Fix performance problems with autovacuum truncation in busy workloads.

In situations where there are over 8MB of empty pages at the end of
a table, the truncation work for trailing empty pages takes longer
than deadlock_timeout, and there is frequent access to the table by
processes other than autovacuum, there was a problem with the
autovacuum worker process being canceled by the deadlock checking
code. The truncation work done by autovacuum up that point was
lost, and the attempt tried again by a later autovacuum worker. The
attempts could continue indefinitely without making progress,
consuming resources and blocking other processes for up to
deadlock_timeout each time.

This patch has the autovacuum worker checking whether it is
blocking any other thread at 20ms intervals. If such a condition
develops, the autovacuum worker will persist the work it has done
so far, release its lock on the table, and sleep in 50ms intervals
for up to 5 seconds, hoping to be able to re-acquire the lock and
try again. If it is unable to get the lock in that time, it moves
on and a worker will try to continue later from the point this one
left off.

While this patch doesn't change the rules about when and what to
truncate, it does cause the truncation to occur sooner, with less
blocking, and with the consumption of fewer resources when there is
contention for the table's lock.

The only user-visible change other than improved performance is
that the table size during truncation may change incrementally
instead of just once.

Backpatched to 9.0 from initial master commit at
b19e4250b45e91c9cbdd18d35ea6391ab5961c8d -- before that the
differences are too large to be clearly safe.

Jan Wieck

src/backend/commands/vacuumlazy.c

@@ -46,6 +46,7 @@
 #include "commands/vacuum.h"
 #include "miscadmin.h"
 #include "pgstat.h"
+#include "portability/instr_time.h"
 #include "postmaster/autovacuum.h"
 #include "storage/bufmgr.h"
 #include "storage/freespace.h"
@@ -67,6 +68,17 @@
 #define REL_TRUNCATE_MINIMUM	1000
 #define REL_TRUNCATE_FRACTION	16
 
+/*
+ * Timing parameters for truncate locking heuristics.
+ *
+ * These were not exposed as user tunable GUC values because it didn't seem
+ * that the potential for improvement was great enough to merit the cost of
+ * supporting them.
+ */
+#define AUTOVACUUM_TRUNCATE_LOCK_CHECK_INTERVAL		20	/* ms */
+#define AUTOVACUUM_TRUNCATE_LOCK_WAIT_INTERVAL		50	/* ms */
+#define AUTOVACUUM_TRUNCATE_LOCK_TIMEOUT			5000		/* ms */
+
 /*
  * Guesstimation of number of dead tuples per page.  This is used to
  * provide an upper limit to memory allocated when vacuuming small
@@ -101,6 +113,7 @@ typedef struct LVRelStats
 	ItemPointer dead_tuples;	/* array of ItemPointerData */
 	int			num_index_scans;
 	TransactionId latestRemovedXid;
+	bool		lock_waiter_detected;
 } LVRelStats;
 
 
@@ -191,6 +204,8 @@ lazy_vacuum_rel(Relation onerel, VacuumStmt *vacstmt,
 	vacrelstats->old_rel_pages = onerel->rd_rel->relpages;
 	vacrelstats->old_rel_tuples = onerel->rd_rel->reltuples;
 	vacrelstats->num_index_scans = 0;
+	vacrelstats->pages_removed = 0;
+	vacrelstats->lock_waiter_detected = false;
 
 	/* Open all indexes of the relation */
 	vac_open_indexes(onerel, RowExclusiveLock, &nindexes, &Irel);
@@ -257,10 +272,17 @@ lazy_vacuum_rel(Relation onerel, VacuumStmt *vacstmt,
 						vacrelstats->hasindex,
 						new_frozen_xid);
 
-	/* report results to the stats collector, too */
+	/*
-	pgstat_report_vacuum(RelationGetRelid(onerel),
+	 * Report results to the stats collector, too. An early terminated
-						 onerel->rd_rel->relisshared,
+	 * lazy_truncate_heap attempt suppresses the message and also cancels the
-						 new_rel_tuples);
+	 * execution of ANALYZE, if that was ordered.
+	 */
+	if (!vacrelstats->lock_waiter_detected)
+		pgstat_report_vacuum(RelationGetRelid(onerel),
+							 onerel->rd_rel->relisshared,
+							 new_rel_tuples);
+	else
+		vacstmt->options &= ~VACOPT_ANALYZE;
 
