• Noah Misch's avatar
    Skip WAL for new relfilenodes, under wal_level=minimal. · c6b92041
    Noah Misch authored
    Until now, only selected bulk operations (e.g. COPY) did this.  If a
    given relfilenode received both a WAL-skipping COPY and a WAL-logged
    operation (e.g. INSERT), recovery could lose tuples from the COPY.  See
    src/backend/access/transam/README section "Skipping WAL for New
    RelFileNode" for the new coding rules.  Maintainers of table access
    methods should examine that section.
    
    To maintain data durability, just before commit, we choose between an
    fsync of the relfilenode and copying its contents to WAL.  A new GUC,
    wal_skip_threshold, guides that choice.  If this change slows a workload
    that creates small, permanent relfilenodes under wal_level=minimal, try
    adjusting wal_skip_threshold.  Users setting a timeout on COMMIT may
    need to adjust that timeout, and log_min_duration_statement analysis
    will reflect time consumption moving to COMMIT from commands like COPY.
    
    Internally, this requires a reliable determination of whether
    RollbackAndReleaseCurrentSubTransaction() would unlink a relation's
    current relfilenode.  Introduce rd_firstRelfilenodeSubid.  Amend the
    specification of rd_createSubid such that the field is zero when a new
    rel has an old rd_node.  Make relcache.c retain entries for certain
    dropped relations until end of transaction.
    
    Bump XLOG_PAGE_MAGIC, since this introduces XLOG_GIST_ASSIGN_LSN.
    Future servers accept older WAL, so this bump is discretionary.
    
    Kyotaro Horiguchi, reviewed (in earlier, similar versions) by Robert
    Haas.  Heikki Linnakangas and Michael Paquier implemented earlier
    designs that materially clarified the problem.  Reviewed, in earlier
    designs, by Andrew Dunstan, Andres Freund, Alvaro Herrera, Tom Lane,
    Fujii Masao, and Simon Riggs.  Reported by Martijn van Oosterhout.
    
    Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/20150702220524.GA9392@svana.org
    c6b92041
perform.sgml 83.9 KB