libpq thread safety

From: Manfred Spraul <manfred(at)colorfullife(dot)com>
To: PostgreSQL-development <pgsql-hackers(at)postgresql(dot)org>
Subject: libpq thread safety
Date: 2004-01-11 14:10:23
Message-ID: 4001594F.6060304@colorfullife.com
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libpq needs additional changes for complete thread safety:
- openssl needs different initialization.
- kerberos is not thread safe.
- functions such as gethostbyname are not thread safe, and could be used
by kerberos. Right now protected with a libpq specific mutex.
- dito for getpwuid and stderror.

openssl is trivial: just proper flags are needed for the init function.
But what about kerberos: I'm a bit reluctant to add a forth mutex: what
if kerberos calls gethostbyname or getpwuid internally?
Usually I would use one single_thread mutex and use that mutex for all
operations - races are just too difficult to debug. Any better ideas?
Otherwise I'd start searching for the non-threadsafe functions and add
pthread_lock around them.
Actually I'm not even sure if it should be a libpq specific mutex: what
if the calling app needs to access openssl or kerberos as well? Perhaps
libpq should use a system similar to openssl:

http://www.openssl.org/docs/crypto/threads.html

--
Manfred

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