Re: Minimal logical decoding on standbys

On Mon, Apr 3, 2023 at 4:39 AM Alvaro Herrera <alvherre@alvh.no-ip.org> wrote:
>
> > From 56a9559555918a99c202a0924f7b2ede9de4e75d Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
> > From: bdrouvotAWS <bdrouvot@amazon.com>
> > Date: Tue, 7 Feb 2023 08:59:47 +0000
> > Subject: [PATCH v52 3/6] Allow logical decoding on standby.
> >
> > Allow a logical slot to be created on standby. Restrict its usage
> > or its creation if wal_level on primary is less than logical.
> > During slot creation, it's restart_lsn is set to the last replayed
> > LSN. Effectively, a logical slot creation on standby waits for an
> > xl_running_xact record to arrive from primary.
>
> Hmm, not sure if it really applies here, but this sounds similar to
> issues with track_commit_timestamps: namely, if the primary has it
> enabled and you start a standby with it enabled, that's fine; but if the
> primary is later shut down (but the standby isn't) and then the primary
> restarted with a lesser value, then the standby would misbehave without
> any obvious errors.
>

IIUC, the patch deals it by invalidating logical slots while replaying
the XLOG_PARAMETER_CHANGE record on standby. Then later during
decoding, if it encounters XLOG_PARAMETER_CHANGE, and wal_level from
primary has been reduced, it will return an error. There is a race
condition here as explained in the patch as follows:

+ /*
+ * If wal_level on primary is reduced to less than logical, then we
+ * want to prevent existing logical slots from being used.
+ * Existing logical slots on standby get invalidated when this WAL
+ * record is replayed; and further, slot creation fails when the
+ * wal level is not sufficient; but all these operations are not
+ * synchronized, so a logical slot may creep in while the wal_level
+ * is being reduced. Hence this extra check.
+ */
+ if (xlrec->wal_level < WAL_LEVEL_LOGICAL)
+ ereport(ERROR,
+ (errcode(ERRCODE_OBJECT_NOT_IN_PREREQUISITE_STATE),
+ errmsg("logical decoding on standby requires "
+ "wal_level >= logical on master")));

Now, during this race condition, say not only does a logical slot
creep in but also one tries to decode WAL using the same then some
misbehavior is expected. I have not tried this so not sure if this is
really a problem but are you worried about something along those
lines?

>  If that is a real problem, then perhaps you can
> solve it by copying some of the logic from track_commit_timestamps,
> which took a large number of iterations to get right.
>

IIUC, track_commit_timestamps deactivates the CommitTs module (by
using state in the shared memory) when replaying the
XLOG_PARAMETER_CHANGE record. Then later using that state it gives an
error from the appropriate place in the CommitTs module. If my
understanding is correct then that appears to be a better design than
what the patch is currently doing. Also, the error message used in
error_commit_ts_disabled() seems to be better than the current one.

--
With Regards,
Amit Kapila.