Re: shared-memory based stats collector

Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>

From: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
To: Antonin Houska <ah@cybertec.at>
Cc: Kyotaro HORIGUCHI <horiguchi.kyotaro@lab.ntt.co.jp>, magnus@hagander.net, robertmhaas@gmail.com, tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us, pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org
Date: 2018-09-20T17:37:24Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
Hi,

On 2018-09-20 09:55:27 +0200, Antonin Houska wrote:
> I've spent some time reviewing this version.
> 
> Design
> ------
> 
> 1. Even with your patch the stats collector still uses an UDP socket to
>    receive data. Now that the shared memory API is there, shouldn't the
>    messages be sent via shared memory queue? [1] That would increase the
>    reliability of message delivery.
> 
>    I can actually imagine backends inserting data into the shared hash tables
>    themselves, but that might make them wait if the same entries are accessed
>    by another backend. It should be much cheaper just to insert message into
>    the queue and let the collector process it. In future version the collector
>    can launch parallel workers so that writes by backends do not get blocked
>    due to full queue.

I don't think either of these is right. I think it's crucial to get rid
of the UDP socket, but I think using a shmem queue is the wrong
approach. Not just because postgres' shm_mq is single-reader/writer, but
also because it's plainly unnecessary.  Backends should attempt to
update the shared hashtable, but acquire the necessary lock
conditionally, and leave the pending updates of the shared hashtable to
a later time if they cannot acquire the lock.

Greetings,

Andres Freund


Commits

  1. Improve comment about dropped entries in pgstat.c

  2. Fix temporary memory leak in system table index scans

  3. pgstat: set timestamps of fixed-numbered stats after a crash.

  4. pgstat: Update docs to match the shared memory stats reality.

  5. pgstat: Hide instability in stats.spec with -DCATCACHE_FORCE_RELEASE.

  6. pgstat: add/extend tests for resetting various kinds of stats.

  7. Add minimal tests for recovery conflict handling.

  8. pgstat: test stats interactions with physical replication.

  9. pgstat: add tests for handling of restarts, including crashes.

  10. pgstat: add tests for transaction behaviour, 2PC, function stats.

  11. pgstat: add pg_stat_have_stats() test helper.

  12. pgstat: add pg_stat_force_next_flush(), use it to simplify tests.

  13. pgstat: move pgstat.c to utils/activity.

  14. pgstat: store statistics in shared memory.

  15. pgstat: remove stats_temp_directory.

  16. pgstat: rename STATS_COLLECTOR GUC group to STATS_CUMULATIVE.

  17. pgstat: revise replication slot API in preparation for shared memory stats.

  18. pgstat: scaffolding for transactional stats creation / drop.

  19. pgstat: introduce PgStat_Kind enum.

  20. pgstat: prepare APIs used by pgstatfuncs for shared memory stats.

  21. pgstat: add pgstat_copy_relation_stats().

  22. pgstat: rename some pgstat_send_* functions to pgstat_report_*.

  23. pgstat: stats collector references in comments.

  24. pgstat: move transactional code into pgstat_xact.c.

  25. dsm: allow use in single user mode.

  26. dshash: revise sequential scan support.

  27. pgstat: remove some superflous comments from pgstat.h.

  28. pgstat: reorder pgstat.[ch] contents.

  29. pgstat: split different types of stats into separate files.

  30. pgstat: introduce pgstat_relation_should_count().

  31. pgstat: separate "xact level" handling out of relation specific functions.

  32. pgstat: rename pgstat_initstats() to pgstat_relation_init().

  33. pgstat: split out WAL handling from pgstat_{initialize,report_stat}.

  34. pgstat: run pgindent on pgstat.c/h.

  35. pgstat: split relation, database handling out of pgstat_report_stat().

  36. Move code around in StartupXLOG().

  37. pgstat: Prepare to use mechanism for truncated rels also for droppped rels.

  38. pgstat: Split out relation stats handling from AtEO[Sub]Xact_PgStat() etc.

  39. pgstat: Schedule per-backend pgstat shutdown via before_shmem_exit().

  40. Schedule ShutdownXLOG() in single user mode using before_shmem_exit().

  41. Make parallel worker shutdown complete entirely via before_shmem_exit().

  42. pgstat: Bring up pgstat in BaseInit() to fix uninitialized use of pgstat by AV.

  43. pgstat: split reporting/fetching of bgwriter and checkpointer stats.

  44. Split backend status and progress related functionality out of pgstat.c.

  45. Split wait event related code from pgstat.[ch] into wait_event.[ch].

  46. Make archiver process an auxiliary process.

  47. Force to send remaining WAL stats to the stats collector at walwriter exit.

  48. Add pg_stat_database counters for sessions and session time

  49. Collect statistics about SLRU caches

  50. Don't run atexit callbacks in quickdie signal handlers.

  51. Create a "fast path" for acquiring weak relation locks.