Horton

Re: AIO v2.5

Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>

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From: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
To: Noah Misch <noah@leadboat.com>
Cc: Thomas Munro <thomas.munro@gmail.com>, Antonin Houska <ah@cybertec.at>, pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org, Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnaka@iki.fi>, Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>, Jakub Wartak <jakub.wartak@enterprisedb.com>, Jelte Fennema-Nio <postgres@jeltef.nl>
Date: 2025-03-25T18:58:37Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers

Commits

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

  1. aio: Fix assertion, clarify README

  2. aio: Fix reference to outdated name

  3. aio: Fix possible state confusions due to interrupt processing

  4. aio: Improve debug logging around waiting for IOs

  5. aio: Fix crash potential for pg_aios views due to late state update

  6. Increase BAS_BULKREAD based on effective_io_concurrency

  7. localbuf: Add Valgrind buffer access instrumentation

  8. aio: Make AIO more compatible with valgrind

  9. aio: Avoid spurious coverity warning

  10. tests: Fix incompatibility of test_aio with *_FORCE_RELEASE

  11. tests: Cope with WARNINGs during failed CREATE DB on windows

  12. aio: Add errcontext for processing I/Os for another backend

  13. aio: Add README.md explaining higher level design

  14. aio: Minor comment improvements

  15. aio: Add test_aio module

  16. aio: Add pg_aios view

  17. docs: Add acronym and glossary entries for I/O and AIO

  18. Enable IO concurrency on all systems

  19. read_stream: Introduce and use optional batchmode support

  20. docs: Reframe track_io_timing related docs as wait time

  21. bufmgr: Use AIO in StartReadBuffers()

  22. bufmgr: Implement AIO read support

  23. aio: Add WARNING result status

  24. Let caller of PageIsVerified() control ignore_checksum_failure

  25. pgstat: Allow checksum errors to be reported in critical sections

  26. Add errhint_internal()

  27. localbuf: Track pincount in BufferDesc as well

  28. aio, bufmgr: Comment fixes/improvements

  29. Fix mis-attribution of checksum failure stats to the wrong database

  30. aio: Implement support for reads in smgr/md/fd

  31. aio: Add io_method=io_uring

  32. aio: Add liburing dependency

  33. aio: Rename pgaio_io_prep_* to pgaio_io_start_*

  34. aio: Pass result of local callbacks to ->report_return

  35. aio: Be more paranoid about interrupts

  36. Redefine max_files_per_process to control additionally opened files

  37. aio: Change prefix of PgAioResultStatus values to PGAIO_RS_

  38. bufmgr: Improve stats when a buffer is read in concurrently

  39. aio: Add io_method=worker

  40. aio: Infrastructure for io_method=worker

  41. aio: Add core asynchronous I/O infrastructure

  42. aio: Basic subsystem initialization

  43. tests: Expand temp table tests to some pin related matters

  44. localbuf: Introduce FlushLocalBuffer()

  45. localbuf: Introduce TerminateLocalBufferIO()

  46. localbuf: Fix dangerous coding pattern in GetLocalVictimBuffer()

  47. localbuf: Introduce StartLocalBufferIO()

  48. localbuf: Introduce InvalidateLocalBuffer()

  49. Allow lwlocks to be disowned

  50. Make jsonb casts to scalar types translate JSON null to SQL NULL.

  51. bufmgr/smgr: Don't cross segment boundaries in StartReadBuffers()

  52. Use aux process resource owner in walsender

  53. bufmgr: Return early in ScheduleBufferTagForWriteback() if fsync=off

Hi,

On 2025-03-25 08:58:08 -0700, Noah Misch wrote:
> While having nagging thoughts that we might be releasing FDs before io_uring
> gets them into kernel custody, I tried this hack to maximize FD turnover:
> 
> static void
> ReleaseLruFiles(void)
> {
> #if 0
> 	while (nfile + numAllocatedDescs + numExternalFDs >= max_safe_fds)
> 	{
> 		if (!ReleaseLruFile())
> 			break;
> 	}
> #else
> 	while (ReleaseLruFile())
> 		;
> #endif
> }
> 
> "make check" with default settings (io_method=worker) passes, but
> io_method=io_uring in the TEMP_CONFIG file got different diffs in each of two
> runs.  s/#if 0/#if 1/ (restore normal FD turnover) removes the failures.
> Here's the richer of the two diffs:

Yikes. That's a very good catch.

I spent a bit of time debugging this. I think I see what's going on - it turns
out that the kernel does *not* open the FDs during io_uring_enter() if
IOSQE_ASYNC is specified [1].  Which we do add heuristically, in an attempt to
avoid a small but measurable slowdown for sequential scans that are fully
buffered (c.f. pgaio_uring_submit()).  If I disable that heuristic, your patch
above passes all tests here.


I don't know if that's an intentional or unintentional behavioral difference.

There are 2 1/2 ways around this:

1) Stop using IOSQE_ASYNC heuristic
2a) Wait for all in-flight IOs when any FD gets closed
2b) Wait for all in-flight IOs using FD when it gets closed

Given that we have clear evidence that io_uring doesn't completely support
closing FDs while IOs are in flight, be it a bug or intentional, it seems
clearly better to go for 2a or 2b.

Greetings,

Andres Freund


[1] Instead files are opened when the queue entry is being worked on
    instead. Interestingly that only happens when the IO is *explicitly*
    requested to be executed in the workqueue with IOSQE_ASYNC, not when it's
    put there because it couldn't be done in a non-blocking way.