 	/* and log the action if appropriate */
 	if (IsAutoVacuumWorkerProcess() && Log_autovacuum_min_duration >= 0)
@@ -1255,80 +1277,124 @@ lazy_truncate_heap(Relation onerel, LVRelStats *vacrelstats)
 	BlockNumber old_rel_pages = vacrelstats->rel_pages;
 	BlockNumber new_rel_pages;
 	PGRUsage	ru0;
+	int			lock_retry;
 
 	pg_rusage_init(&ru0);
 
 	/*
-	 * We need full exclusive lock on the relation in order to do truncation.
+	 * Loop until no more truncating can be done.
-	 * If we can't get it, give up rather than waiting --- we don't want to
-	 * block other backends, and we don't want to deadlock (which is quite
-	 * possible considering we already hold a lower-grade lock).
 	 */
-	if (!ConditionalLockRelation(onerel, AccessExclusiveLock))
+	do
-		return;
-
-	/*
-	 * Now that we have exclusive lock, look to see if the rel has grown
-	 * whilst we were vacuuming with non-exclusive lock.  If so, give up; the
-	 * newly added pages presumably contain non-deletable tuples.
-	 */
-	new_rel_pages = RelationGetNumberOfBlocks(onerel);
-	if (new_rel_pages != old_rel_pages)
 	{
 		/*
-		 * Note: we intentionally don't update vacrelstats->rel_pages with the
+		 * We need full exclusive lock on the relation in order to do
-		 * new rel size here.  If we did, it would amount to assuming that the
+		 * truncation. If we can't get it, give up rather than waiting --- we
-		 * new pages are empty, which is unlikely.	Leaving the numbers alone
+		 * don't want to block other backends, and we don't want to deadlock
-		 * amounts to assuming that the new pages have the same tuple density
+		 * (which is quite possible considering we already hold a lower-grade
-		 * as existing ones, which is less unlikely.
+		 * lock).
+		 */
+		vacrelstats->lock_waiter_detected = false;
+		lock_retry = 0;
+		while (true)
+		{
+			if (ConditionalLockRelation(onerel, AccessExclusiveLock))
+				break;
+
+			/*
+			 * Check for interrupts while trying to (re-)acquire the exclusive
+			 * lock.
+			 */
+			CHECK_FOR_INTERRUPTS();
+
+			if (++lock_retry > (AUTOVACUUM_TRUNCATE_LOCK_TIMEOUT /
+								AUTOVACUUM_TRUNCATE_LOCK_WAIT_INTERVAL))
+			{
+				/*
+				 * We failed to establish the lock in the specified number of
+				 * retries. This means we give up truncating. Suppress the
+				 * ANALYZE step. Doing an ANALYZE at this point will reset the
+				 * dead_tuple_count in the stats collector, so we will not get
+				 * called by the autovacuum launcher again to do the truncate.
+				 */
+				vacrelstats->lock_waiter_detected = true;
+				ereport(LOG,
+						(errmsg("automatic vacuum of table \"%s.%s.%s\": "
+								"cannot (re)acquire exclusive "
+								"lock for truncate scan",
+								get_database_name(MyDatabaseId),
+							get_namespace_name(RelationGetNamespace(onerel)),
+								RelationGetRelationName(onerel))));
+				return;
+			}
+
+			pg_usleep(AUTOVACUUM_TRUNCATE_LOCK_WAIT_INTERVAL);
+		}
+
+		/*
+		 * Now that we have exclusive lock, look to see if the rel has grown
+		 * whilst we were vacuuming with non-exclusive lock.  If so, give up;
+		 * the newly added pages presumably contain non-deletable tuples.
+		 */
+		new_rel_pages = RelationGetNumberOfBlocks(onerel);
+		if (new_rel_pages != old_rel_pages)
+		{
+			/*
+			 * Note: we intentionally don't update vacrelstats->rel_pages with
+			 * the new rel size here.  If we did, it would amount to assuming
+			 * that the new pages are empty, which is unlikely. Leaving the
+			 * numbers alone amounts to assuming that the new pages have the
+			 * same tuple density as existing ones, which is less unlikely.
+			 */
+			UnlockRelation(onerel, AccessExclusiveLock);
+			return;
+		}
+
+		/*
+		 * Scan backwards from the end to verify that the end pages actually
+		 * contain no tuples.  This is *necessary*, not optional, because
+		 * other backends could have added tuples to these pages whilst we
+		 * were vacuuming.
+		 */
+		new_rel_pages = count_nondeletable_pages(onerel, vacrelstats);
+
+		if (new_rel_pages >= old_rel_pages)
+		{
+			/* can't do anything after all */
+			UnlockRelation(onerel, AccessExclusiveLock);
+			return;
+		}
+
+		/*
+		 * Okay to truncate.
+		 */
+		RelationTruncate(onerel, new_rel_pages);
+
+		/*
+		 * We can release the exclusive lock as soon as we have truncated.
+		 * Other backends can't safely access the relation until they have
+		 * processed the smgr invalidation that smgrtruncate sent out ... but
+		 * that should happen as part of standard invalidation processing once
+		 * they acquire lock on the relation.
 		 */
 		UnlockRelation(onerel, AccessExclusiveLock);
-		return;
-	}
 
