Re: [BUGS] BUG #2195: log_min_messages crash server when in DEBUG3 to

Tom Lane wrote:
> Bruce Momjian <pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us> writes:
> > configure \
> > --with-x \
> > --with-tcl \
> > --with-perl \
> > --enable-pltcl-unknown \
> > --with-tclconfig=/u/lib \
> > --with-tkconfig=/u/lib \
> > --with-includes="/usr/local/include/readline /usr/contrib/include" \
> > --with-libraries="/usr/local/lib /usr/contrib/lib" \
> > --enable-locale \
> > --enable-multibyte \
> > --with-openssl \
> > --enable-cassert \
> > --enable-thread-safety \
> > --enable-nls
>
> Still can't reproduce it here. What stack trace do you get from the
> crash?

Sorry it took me so long to get you a backtrace. I have found the
problem. The backtrace:

#0 0x285119b5 in strlen () from /shlib/libc.so.2
#1 0x8307bec in fmtstr (value=0x0, leftjust=0, minlen=0, maxwidth=0,
pointflag=0, target=0x8046d9c) at snprintf.c:775
#2 0x83079c8 in dopr (target=0x8046d9c, format=0x84e501e " child[%d]:
starting with (", args=0x8046e40 "]") at snprintf.c:710
#3 0x830669a in pg_vsnprintf (str=0x84e5128 "", count=255,
fmt=0x84e501c "%s child[%d]: starting with (", args=0x8046e3c "")
at snprintf.c:157
#4 0x81a4508 in appendStringInfoVA (str=0x8046e14, fmt=0x84e501c "%s
child[%d]: starting with (", args=0x8046e3c "")
at stringinfo.c:125
#5 0x82dafba in errmsg_internal (fmt=0x83f2a21 "%s child[%d]: starting
with (") at elog.c:673
#6 0x820a4fb in BackendRun (port=0x8046ecc) at postmaster.c:2912
#7 0x820ac89 in SubPostmasterMain (argc=3, argv=0x8047168) at
postmaster.c:3349
#8 0x81af04a in main (argc=3, argv=0x8047168) at main.c:262
#9 0x808b513 in __start ()

and here is the line in postmaster.c:

/*
* Debug: print arguments being passed to backend
*/
ereport(DEBUG3,
(errmsg_internal("%s child[%d]: starting with (",
progname, (int) getpid())));

The problem is that for EXEC_BACKEND, which is the default for WIN32 and
what I used for testing, progname is NULL because we do not set it after
the fork/exec. Most versions of printf report "(null)" for a null
argument to printf("%s"), but our port/snprintf.c version aborts, which
is probably better in terms of finding bugs. If you set EXEC_BACKEND
and run log_min_messages='debug5' in postgresql.conf and start a
backend, you will see:

DEBUG: (null) child[8349]: starting with (

while on Win32 and my OS, you get a crash. This problem exists back to
8.0 when we added EXEC_BACKEND. My guess is few Win32 users set
log_min_messages to debug3 or lower in postgresql.conf. If it is set
via SET, the backend has already started and things should be OK.
However, there are several error messages that print progname, so having
it NULL is bad.

The attached patch fixes the problem by setting progname early in
main(), like we do for all other applications. We could try a more
limited patch in earlier branches, but I am unsure how we can be sure
that would be hit all use cases. By putting it right at the top of
main(), we are sure to have that variable set.

--
Bruce Momjian | http://candle.pha.pa.us
pgman(at)candle(dot)pha(dot)pa(dot)us | (610) 359-1001
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