
the last applied LSN in old-standby (i.e., new-master) at the

moment

of the failover.

That's exactly what I was afraid of. Unless I miss something the tool
is
*NOT* sufficient to do this.

You mean to say if user knows the max LSN of data pages in old-master and
last applied LSN in new master, he cannot decide whether
Full backup is needed? It should be straightforward decision that skip a
backup if that old-master LSN is less than the new-master (i.e., last
applied LSN, IOW, timeline switch LSN).
It was proposed as a usecase in this below mail:
/messages/by-id/CAHGQGwHyd1fY0hF0qKh0-uKDh-gcbYxMOFBYVk
Kh4jzji-FCfg@mail.gmail.com

I guess he meant the commit hint bit problem.

Regards,

--
Fujii Masao

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#14Amit Kapila
amit.kapila16@gmail.com
In reply to: Fujii Masao (#13)

On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 10:19 PM Fujii Masao wrote:

On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 8:57 PM, Amit Kapila <amit.kapila@huawei.com>
wrote:

On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 4:40 PM Andres Freund wrote:

Hi Amit,

On 2013-06-26 16:22:28 +0530, Amit Kapila wrote:

On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 1:20 PM Andres Freund wrote:

On 2013-06-26 08:50:27 +0530, Amit Kapila wrote:

On Tuesday, June 25, 2013 11:12 PM Andres Freund wrote:

On 2013-06-16 17:19:49 -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:

Amit posted a new version of this patch on January 23rd.

But

last

comment on it by Tom is "not sure everyone wants this".

https://commitfest.postgresql.org/action/patch_view?id=905

... so, what's the status of this patch?

That comment was referencing a mail of mine - so perhaps I

better

explain:

I think the usecase for this utility isn't big enough to be

included in

postgres since it really can only help in a very limited
circumstances. And I think it's too likely to be misused for

stuff

it's

not useable for (e.g. remastering).

The only scenario I see is that somebody deleted/corrupted
pg_controldata. In that scenario the tool is supposed to be

used to

find
the biggest lsn used so far so the user then can use

pg_resetxlog

to

set
that as the wal starting point.
But that can be way much easier solved by just setting the

LSN

to

something very, very high. The database cannot be used for

anything

reliable afterwards anyway.

One of the main reason this was written was to make server up

in

case

of

corruption and
user can take dump of some useful information if any.

By setting LSN very, very high user might loose the

information

which

he

wants to take dump.

Which information would that loose?

Information from WAL replay which can be more appropriate by

selecting

LSN.

Sorry, I can't follow. If wal replay still is an option you can just
look at the WAL and get a sensible value way easier.

Originally 2 parts were proposed, one was to get LSN from data pages

and

other from data pages.
Original proposal is:
http://www.postgresql.org/message-

id/6C0B27F7206C9E4CA54AE035729E9C382851FFA

1@szxeml509-mbs

The second part for looking into WAL was written but due to

xlogreader

patch, it was postponed and I didn't get time after that
to pursue it.

The whole tool
seems to only make sense if you've lost pg_xlog.

The tool's initial intent was if pg_controldata is lost and this idea

is

originated in below mail chain:
/messages/by-id/4274.1340084598@sss.pgh.pa.us

Also for a developer, guessing very high LSN might be easy, but

for

users

it might not be equally easy, and getting such value by utility

would be

comfortable.

Well, then we can just document some very high lsn and be done with
it. Like CF000000/00000000.
That would leave enough space for eventual writes caused while

dumping

the database (say hint bit writes in a checksummed database) and

cannot

yet be realistically be reached during normal operation.

Can we be ultra sure, that this LSN is not reached. I think it will

take

vary long to reach such LSN, but still theoretically it can be

possible.

I don't have any evidence.

One more use case for which this utility was done is as below:
It will be used to decide that on new-standby (old-master)

whether

a full

backup is needed from
New-master(old-standby).
The backup is required when the data page in old-master precedes
the last applied LSN in old-standby (i.e., new-master) at the

moment

of the failover.