-	/*
+		/*
-	 * Scan backwards from the end to verify that the end pages actually
+		 * Update statistics.  Here, it *is* correct to adjust rel_pages
-	 * contain no tuples.  This is *necessary*, not optional, because other
+		 * without also touching reltuples, since the tuple count wasn't
-	 * backends could have added tuples to these pages whilst we were
+		 * changed by the truncation.
-	 * vacuuming.
+		 */
-	 */
+		vacrelstats->pages_removed += old_rel_pages - new_rel_pages;
-	new_rel_pages = count_nondeletable_pages(onerel, vacrelstats);
+		vacrelstats->rel_pages = new_rel_pages;
 
-	if (new_rel_pages >= old_rel_pages)
+		ereport(elevel,
-	{
+				(errmsg("\"%s\": truncated %u to %u pages",
-		/* can't do anything after all */
+						RelationGetRelationName(onerel),
-		UnlockRelation(onerel, AccessExclusiveLock);
+						old_rel_pages, new_rel_pages),
-		return;
+				 errdetail("%s.",
-	}
+						   pg_rusage_show(&ru0))));
-
+		old_rel_pages = new_rel_pages;
-	/*
+	} while (new_rel_pages > vacrelstats->nonempty_pages &&
-	 * Okay to truncate.
+			 vacrelstats->lock_waiter_detected);
-	 */
-	RelationTruncate(onerel, new_rel_pages);
-
-	/*
-	 * We can release the exclusive lock as soon as we have truncated.	Other
-	 * backends can't safely access the relation until they have processed the
-	 * smgr invalidation that smgrtruncate sent out ... but that should happen
-	 * as part of standard invalidation processing once they acquire lock on
-	 * the relation.
-	 */
-	UnlockRelation(onerel, AccessExclusiveLock);
-
-	/*
-	 * Update statistics.  Here, it *is* correct to adjust rel_pages without
-	 * also touching reltuples, since the tuple count wasn't changed by the
-	 * truncation.
-	 */
-	vacrelstats->rel_pages = new_rel_pages;
-	vacrelstats->pages_removed = old_rel_pages - new_rel_pages;
-
-	ereport(elevel,
-			(errmsg("\"%s\": truncated %u to %u pages",
-					RelationGetRelationName(onerel),
-					old_rel_pages, new_rel_pages),
-			 errdetail("%s.",
-					   pg_rusage_show(&ru0))));
 }
 
