Re: pg_ctl wait exit code (was Re: [COMMITTERS] pgsql: Additional tests for subtransactions in recovery)

On Sat, Jul 1, 2017 at 4:47 AM, Peter Eisentraut
<peter(dot)eisentraut(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> wrote:
> On 5/1/17 12:19, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>> However: Failure to complete promotion within the waiting time does not
>> lead to an error exit, so you will not get a failure if the promotion
>> does not finish. This is probably a mistake. Looking around pg_ctl, I
>> found that this was handled seemingly inconsistently in do_start(), but
>> do_stop() errors when it does not complete.

This inconsistency could be treated like a bug, though changing such
an old behavior in bacl-branches would be risky. So +1 for only HEAD
with such a change, and pg_ctl promote -w is new in 10.

>> Possible patches for this attached.
>>
>> Perhaps we need a separate exit code in pg_ctl to distinguish general
>> errors from did not finish within timeout?

I would treat that as a separate item for 11, but that's as far as my
opinion goes. Per this link in pg_ctl.c the error code ought to be 4:
https://refspecs.linuxbase.org/LSB_3.1.0/LSB-Core-generic/LSB-Core-generic/iniscrptact.html

> I was going to hold this back for PG11, but since we're now doing some
> other tweaks in pg_ctl, it might be useful to add this too. Thoughts?

The use of 0 as exit code for the new promote -w if timeout is reached
looks like an open item to me. Cleaning up the pool queries after
promotion would be nice to see as well.
--
Michael