On 06/13/2015 05:02 AM, Thomas Munro wrote:
Since the multixact equivalent of this problem[1] fell through the
cracks on the multixact mega-thread, here is an updated patch that
addresses this problem for both pg_subtrans and pg_multixact/offsets
using the same approach: always step back one multixact/xid (rather
than doing so only if oldest == next, which seemed like an unnecessary
complication, and a bit futile since the result of such a test is only
an instantaneous snapshot).  I've added this to the commitfest[2].  I
am also attaching a new set of repro scripts including a pair to test
the case where next multixact/xid == first valid ID (the scripts with
'wraparound' in the name, which use dirty pg_resetxlog tricks to get
into that situation).  In my previous patch I naively subtracted one,
which didn't work for those (even rarer!) cases.  The new patch steps
over the special ID values.

Thanks, great repro scripts!

I also took a look at the pg_clog and pg_commit_ts truncation
functions.  You could argue that they have the same problem in theory
(they pass a page number derived from the oldest xid to
SimpleLruTruncate, and maybe there is a way for that to be an xid that
hasn't been issued yet), but in practice I don't think it's a
reachable condition.  They use the frozen xid that is updated by
vacuuming, but vacuum itself advances the next xid counter in the
process.  Is there a path though the vacuum code that ever exposes
frozen xid == next xid?  In contrast, for pg_subtrans we use
GetOldestXmin(), which is equal to the next xid if there are no
running transactions, and for pg_multixact we use the oldest
multixact, which can be equal to the next multixact ID after a
wraparound vacuum because vacuum itself doesn't always consume
multixacts.

Yeah, I think pg_clog and pg_commit_ts are safe, for now. It's rather accidental, though.

There is one more instance of this bug though: in 9.2 and below, pg_multixact members are truncated similarly. Attached are corresponding repro-scripts for that case.

Committed with the additional fix for that.

- Heikki

Attachment: repro-bogus-multixact-members-error.sh
Description: application/shellscript

Attachment: repro-bogus-multixact-members-error-wraparound.sh
Description: application/shellscript

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