That's exactly what I was afraid of. Unless I miss something the

tool

is
*NOT* sufficient to do this.

You mean to say if user knows the max LSN of data pages in old-master

and

last applied LSN in new master, he cannot decide whether
Full backup is needed? It should be straightforward decision that

skip a

backup if that old-master LSN is less than the new-master (i.e., last
applied LSN, IOW, timeline switch LSN).
It was proposed as a usecase in this below mail:
/messages/by-id/CAHGQGwHyd1fY0hF0qKh0-uKDh-

gcbYxMOFBYVk

Kh4jzji-FCfg@mail.gmail.com

I guess he meant the commit hint bit problem.

True, after reading the thread mentioned by Andres, I got the reason he was
pointing why it is not sufficient.
So can it be useful if database has checksums enabled?

With Regards,
Amit Kapila.

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#15Andres Freund
andres@anarazel.de
In reply to: Amit Kapila (#14)

On 2013-06-27 11:16:25 +0530, Amit Kapila wrote:

On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 10:19 PM Fujii Masao wrote:

On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 8:57 PM, Amit Kapila <amit.kapila@huawei.com>

One more use case for which this utility was done is as below:
It will be used to decide that on new-standby (old-master)

whether

a full

backup is needed from
New-master(old-standby).
The backup is required when the data page in old-master precedes
the last applied LSN in old-standby (i.e., new-master) at the

moment

of the failover.

That's exactly what I was afraid of. Unless I miss something the

tool

is
*NOT* sufficient to do this.

You mean to say if user knows the max LSN of data pages in old-master

and

last applied LSN in new master, he cannot decide whether
Full backup is needed? It should be straightforward decision that

skip a

backup if that old-master LSN is less than the new-master (i.e., last
applied LSN, IOW, timeline switch LSN).
It was proposed as a usecase in this below mail:
/messages/by-id/CAHGQGwHyd1fY0hF0qKh0-uKDh-

gcbYxMOFBYVk

Kh4jzji-FCfg@mail.gmail.com

I guess he meant the commit hint bit problem.

True, after reading the thread mentioned by Andres, I got the reason he was
pointing why it is not sufficient.
So can it be useful if database has checksums enabled?

I think for that usecase its far more useful to work on getting
pg_rewind since that has a chance of working when local WAL has been
applied that hadn't yet shipped to the other side (which is frequently
the case).

Greetings,

Andres Freund

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#16Amit Kapila
amit.kapila16@gmail.com
In reply to: Andres Freund (#15)

On Thursday, June 27, 2013 11:26 AM Andres Freund wrote:

On 2013-06-27 11:16:25 +0530, Amit Kapila wrote:

On Wednesday, June 26, 2013 10:19 PM Fujii Masao wrote:

On Wed, Jun 26, 2013 at 8:57 PM, Amit Kapila

<amit.kapila@huawei.com>

One more use case for which this utility was done is as

below:

It will be used to decide that on new-standby (old-master)

whether

a full

backup is needed from
New-master(old-standby).
The backup is required when the data page in old-master

precedes

the last applied LSN in old-standby (i.e., new-master) at

the

moment

of the failover.

That's exactly what I was afraid of. Unless I miss something the

tool

is
*NOT* sufficient to do this.

You mean to say if user knows the max LSN of data pages in old-

master

and

last applied LSN in new master, he cannot decide whether
Full backup is needed? It should be straightforward decision that

skip a

backup if that old-master LSN is less than the new-master (i.e.,

last

applied LSN, IOW, timeline switch LSN).
It was proposed as a usecase in this below mail:
/messages/by-id/CAHGQGwHyd1fY0hF0qKh0-uKDh-

gcbYxMOFBYVk

Kh4jzji-FCfg@mail.gmail.com

I guess he meant the commit hint bit problem.

True, after reading the thread mentioned by Andres, I got the reason

he was

pointing why it is not sufficient.
So can it be useful if database has checksums enabled?

