Re: pg_receivexlog and feedback message

On Thu, Jun 7, 2012 at 5:05 AM, Magnus Hagander <magnus(at)hagander(dot)net> wrote:
> On Wed, Jun 6, 2012 at 8:26 PM, Fujii Masao <masao(dot)fujii(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>> On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 11:44 PM, Magnus Hagander <magnus(at)hagander(dot)net> wrote:
>>> On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 4:42 PM, Fujii Masao <masao(dot)fujii(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>>>> On Tue, Jun 5, 2012 at 9:53 PM, Magnus Hagander <magnus(at)hagander(dot)net> wrote:
>>>>> Right now, pg_receivexlog sets:
>>>>>                        replymsg->write = InvalidXLogRecPtr;
>>>>>                        replymsg->flush = InvalidXLogRecPtr;
>>>>>                        replymsg->apply = InvalidXLogRecPtr;
>>>>>
>>>>> when it sends it's status updates.
>>>>>
>>>>> I'm thinking it sohuld set replymsg->write = blockpos instad.
>>>>>
>>>>> Why? That way you can see in pg_stat_replication what has actually
>>>>> been received by pg_receivexlog - not just what we last sent. This can
>>>>> be useful in combination with an archive_command that can block WAL
>>>>> recycling until it has been saved to the standby. And it would be
>>>>> useful as a general monitoring thing as well.
>>>>>
>>>>> I think the original reason was that it shouldn't interefer with
>>>>> synchronous replication - but it does take away a fairly useful
>>>>> usecase...
>>>>
>>>> I think that not only replaymsg->write but also ->flush should be set to
>>>> blockpos in pg_receivexlog. Which allows pg_receivexlog to behave
>>>> as synchronous standby, so we can write WAL to both local and remote
>>>> synchronously. I believe there are some use cases for synchronous
>>>> pg_receivexlog.
>>>
>>> pg_receivexlog doesn't currently fsync() after every write. It only
>>> fsync():s complete files. So we'd need to set ->flush only at the end
>>> of a segment, right?
>>
>> Yes.
>>
>> Currently the status update is sent for each status interval. In sync
>> replication, transaction has to wait for a while even after pg_receivexlog
>> has written or flushed the WAL data.
>>
>> So we should add new option which specifies whether pg_receivexlog
>> sends the status packet back as soon as it writes or flushes the WAL
>> data, like the walreceiver does?
>
> That might be useful, but I think that's 9.3 material at this point.

Fair enough. That's new feature rather than a bugfix.

> But I think we can get the "set the write location" in as a bugfix.

Also "set the flush location"? Sending the flush location back seems
helpful when using pg_receivexlog for WAL archiving purpose. By
seeing the flush location we can ensure that WAL file has been archived
durably (IOW, WAL file has been flushed in remote archive area).

Regards,

--
Fujii Masao