Re: pg_stop_backup does not complete

On Tue, 2010-02-23 at 18:58 +0000, Simon Riggs wrote:
> On Tue, 2010-02-23 at 09:45 -0800, Josh Berkus wrote:

> > This issue is 100% reproduceable.
>
> IMHO there in no problem in that behaviour. If somebody requests a
> backup then we should wait for it to complete. Kevin's suggestion of
> pg_fail_backup() is the only sensible conclusion there because it gives
> an explicit way out of deadlock.
>
> ISTM the problem is that you didn't test. Steps 3 and 4 should have been
> reversed. Perhaps we should put something in the docs to say "and test".
> The correct resolution is to put in an archive_command that works.

The problem isn't that it is a bad archive_command, it is that
PostgreSQL has no way to deal with this gracefully. Yes people should
test but are we dealing with the real world or not?

>
> So I don't see this as something that needs fixing for 9.0. There is
> already too much non-essential code there, all of which needs to be
> tested. I don't think adding in new corner cases to "help" people makes
> any sense until we have automated testing that allows us to rerun the
> regression tests to check all this stuff still works.

This will bite us if we release like this.

Joshua D. Drake

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