I think for that usecase its far more useful to work on getting
pg_rewind since that has a chance of working when local WAL has been
applied that hadn't yet shipped to the other side (which is frequently
the case).

Aren't the use case for both is bit different
Pg_computmaxlsn - by computing max lsn for checksums enabled database, user
can made old-master follow new-master if maxlsn suggests that fullbackup is
not required.

Pg_rewind - a tool to resynchronize old-master and new-master by
copying changed blocks from new master.
I think more work might be needed in case DDL's happened
on old-master after forking of new-master.

Although for this case, both have resemblance in terms of avoiding full
backup, but I think maxlsn tool can be independently also used.
Do you think pg_rewind can be used by default for any checksum enabled
database to resynchronize old-master?

With Regards,
Amit Kapila.

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#17Robert Haas
robertmhaas@gmail.com
In reply to: Andres Freund (#7)

On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 1:42 PM, Andres Freund <andres@2ndquadrant.com> wrote:

I think the usecase for this utility isn't big enough to be included in
postgres since it really can only help in a very limited
circumstances. And I think it's too likely to be misused for stuff it's
not useable for (e.g. remastering).

The only scenario I see is that somebody deleted/corrupted
pg_controldata. In that scenario the tool is supposed to be used to find
the biggest lsn used so far so the user then can use pg_resetxlog to set
that as the wal starting point.
But that can be way much easier solved by just setting the LSN to
something very, very high. The database cannot be used for anything
reliable afterwards anyway.

I guess this is true, but I think I'm mildly in favor of including
this anyway. I think I would have used it once or twice, if it had
been there - maybe not even to feed into pg_resetxlog, but just to
check for future LSNs. We don't have anything like a suite of
diagnostic tools in bin or contrib today, for use by database
professionals in fixing things that fall strictly in the realm of
"don't try this at home", and I think we should have such a thing.
Unfortunately this covers about 0.1% of the space I'd like to see
covered, which might be a reason to reject it or at least insist that
it be enhanced first.

At any rate, I don't think this is anywhere near committable as it
stands today. Some random review comments:

remove_parent_refernces() is spelled wrong.

Why does this patch need all of this fancy path-handling logic -
specifically, remove_parent_refernces() and make_absolute_path()?
Surely its needs are not that different from pg_ctl or pg_resetxlog or
pg_controldata. If they all need it and it's duplicated, we should
fix that. Otherwise, why the special logic here?

I don't think we need getLinkPath() either. The server has no trouble
finding its files by just using a pathname that follows the symlink.
Why do we need anything different here? The whole point of symlinks
is that you can traverse them transparently, without knowing where
they point.

Duplicating PageHeaderIsValid doesn't seem acceptable. Moreover,
since the point of this is to be able to use it on a damaged cluster,
why is that logic even desirable? I think we'd be better off assuming
the pages to be valid.

The calling convention for this utility seems quite baroque. There's
no real need for all of this -p/-P stuff. I think the syntax should
just be:

pg_computemaxlsn file_or_directory...

For each argument, we determine whether it's a file or a directory.
If it's a file, we assume it's a PostgreSQL data file and scan it. If
it's a directory, we check whether it looks like a data directory. If
it does, we recurse through the whole tree structure and find the data
files, and process them. If it doesn't look like a data directory, we
scan each plain file in that directory whose name looks like a
PostgreSQL data file name. With this approach, there's no need to
limit ourselves to a single input argument and no need to specify what
kind of argument it is; the tool just figures it out.

I think it would be a good idea to have a mode that prints out the max
LSN found in *each data file* scanned, and then prints out the overall
max found at the end. In fact, I think that should perhaps be the
default mode, with -q, --quiet to disable it. When printing out the
per-file data, I think it would be useful to track and print the block
number where the highest LSN in that file was found. I have
definitely had cases where I suspected, but was not certain of,
corruption. One could use a tool like this to hunt for problems, and
then use something like pg_filedump to dump the offending blocks.
That would be a lot easier than running pg_filedump on the whole file
and grepping through the output.

