Horton

Re: shared-memory based stats collector - v70

Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>

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From: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
To: Greg Stark <stark@mit.edu>
Cc: "Drouvot, Bertrand" <bdrouvot@amazon.com>, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>, Melanie Plageman <melanieplageman@gmail.com>, Kyotaro Horiguchi <horikyota.ntt@gmail.com>, Justin Pryzby <pryzby@telsasoft.com>, Thomas Munro <thomas.munro@gmail.com>, "David G. Johnston" <david.g.johnston@gmail.com>, PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>
Date: 2022-08-17T23:30:53Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers 
Hi,

On 2022-08-17 15:46:42 -0400, Greg Stark wrote:
> Isn't there also a local hash table used to find the entries to reduce
> traffic on the shared hash table? Even if you don't take a snapshot
> does it get entered there? There are definitely still parts of this
> I'm working on a pretty vague understanding of :/

Yes, there is. But it's more about code that generates stats, rather than
reporting functions. While there's backend local pending stats we need to have
a refcount on the shared stats item so that the stats item can't be dropped
and then revived when those local stats are flushed.

Relevant comments from pgstat.c:

 * To avoid contention on the shared hashtable, each backend has a
 * backend-local hashtable (pgStatEntryRefHash) in front of the shared
 * hashtable, containing references (PgStat_EntryRef) to shared hashtable
 * entries. The shared hashtable only needs to be accessed when no prior
 * reference is found in the local hashtable. Besides pointing to the
 * shared hashtable entry (PgStatShared_HashEntry) PgStat_EntryRef also
 * contains a pointer to the shared statistics data, as a process-local
 * address, to reduce access costs.
 *
 * The names for structs stored in shared memory are prefixed with
 * PgStatShared instead of PgStat. Each stats entry in shared memory is
 * protected by a dedicated lwlock.
 *
 * Most stats updates are first accumulated locally in each process as pending
 * entries, then later flushed to shared memory (just after commit, or by
 * idle-timeout). This practically eliminates contention on individual stats
 * entries. For most kinds of variable-numbered pending stats data is stored
 * in PgStat_EntryRef->pending. All entries with pending data are in the
 * pgStatPending list. Pending statistics updates are flushed out by
 * pgstat_report_stat().
 *

pgstat_internal.h has more details about the refcount aspect:

 * Per-object statistics are stored in the "shared stats" hashtable. That
 * table's entries (PgStatShared_HashEntry) contain a pointer to the actual stats
 * data for the object (the size of the stats data varies depending on the
 * kind of stats). The table is keyed by PgStat_HashKey.
 *
 * Once a backend has a reference to a shared stats entry, it increments the
 * entry's refcount. Even after stats data is dropped (e.g., due to a DROP
 * TABLE), the entry itself can only be deleted once all references have been
 * released.

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.