 /*
@@ -1340,6 +1406,12 @@ static BlockNumber
 count_nondeletable_pages(Relation onerel, LVRelStats *vacrelstats)
 {
 	BlockNumber blkno;
+	instr_time	starttime;
+	instr_time	currenttime;
+	instr_time	elapsed;
+
+	/* Initialize the starttime if we check for conflicting lock requests */
+	INSTR_TIME_SET_CURRENT(starttime);
 
 	/* Strange coding of loop control is needed because blkno is unsigned */
 	blkno = vacrelstats->rel_pages;
@@ -1351,6 +1423,36 @@ count_nondeletable_pages(Relation onerel, LVRelStats *vacrelstats)
 					maxoff;
 		bool		hastup;
 
+		/*
+		 * Check if another process requests a lock on our relation. We are
+		 * holding an AccessExclusiveLock here, so they will be waiting. We
+		 * only do this in autovacuum_truncate_lock_check millisecond
+		 * intervals, and we only check if that interval has elapsed once
+		 * every 32 blocks to keep the number of system calls and actual
+		 * shared lock table lookups to a minimum.
+		 */
+		if ((blkno % 32) == 0)
+		{
+			INSTR_TIME_SET_CURRENT(currenttime);
+			elapsed = currenttime;
+			INSTR_TIME_SUBTRACT(elapsed, starttime);
+			if ((INSTR_TIME_GET_MICROSEC(elapsed) / 1000)
+				>= AUTOVACUUM_TRUNCATE_LOCK_CHECK_INTERVAL)
+			{
+				if (LockHasWaitersRelation(onerel, AccessExclusiveLock))
+				{
+					ereport(elevel,
+							(errmsg("\"%s\": suspending truncate "
+									"due to conflicting lock request",
+									RelationGetRelationName(onerel))));
+
+					vacrelstats->lock_waiter_detected = true;
+					return blkno;
+				}
+				starttime = currenttime;
+			}
+		}
+
 		/*
 		 * We don't insert a vacuum delay point here, because we have an
 		 * exclusive lock on the table which we want to hold for as short a

src/backend/storage/lmgr/lmgr.c

@@ -232,6 +232,24 @@ UnlockRelation(Relation relation, LOCKMODE lockmode)
 	LockRelease(&tag, lockmode, false);
 }
 
+/*
+ *		LockHasWaitersRelation
+ *
+ * This is a functiion to check if someone else is waiting on a
+ * lock, we are currently holding.
+ */
+bool
+LockHasWaitersRelation(Relation relation, LOCKMODE lockmode)
+{
+	LOCKTAG		tag;
+
+	SET_LOCKTAG_RELATION(tag,
+						 relation->rd_lockInfo.lockRelId.dbId,
+						 relation->rd_lockInfo.lockRelId.relId);
+
+	return LockHasWaiters(&tag, lockmode, false);
+}
+
 /*
  *		LockRelationIdForSession
  *

src/backend/storage/lmgr/lock.c

@@ -536,6 +536,98 @@ ProcLockHashCode(const PROCLOCKTAG *proclocktag, uint32 hashcode)
 	return lockhash;
 }
 