Similarly, I see no reason for the restriction imposed by
check_path_belongs_to_pgdata(). I've had people mail me one data
file; why shouldn't I be able to run this tool on it? It's a
read-only utility.

- if (0 != FindMaxLSNinDir(pathbuf, maxlsn, false)) and similar is not
PostgreSQL style.

+ printf(_("%s compute the maximum LSN in PostgreSQL data
pages.\n\n"), progname);

s/compute/computes/

+       /*
+        * Don't allow pg_computemaxlsn to be run as root, to avoid overwriting
+        * the ownership of files in the data directory. We need only check for
+        * root -- any other user won't have sufficient permissions to modify
+        * files in the data directory.
+        */
+ #ifndef WIN32
+       if (geteuid() == 0)
+       {
+               fprintf(stderr, _("%s: cannot be executed by \"root\".\n"),
+                               progname);
+               fprintf(stderr, _("You must run %s as the PostgreSQL
superuser.\n"),
+                               progname);
+               exit(1);
+       }
+ #endif

This utility only reads files; it does not modify them. So this seems
unnecessary. I assume it's blindly copied from somewhere else.

+ fprintf(stderr, _("%s: \"%s\" not a valid data directory.\n"),

Extra space.

+       /*
+        * Check for a postmaster lock file --- if there is one, refuse to
+        * proceed, on grounds we might be interfering with a live installation.
+        */
+       snprintf(path, MAXPGPATH, "%s/postmaster.pid", DataDir);

Again, this might be appropriate for pg_resetxlog, but I see no reason
for the restriction here. The output might be inaccurate in that
case, but if you're using this tool you're required to know what
you're doing.

+    For safety reasons, you must specify the data directory on the
command line.
+    <command>pg_computemaxlsn</command> does not use the environment variable
+    <envar>PGDATA</>.

Same thing here. I think using PGDATA would be quite appropriate for
this utility.

+   <para>
+    This command must not be used when the server is
+    running.  <command>pg_computemaxlsn</command> will refuse to start up if
+    it finds a server lock file in the data directory.  If the
+    server crashed then a lock file might have been left
+    behind; in that case you can remove the lock file to allow
+    <command>pg_computemaxlsn</command> to run.  But before you do
+    so, make doubly certain that there is no server process still alive.
+   </para>

More of the same paranoia.

Overall my feeling is that this can be simplified quite a lot.
There's a lot of stuff in here that's really not needed.

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#18Amit Kapila
amit.kapila16@gmail.com
In reply to: Robert Haas (#17)

On Wednesday, July 03, 2013 1:26 AM Robert Haas wrote:

On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 1:42 PM, Andres Freund <andres@2ndquadrant.com>
wrote:

I think the usecase for this utility isn't big enough to be included

in

postgres since it really can only help in a very limited
circumstances. And I think it's too likely to be misused for stuff

it's

not useable for (e.g. remastering).

The only scenario I see is that somebody deleted/corrupted
pg_controldata. In that scenario the tool is supposed to be used to

find

the biggest lsn used so far so the user then can use pg_resetxlog to

set

that as the wal starting point.
But that can be way much easier solved by just setting the LSN to
something very, very high. The database cannot be used for anything
reliable afterwards anyway.

I guess this is true, but I think I'm mildly in favor of including
this anyway. I think I would have used it once or twice, if it had
been there - maybe not even to feed into pg_resetxlog, but just to
check for future LSNs. We don't have anything like a suite of
diagnostic tools in bin or contrib today, for use by database
professionals in fixing things that fall strictly in the realm of
"don't try this at home", and I think we should have such a thing.
Unfortunately this covers about 0.1% of the space I'd like to see
covered, which might be a reason to reject it or at least insist that
it be enhanced first.

At any rate, I don't think this is anywhere near committable as it
stands today. Some random review comments:

remove_parent_refernces() is spelled wrong.

