Re: make MaxBackends available in _PG_init

Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>

From: Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
To: Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>
Cc: Nathan Bossart <nathandbossart@gmail.com>, Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>, Julien Rouhaud <rjuju123@gmail.com>, Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>, "Bossart, Nathan" <bossartn@amazon.com>, Fujii Masao <masao.fujii@oss.nttdata.com>, "wangsh.fnst@fujitsu.com" <wangsh.fnst@fujitsu.com>, Bharath Rupireddy <bharath.rupireddyforpostgres@gmail.com>, Greg Sabino Mullane <htamfids@gmail.com>, "pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org" <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>
Date: 2022-04-13T15:39:02Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
> I guess my feeling about this is that _PG_init() is sort of a grab
> bag, and that's not very good. You're supposed to register new GUCs
> there, and request shared memory space, and install any hook functions
> you want to use, and maybe some other stuff. But why is it appropriate
> for all of those things to happen at the same time? I think it pretty
> clearly isn't, and that's why you see _PG_init() functions testing
> process_shared_preload_libraries_in_progress, and why
> RequestAddinShmemSpace() is a no-op if it's not the right time for
> such things. To me, all of that is just a sign that the system is
> badly designed.

Hmm, that's a good point.  If we can replace "RequestAddinShmemSpace
does nothing if called at the wrong time" with "RequestAddinShmemSpace
throws error if called at the wrong time", that seems like a pretty
clear improvement in robustness.

Is there anything else typically done in _PG_init that has to be
conditional on process_shared_preload_libraries_in_progress?  I recall
something about reserving LWLocks, which probably should get the same
treatment.  If we can get to a point where _PG_init shouldn't need to
care about process_shared_preload_libraries_in_progress, because all
the stuff that would care is moved to this new hook, then that would
be very clear cleanup.

			regards, tom lane



Commits

  1. Add a new shmem_request_hook hook.

  2. Remove non-functional code for unloading loadable modules.

  3. Fix misleading comments about background worker registration.

  4. Revert the addition of GetMaxBackends() and related stuff.

  5. Fix typo in multixact.c

  6. Reduce more the number of calls to GetMaxBackends()

  7. Remove MaxBackends variable in favor of GetMaxBackends() function.

  8. Fix comments about bgworker registration before MaxBackends initialization

  9. Fix bogus assertion in BootstrapModeMain().

  10. Make sure MaxBackends is always set