Fix orphaned 2pc file which may casue instance restart failed

ChengWen Wu <drec.wu@foxmail.com>

From: 清浅 <drec.wu@foxmail.com>
To: pgsql-hackers <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>
Date: 2024-09-08T05:01:37Z
Lists: pgsql-hackers

Attachments

Hi all,&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;I found that there is a race condition between two global transaction, which may cause instance
restart failed with error 'could not access status of transaction xxx","Could not open file ""pg_xact/xxx"": No such file or directory'.


&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;The scenery to reproduce the problem is:
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;1. gxact1 is doing `FinishPreparedTransaction` and checkpoint
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;is issued, so gxact1 will generate a 2pc file.
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;2. then gxact1 was removed from `TwoPhaseState-&gt;prepXacts` and
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;its state memory was returned to freelist.
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;3. but just before gxact1 remove its 2pc file, gxact2 is issued,
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;gxact2 will reuse the same state memory of gxact1 and will
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;reset `gxact-&gt;ondisk` to false.
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; 4. gxact1 continue and found that `gxact-&gt;ondisk` is false, it won't
&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; remove its 2pc file. This file is orphaned.


&nbsp; &nbsp; If gxact1's local xid is not frozen, the startup process will remove
the orphaned 2pc file. However, if the xid's corresponding clog file is
truncated by `vacuum`, the startup process will raise error 'could not
access status of transaction xxx', due to it could not found the
transaction's status file in dir `pg_xact`.



&nbsp; &nbsp;The potential fix is attached.

Commits

  1. Fix race condition in COMMIT PREPARED causing orphaned 2PC files