It was corrected in last posted version.
/messages/by-id/6C0B27F7206C9E4CA54AE035729E9C383BEB928
8@szxeml509-mbx

Why does this patch need all of this fancy path-handling logic -
specifically, remove_parent_refernces() and make_absolute_path()?
Surely its needs are not that different from pg_ctl or pg_resetxlog or
pg_controldata. If they all need it and it's duplicated, we should
fix that. Otherwise, why the special logic here?

I don't think we need getLinkPath() either. The server has no trouble
finding its files by just using a pathname that follows the symlink.
Why do we need anything different here? The whole point of symlinks
is that you can traverse them transparently, without knowing where
they point.

It is to handle negative scenario's like if there is any recursion in path.
However if you feel this is not important, it can be removed.

Duplicating PageHeaderIsValid doesn't seem acceptable. Moreover,
since the point of this is to be able to use it on a damaged cluster,
why is that logic even desirable? I think we'd be better off assuming
the pages to be valid.

The calling convention for this utility seems quite baroque. There's
no real need for all of this -p/-P stuff. I think the syntax should
just be:

pg_computemaxlsn file_or_directory...

For each argument, we determine whether it's a file or a directory.
If it's a file, we assume it's a PostgreSQL data file and scan it. If
it's a directory, we check whether it looks like a data directory. If
it does, we recurse through the whole tree structure and find the data
files, and process them. If it doesn't look like a data directory, we
scan each plain file in that directory whose name looks like a
PostgreSQL data file name. With this approach, there's no need to
limit ourselves to a single input argument and no need to specify what
kind of argument it is; the tool just figures it out.

I think it would be a good idea to have a mode that prints out the max
LSN found in *each data file* scanned, and then prints out the overall
max found at the end. In fact, I think that should perhaps be the
default mode, with -q, --quiet to disable it.

Printing too many LSN for each file might fill user's screen and he might be
needing only overall LSN.
Should we keep -p --printall as option to print all LSN's and keep default
as overall max LSN?

With Regards,
Amit Kapila.

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#19Robert Haas
robertmhaas@gmail.com
In reply to: Amit Kapila (#1)

On Wed, Jul 3, 2013 at 8:44 AM, Amit Kapila <amit.kapila@huawei.com> wrote:

Why does this patch need all of this fancy path-handling logic -
specifically, remove_parent_refernces() and make_absolute_path()?
Surely its needs are not that different from pg_ctl or pg_resetxlog or
pg_controldata. If they all need it and it's duplicated, we should
fix that. Otherwise, why the special logic here?

I don't think we need getLinkPath() either. The server has no trouble
finding its files by just using a pathname that follows the symlink.
Why do we need anything different here? The whole point of symlinks
is that you can traverse them transparently, without knowing where
they point.

It is to handle negative scenario's like if there is any recursion in path.
However if you feel this is not important, it can be removed.

I'm having a hard time imagining a situation where that would be a
problem. If the symlink points to itself somehow, the OS will throw
an error. If your filesystem is so badly hosed that the directory
structure is more fundamentally broken than the OS's circular-symlink
detection code can handle, whether or not this utility works is a
second-order consideration. What kind of scenario are you imagining?

I think it would be a good idea to have a mode that prints out the max
LSN found in *each data file* scanned, and then prints out the overall
max found at the end. In fact, I think that should perhaps be the
default mode, with -q, --quiet to disable it.

Printing too many LSN for each file might fill user's screen and he might be
needing only overall LSN.
Should we keep -p --printall as option to print all LSN's and keep default
as overall max LSN?

Honestly, I have a hard time imagining the use case for that mode.
This isn't a tool that people should be running regularly, and some
output that lends a bit of confidence that the tool is doing the right
thing seems like a good thing. Keep in mind it's likely to run for
quite a while, too, and this would provide a progress indicator. I'll
defer to whatever the consensus is here but my gut feeling is that if
you don't want that extra output, there's a good chance you're
misusing the tool.

