Re: Why clearing the VM doesn't require registering vm buffer in wal record
Yura Sokolov <y.sokolov@postgrespro.ru>
From: Yura Sokolov <y.sokolov@postgrespro.ru>
To: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>,
Matthias van de Meent <boekewurm+postgres@gmail.com>
Cc: Melanie Plageman <melanieplageman@gmail.com>,
PostgreSQL Hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>,
Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com>, Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnaka@iki.fi>,
"Andrey M. Borodin" <x4mmm@yandex-team.ru>
Date: 2026-03-12T11:25:17Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
06.03.2026 00:01, Andres Freund пишет: > Hi, > > On 2026-03-05 15:38:24 -0500, Andres Freund wrote: >>> On Thu, 5 Mar 2026 at 21:16, Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de> wrote: >>>> >>>> But it does seem like it could be a problem for incremental backup / >>>> walsummarizer? >>> >>> I don't think it is, because that doesn't do calculations for non-main >>> forks, it considers those forks always changed and includes them in >>> full. Or at least, that was the response I got when I raised concerns >>> about the FSM back when the incremental backup feature was being >>> developed [0]. >> >> There's explicit code for ignoring the FSM, but I don't see the same for the >> VM. And that makes sense: VM changes are mostly WAL logged, just not >> completely / generically (i.e. this complaint), whereas FSM changes are not >> WAL logged at all. > > Unfortunately I can confirm that incremental backups end up with an outdated > VM. That is why pg_probackup still archive VM at whole in incremental (WAL parsing) backup. That is why WAL-G's incremental backup in WAL-parsing mode is (was?) considered unstable. I know the problem for couple of years. Excuse me I didn't write about. I didn't recognize fix could be as simple as registering VM buffers. My bad. I fill so stupid :-( It would be great if it will be fixed in all supported versions. -- regards Yura Sokolov aka funny-falcon
Commits
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the thread's linked commits as JSON, with link sources.
API reference →
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Revamp the WAL record format.
- 2c03216d8311 9.5.0 cited
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Allow I/O reliability checks using 16-bit checksums
- 96ef3b8ff1cf 9.3.0 cited
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Make the visibility map crash-safe.
- 503c7305a1e3 9.2.0 cited