Re: pg_ctl/pg_rewind tests vs. slow AIX buildfarm members

Noah Misch <noah(at)leadboat(dot)com> writes:
> On Thu, Sep 03, 2015 at 03:31:06PM -0400, Tom Lane wrote:
>>> This is the first time I've seen an indication that the
>>> start_postmaster change mentioned in the comment is actually important
>>> for production use, rather than just being cleanup.

> I scratched my head awhile without thinking of a credible production use case
> that would notice the difference. Which one did you have in mind?

Well, mainly that it's making our regression tests fail, which suggests
behavioral instability that could be important for production.

Aside from the specific case you diagnosed, it's clear from buildfarm
results that the five-second timeout elsewhere in
test_postmaster_connection has got funny behavior under load; there are
way too many cases where pg_ctl gives up after exactly that long, with
no useful information printed. The draft patch I posted gets rid of that
behavior ...

regards, tom lane