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EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com
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#20Amit Kapila
amit.kapila16@gmail.com
In reply to: Robert Haas (#19)

-----Original Message-----
From: Robert Haas [mailto:robertmhaas@gmail.com]
Sent: Wednesday, July 03, 2013 6:40 PM
To: Amit Kapila
Cc: Andres Freund; Josh Berkus; pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Subject: Re: [HACKERS] Review: Patch to compute Max LSN of Data Pages

On Wed, Jul 3, 2013 at 8:44 AM, Amit Kapila <amit.kapila@huawei.com>
wrote:

Why does this patch need all of this fancy path-handling logic -
specifically, remove_parent_refernces() and make_absolute_path()?
Surely its needs are not that different from pg_ctl or pg_resetxlog

or

pg_controldata. If they all need it and it's duplicated, we should
fix that. Otherwise, why the special logic here?

I don't think we need getLinkPath() either. The server has no

trouble

finding its files by just using a pathname that follows the symlink.
Why do we need anything different here? The whole point of symlinks
is that you can traverse them transparently, without knowing where
they point.

It is to handle negative scenario's like if there is any recursion in

path.

However if you feel this is not important, it can be removed.

I'm having a hard time imagining a situation where that would be a
problem. If the symlink points to itself somehow, the OS will throw
an error. If your filesystem is so badly hosed that the directory
structure is more fundamentally broken than the OS's circular-symlink
detection code can handle, whether or not this utility works is a
second-order consideration. What kind of scenario are you imagining?

amit@linux:~> md test
amit@linux:~> cd test
amit@linux:~/test> ln -s ~/test link_test
amit@linux:~/test> ls
link_test
amit@linux:~/test> cd link_test
amit@linux:~/test/link_test> ls
link_test
amit@linux:~/test/link_test> cd link_test
amit@linux:~/test/link_test/link_test> cd link_test
amit@linux:~/test/link_test/link_test/link_test> pwd
/home/amit/test/link_test/link_test/link_test
amit@linux:~/test/link_test/link_test/link_test>

Platform details
----------------
Suse - 11.2
Kernel - 3.0.13

This is to avoid when user has given some path where db files are present.

I think it would be a good idea to have a mode that prints out the

max

LSN found in *each data file* scanned, and then prints out the

overall

max found at the end. In fact, I think that should perhaps be the
default mode, with -q, --quiet to disable it.

Printing too many LSN for each file might fill user's screen and he

might be

needing only overall LSN.
Should we keep -p --printall as option to print all LSN's and keep

default

as overall max LSN?

Honestly, I have a hard time imagining the use case for that mode.
This isn't a tool that people should be running regularly, and some
output that lends a bit of confidence that the tool is doing the right
thing seems like a good thing. Keep in mind it's likely to run for
quite a while, too, and this would provide a progress indicator. I'll
defer to whatever the consensus is here but my gut feeling is that if
you don't want that extra output, there's a good chance you're
misusing the tool.

With Regards,
Amit Kapila.

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#21Robert Haas
robertmhaas@gmail.com
In reply to: Amit Kapila (#1)
#22Amit Kapila
amit.kapila16@gmail.com
In reply to: Robert Haas (#21)
#23Haribabu kommi
haribabu.kommi@huawei.com
In reply to: Robert Haas (#17)
#24Robert Haas
robertmhaas@gmail.com
In reply to: Amit Kapila (#1)
#25Robert Haas
robertmhaas@gmail.com
In reply to: Amit Kapila (#1)
#26Haribabu kommi
haribabu.kommi@huawei.com
In reply to: Robert Haas (#25)
#27Haribabu kommi
haribabu.kommi@huawei.com
In reply to: Amit Kapila (#1)
#28Andres Freund
andres@anarazel.de
In reply to: Haribabu kommi (#27)
#29Amit Kapila
amit.kapila16@gmail.com
In reply to: Andres Freund (#28)
#30Andres Freund
andres@anarazel.de
In reply to: Amit Kapila (#29)
#31Haribabu kommi
haribabu.kommi@huawei.com
In reply to: Andres Freund (#30)
#32Amit Kapila
amit.kapila16@gmail.com
In reply to: Andres Freund (#30)