Race condition in GetOldestActiveTransactionId()
Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnaka@iki.fi>
From: Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnaka@iki.fi>
To: pgsql-hackers <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>
Date: 2016-08-22T10:46:08Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers
Attachments
- fix-GetOldestActiveTransactionId-race.patch (application/x-patch) patch
While hacking on the CSN patch, I spotted a race condition between GetOldestActiveTransactionId() and GetNewTransactionId(). GetOldestActiveTransactionId() calculates the oldest XID that's still running, by doing: 1. Read nextXid, without a lock. This is the upper bound, if there are no active XIDs in the proc array. 2. Loop through the proc array, making note of the oldest XID. While GetNewTransactionId() does: 1. Read and Increment nextXid 2. Set MyPgXact->xid. It seems possible that if you call GetNewTransactionId() concurrently with GetOldestActiveTransactionId(), GetOldestActiveTransactionId() sees the new nextXid value that the concurrent GetNewTransactionId() set, but doesn't see the old XID in the proc array. It will return a value that doesn't cover the old XID, i.e. it won't consider the just-assigned XID as in-progress. Am I missing something? Commit c6d76d7c added a comment to GetOldestActiveTransactionId() explaining why it's not necessary to acquire XidGenLock there, but I think it missed the above race condition. GetOldestActiveTransactionId() is not performance-critical, it's only called when performing a checkpoint, so I think we should just bite the bullet and grab the lock. Per attached patch. - Heikki
Commits
-
Fix race between GetNewTransactionId and GetOldestActiveTransactionId.
- cbf3e6586b57 9.5.8 landed
- a751714e96ca 9.4.13 landed
- 5c5af32d1870 9.3.18 landed
- 40c49bd7198e 9.2.22 landed
- cb02cbc9d7db 9.6.4 landed
- 74fc83869e16 10.0 landed
-
Add locking around WAL-replay modification of shared-memory variables.
- c6d76d7c82eb 9.2.0 cited