BUG #3266: SSL broken pipes kill the machine and fill the disk

The following bug has been logged online:

Bug reference: 3266
Logged by: Peter Koczan
Email address: pjkoczan(at)gmail(dot)com
PostgreSQL version: 8.2.4
Operating system: CentOS Linux 4.4 (RHEL 4) running on Pentium 4
Description: SSL broken pipes kill the machine and fill the disk
Details:

If a connection using SSL is terminated on the client side before a query
completes, postgres keeps trying to write to the broken connection, shooting
CPU and load very high and filling the postgres syslog (I have that pointed
to /var/log/pglog) with ~2000 of the following messages per second.

May 10 14:45:01 mitchell postgres[10340]: [15729-1] LOG: SSL SYSCALL error:
Broken pipe

This quickly fills up the /var partition on the server.

To replicate the problem:
1. Connect to an running server using an SSL connection. Using psql is
fine.
2. Begin a query on any table. For full effect the query should be expensive
and large.
3. Kill psql *on the client side* BEFORE the query finishes (don't do
anything to the server side connection).
4. 'tail -f' wherever the postgres server output and error is going to.
5. Wait a few seconds while the server gets all of its data.
6. See thousands of error messages fill up your terminal on the server.

This has also happened when people stop web browsers in the middle of
serving up a postgresql-driven web page, but this is harder to replicate.

This usually terminates, but after 3 hours for a query that usually takes 20
seconds. During this time, the server is slow to the point of unusable.