+/*
+ * LockHasWaiters -- look up 'locktag' and check if releasing this
+ *		lock would wake up other processes waiting for it.
+ */
+bool
+LockHasWaiters(const LOCKTAG *locktag, LOCKMODE lockmode, bool sessionLock)
+{
+	LOCKMETHODID lockmethodid = locktag->locktag_lockmethodid;
+	LockMethod	lockMethodTable;
+	LOCALLOCKTAG localtag;
+	LOCALLOCK  *locallock;
+	LOCK	   *lock;
+	PROCLOCK   *proclock;
+	LWLockId	partitionLock;
+	bool		hasWaiters = false;
+
+	if (lockmethodid <= 0 || lockmethodid >= lengthof(LockMethods))
+		elog(ERROR, "unrecognized lock method: %d", lockmethodid);
+	lockMethodTable = LockMethods[lockmethodid];
+	if (lockmode <= 0 || lockmode > lockMethodTable->numLockModes)
+		elog(ERROR, "unrecognized lock mode: %d", lockmode);
+
+#ifdef LOCK_DEBUG
+	if (LOCK_DEBUG_ENABLED(locktag))
+		elog(LOG, "LockHasWaiters: lock [%u,%u] %s",
+			 locktag->locktag_field1, locktag->locktag_field2,
+			 lockMethodTable->lockModeNames[lockmode]);
+#endif
+
+	/*
+	 * Find the LOCALLOCK entry for this lock and lockmode
+	 */
+	MemSet(&localtag, 0, sizeof(localtag));		/* must clear padding */
+	localtag.lock = *locktag;
+	localtag.mode = lockmode;
+
+	locallock = (LOCALLOCK *) hash_search(LockMethodLocalHash,
+										  (void *) &localtag,
+										  HASH_FIND, NULL);
+
+	/*
+	 * let the caller print its own error message, too. Do not ereport(ERROR).
+	 */
+	if (!locallock || locallock->nLocks <= 0)
+	{
+		elog(WARNING, "you don't own a lock of type %s",
+			 lockMethodTable->lockModeNames[lockmode]);
+		return false;
+	}
+
+	/*
+	 * Check the shared lock table.
+	 */
+	partitionLock = LockHashPartitionLock(locallock->hashcode);
+
+	LWLockAcquire(partitionLock, LW_SHARED);
+
+	/*
+	 * We don't need to re-find the lock or proclock, since we kept their
+	 * addresses in the locallock table, and they couldn't have been removed
+	 * while we were holding a lock on them.
+	 */
+	lock = locallock->lock;
+	LOCK_PRINT("LockHasWaiters: found", lock, lockmode);
+	proclock = locallock->proclock;
+	PROCLOCK_PRINT("LockHasWaiters: found", proclock);
+
+	/*
+	 * Double-check that we are actually holding a lock of the type we want to
+	 * release.
+	 */
+	if (!(proclock->holdMask & LOCKBIT_ON(lockmode)))
+	{
+		PROCLOCK_PRINT("LockHasWaiters: WRONGTYPE", proclock);
+		LWLockRelease(partitionLock);
+		elog(WARNING, "you don't own a lock of type %s",
+			 lockMethodTable->lockModeNames[lockmode]);
+		RemoveLocalLock(locallock);
+		return false;
+	}
+
+	/*
+	 * Do the checking.
+	 */
+	if ((lockMethodTable->conflictTab[lockmode] & lock->waitMask) != 0)
+		hasWaiters = true;
+
+	LWLockRelease(partitionLock);
+
+	return hasWaiters;
+}
+
 
 /*
  * LockAcquire -- Check for lock conflicts, sleep if conflict found,

src/include/storage/lmgr.h

@@ -31,6 +31,7 @@ extern void UnlockRelationOid(Oid relid, LOCKMODE lockmode);
 extern void LockRelation(Relation relation, LOCKMODE lockmode);
 extern bool ConditionalLockRelation(Relation relation, LOCKMODE lockmode);
 extern void UnlockRelation(Relation relation, LOCKMODE lockmode);
+extern bool LockHasWaitersRelation(Relation relation, LOCKMODE lockmode);
 
 extern void LockRelationIdForSession(LockRelId *relid, LOCKMODE lockmode);
 extern void UnlockRelationIdForSession(LockRelId *relid, LOCKMODE lockmode);

src/include/storage/lock.h

@@ -494,6 +494,8 @@ extern void LockReleaseAll(LOCKMETHODID lockmethodid, bool allLocks);
 extern void LockReleaseSession(LOCKMETHODID lockmethodid);
 extern void LockReleaseCurrentOwner(void);
 extern void LockReassignCurrentOwner(void);
+extern bool LockHasWaiters(const LOCKTAG *locktag,
+			   LOCKMODE lockmode, bool sessionLock);
 extern VirtualTransactionId *GetLockConflicts(const LOCKTAG *locktag,
 				 LOCKMODE lockmode);
 extern void AtPrepare_Locks(void);