Re: AIO v2.5

Melanie Plageman <melanieplageman@gmail.com>

From: Melanie Plageman <melanieplageman@gmail.com>
To: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Cc: pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org, Thomas Munro <thomas.munro@gmail.com>, Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnaka@iki.fi>, Noah Misch <noah@leadboat.com>, Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>, Jakub Wartak <jakub.wartak@enterprisedb.com>
Date: 2025-03-11T15:31:18Z
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 aio: Fix reference to outdated name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

On Mon, Mar 10, 2025 at 2:23 PM Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de> wrote:
>
> - 0016 to 0020 - cleanups for temp buffers code - I just wrote these to clean
>   up the code before making larger changes, needs review

This is a review of 0016-0020

Commit messages for 0017-0020 are thin. I assume you will beef them up
a bit before committing. Really, though, those matter much less than
0016 which is an actual bug (or pre-bug) fix. I called out the ones
where I think you should really consider adding more detail to the
commit message.

0016:

      * the case, write it out before reusing it!
      */
-    if (buf_state & BM_DIRTY)
+    if (pg_atomic_read_u32(&bufHdr->state) & BM_DIRTY)
     {
+        uint32        buf_state = pg_atomic_read_u32(&bufHdr->state);

I don't love that you fetch in the if statement and inside the if
statement. You wouldn't normally do this, so it sticks out. I get that
you want to avoid having the problem this commit fixes again, but
maybe it is worth just fetching the buf_state above the if statement
and adding a comment that it could have changed so you must do that.
Anyway, I think your future patches make the local buf_state variable
in this function obsolete, so perhaps it doesn't matter.

Not related to this patch, but while reading this code, I noticed that
this line of code is really weird:
        LocalBufHdrGetBlock(bufHdr) = GetLocalBufferStorage();
I actually don't understand what it is doing ... setting the result of
the macro to the result of GetLocalBufferStorage()? I haven't seen
anything like that before.

Otherwise, this patch LGTM.

0017:

+++ b/src/backend/storage/buffer/localbuf.c
@@ -56,6 +56,7 @@ static int    NLocalPinnedBuffers = 0;
 static Buffer GetLocalVictimBuffer(void);
+static void InvalidateLocalBuffer(BufferDesc *bufHdr, bool check_unreferenced);

Technically this line is too long

+ * InvalidateLocalBuffer -- mark a local buffer invalid.
+ *
+ * If check_unreferenced is true, error out if the buffer is still
+ * used. Passing false is appropriate when redesignating the buffer instead
+ * dropping it.
+ *
+ * See also InvalidateBuffer().
+ */
+static void
+InvalidateLocalBuffer(BufferDesc *bufHdr, bool check_unreferenced)
+{

I was on the fence about the language "buffer is still used", since
this is about the ref count and not the usage count. If this is the
language used elsewhere perhaps it is fine.

I also was not sure what redesignate means here. If you mean to use
this function in the future in other contexts than eviction and
dropping buffers, fine. But otherwise, maybe just use a more obvious
word (like eviction).

0018:

Compiler now warns that buf_state is unused in GetLocalVictimBuffer().

@@ -4564,8 +4548,7 @@ FlushRelationBuffers(Relation rel)
                                         IOCONTEXT_NORMAL, IOOP_WRITE,
                                         io_start, 1, BLCKSZ);

-                buf_state &= ~(BM_DIRTY | BM_JUST_DIRTIED);
-                pg_atomic_unlocked_write_u32(&bufHdr->state, buf_state);
+                TerminateLocalBufferIO(bufHdr, true, 0);

FlushRelationBuffers() used to clear BM_JUST_DIRTIED, which it seems
like wouldn't have been applicable to local buffers before, but,
actually with async IO could perhaps happen in the future? Anyway,
TerminateLocalBuffers() doesn't clear that flag, so you should call
that out if it was intentional.

@@ -5652,8 +5635,11 @@ TerminateBufferIO(BufferDesc *buf, bool
clear_dirty, uint32 set_flag_bits,
+    buf_state &= ~BM_IO_IN_PROGRESS;
+    buf_state &= ~BM_IO_ERROR;
-    buf_state &= ~(BM_IO_IN_PROGRESS | BM_IO_ERROR);

Is it worth mentioning in the commit message that you made a cosmetic
change to TerminateBufferIO()?

0019:
LGTM

0020:
This commit message is probably tooo thin. I think you need to at
least say something about this being used by AIO in the future. Out of
context of this patch set, it will be confusing.

+/*
+ * Like StartBufferIO, but for local buffers
+ */
+bool
+StartLocalBufferIO(BufferDesc *bufHdr, bool forInput, bool nowait)
+{

I think you could use a comment about why nowait might be useful for
local buffers in the future. It wouldn't make sense with synchronous
I/O, so it feels a bit weird without any comment.

+    if (forInput ? (buf_state & BM_VALID) : !(buf_state & BM_DIRTY))
+    {
+        /* someone else already did the I/O */
+        UnlockBufHdr(bufHdr, buf_state);
+        return false;
+    }

UnlockBufHdr() explicitly says it should not be called for local
buffers. I know that code is unreachable right now, but it doesn't
feel quite right. I'm not sure what the architecture of AIO local
buffers will be like, but if other processes can't access these
buffers, I don't know why you would need BM_LOCKED. And if you will, I
think you need to edit the UnlockBufHdr() comment.

@@ -1450,13 +1450,11 @@ static inline bool
 WaitReadBuffersCanStartIO(Buffer buffer, bool nowait)
 {
     if (BufferIsLocal(buffer))
     else
-        return StartBufferIO(GetBufferDescriptor(buffer - 1), true, nowait);
+        return StartBufferIO(GetBufferDescriptor(buffer - 1),
+                             true, nowait);

I'm not sure it is worth the diff in non-local buffer case to reflow
this. It is already confusing enough in this patch that you are adding
some code that is mostly unneeded.

- Melanie