Cygwin PostgreSQL Regression Test Problems (Revisited)

On Mon, Jan 15, 2001 at 11:37:55PM -0500, Jason Tishler wrote:
> 2. I am unable to successfully run the regression tests on a NT 4.0 SP5
> machine with only 64 MB of physical memory and about 175 MB of swap space.
> Other than lacking RAM and swap space, this machine is the "same" as other
> NT/2000 machines which can successfully run the regression tests.
>
> The tests usually hang during the "parallel group (18 tests)" test
> right after numerology. By "hang," I mean that the original postmaster
> is still running, but there are no postmaster children, and there are
> some number of psql processes hanging around. Using NT's TaskManager,
> I can see that the machine is running out of memory. I have even seen
> the "Windows is running low on virtual memory" dialog a few times.
> Should I expect this behavior from such a lame machine?

I previously reported the above problem with the parallel version of
the regression test (i.e., make check) on a machine with limited memory.
Unfortunately, I am seeing similar problems on a machine with 192 MB of
physical memory and about 208 MB of swap space. So, now I feel that my
initial conclusion that limited memory was the root cause is erroneous.

My current WAG is that there is a race condition in Cygwin that is
causing the some back-end postgres processes to abort. This in turn
causes the associated front-end psql processes to hang which in turn
causes the regression test to hang.

What is the best way to "catch" this problem? What are the best set of
options to pass to postmaster that will be in turn passed to the back-end
postgres processes to hopefully shed some light on this situation? Can I
get the individual back-end postgres processes to log to separate files?

There is so much going on during a parallel regression test that it's
hard to figure out what is really happening. Any help would be greatly
appreciated.

Thanks,
Jason

--
Jason Tishler
Director, Software Engineering Phone: +1 (732) 264-8770 x235
Dot Hill Systems Corp. Fax: +1 (732) 264-8798
82 Bethany Road, Suite 7 Email: Jason(dot)Tishler(at)dothill(dot)com
Hazlet, NJ 07730 USA WWW: http://www.dothill.com