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postgres/src/backend/replication
Nathan Bossart fe8ea7a2a8 Ensure we have a snapshot when updating various system catalogs.
A few places that access system catalogs don't set up an active
snapshot before potentially accessing their TOAST tables.  To fix,
push an active snapshot just before each section of code that might
require accessing one of these TOAST tables, and pop it shortly
afterwards.  While at it, this commit adds some rather strict
assertions in an attempt to prevent such issues in the future.

Commit 16bf24e0e4 recently removed pg_replication_origin's TOAST
table in order to fix the same problem for that catalog.  On the
back-branches, those bugs are left in place.  We cannot easily
remove a catalog's TOAST table on released major versions, and only
replication origins with extremely long names are affected.  Given
the low severity of the issue, fixing older versions doesn't seem
worth the trouble of significantly modifying the patch.

Also, on v13 and v14, the aforementioned strict assertions have
been omitted because commit 2776922201, which added
HaveRegisteredOrActiveSnapshot(), was not back-patched.  While we
could probably back-patch it now, I've opted against it because it
seems unlikely that new TOAST snapshot issues will be introduced in
the oldest supported versions.

Reported-by: Alexander Lakhin <exclusion@gmail.com>
Reviewed-by: Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/18127-fe54b6a667f29658%40postgresql.org
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/18309-c0bf914950c46692%40postgresql.org
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/ZvMSUPOqUU-VNADN%40nathan
Backpatch-through: 13
2025-05-30 15:17:28 -05:00
..
2022-09-04 12:09:01 +07:00
2023-11-06 15:18:04 +01:00
2024-01-03 20:49:05 -05:00
2024-03-19 10:55:51 +01:00
2024-01-03 20:49:05 -05:00
2024-01-03 20:49:05 -05:00

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 a set of functions with details
about each one of them provided in src/include/replication/walreceiver.h.

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 primary server, and writes and flushes
it to disk (in pg_wal), it updates WalRcvData->flushedUpto and signals
the startup process to know how far WAL replay can advance.

Walreceiver sends information about replication progress to the primary 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 primary
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.