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Re: Better shared data structure management and resizable shared data structures

Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnaka@iki.fi>

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From: Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnaka@iki.fi>
To: Ashutosh Bapat <ashutosh.bapat.oss@gmail.com>
Cc: Dagfinn Ilmari Mannsåker <ilmari@ilmari.org>, Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>, Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>, pgsql-hackers <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>, chaturvedipalak1911@gmail.com
Date: 2026-06-12T15:37:21Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers

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On 21/04/2026 19:05, Ashutosh Bapat wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 21, 2026 at 1:10 PM Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnaka@iki.fi> wrote:
>>
>> On 07/04/2026 17:19, Ashutosh Bapat wrote:
>>> Hi Heikki,
>>> CallShmemCallbacksAfterStartup() holds ShmemIndexLock while invoking
>>> init_fn/attach_fn callbacks. That looks wrong. Before this commit,
>>> init or attach code was not run with the lock held. Any reason the
>>> lock is held while calling init and attach callbacks. Since these
>>> function can come from extensions, we don't have control on what goes
>>> in those functions, and thus looks problematic. Further, it will
>>> serialize all the attach_fn executions across backends, since each
>>> will be run under the lock.
>>
>> This was intentional, I added a note in the docs about it:
>>
>>         When <function>RegisterShmemCallbacks()</function> is called after
>>         startup, it will immediately call the appropriate callbacks,
>> depending
>>         on whether the requested memory areas were already initialized by
>>         another backend. The callbacks will be called while holding an
>> internal
>>         lock, which prevents concurrent two backends from initializing the
>>         memory area concurrently.
>>
>> That "internal lock" is ShmemIndexLock. I piggybacked on that since the
>> code needs to acquire it anyway for the hash table lookups.
> 
> I had read this part, but didn't realize it's ShmemIndexLock. The
> document and the code are placed far apart and the comments in the
> code do not help connecting these two. The comment before
> LWLockAcquire() call doesn't say anything about init functions.
> /* Hold ShmemIndexLock while we allocate all the shmem entries */
> 
>> With the old ShmemInitStruct() interface, extensions needed to do the
>> locking themselves, usually by holding AddinShmemInitLock.
>>
>> (Now that I read that again, the grammar on the last sentence sounds
>> awkward...)
> 
> Given that the init_fn is called in only one backend which requests
> the structures first, do we need a lock?

If two backends request the same structure concurrently, which one is 
"first"? That's what the lock determines.

It's not safe to release the lock before the init callback has finished. 
Otherwise, another backend might attach to the struct before it's fully 
initialized and read uninitialized values.

>>> In my case, the init_fn was performing ShmemIndex lookup which
>>> deadlocked. It's questionable whether init function should lookup
>>> ShmemIndex but, it's not something that needs to be prohibited
>>> either.
>> Yeah I'm curious what the use case is. We could easily introduce another
>> lock or reuse AddinShmemInitLock for this.
> 
> In case of resizable shared memory structures, I was adding mprotect
> to make sure that the part of the shared address space which is
> reserved but not used is protected from inadvertent access. The
> mprotect is wrapped in a shmem API which fetches the ShmemIndex entry
> of the shared structure, figures out the part of the address space to
> protect using maximum_size and current size and calls mprotect
> appropriately. To fetch the ShmemIndex entry it acquires a ShmemIndex
> lock. The shmem API was supposed to be called from init_fn() and
> attach_fn() to protect the address spaces as soon as the structure is
> attached to. See patches attached to [1] for code.
> 
> [1] https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/CAExHW5v5muT_SKV2NCxxVmvC=_38Rw0aiv-wU4CGzHaBCRYzqA@mail.gmail.com

Ok. So if I understand correctly, holding ShmemIndexLock is not a actual 
problem per se, you just didn't expect it. Right?

I propose the attached to improve the wording a little on the docs, 
comments, and error message.

- Heikki

Commits

Same data as JSON: GET /api/v1/messages/:b64id/commits the thread's linked commits as JSON, with link sources. API reference →

  1. Tidy up #ifdef USE_INJECTION_POINTS guards

  2. Convert all remaining subsystems to use the new shmem allocation API

  3. Convert buffer manager to use the new shmem allocation functions

  4. Add alignment option to ShmemRequestStruct()

  5. Convert AIO to use the new shmem allocation functions

  6. Convert SLRUs to use the new shmem allocation functions

  7. Refactor shmem initialization code in predicate.c

  8. Use the new shmem allocation functions in a few core subsystems

  9. Convert lwlock.c to use the new shmem allocation functions

  10. Introduce a registry of built-in shmem subsystems

  11. Convert pg_stat_statements to use the new shmem allocation functions

  12. Add a test module to test after-startup shmem allocations

  13. Introduce a new mechanism for registering shared memory areas

  14. Move some code from shmem.c and shmem.h

  15. Improve test_lwlock_tranches

  16. Test pg_stat_statements across crash restart

  17. Refactor PredicateLockShmemInit to not reuse var for different things

  18. Refactor ShmemIndex initialization

  19. Add a new shmem_request_hook hook.