Re: backend hangs at immediate shutdown (Re: Back-branch update releases coming in a couple weeks)

Andres Freund <andres(at)2ndquadrant(dot)com> writes:
> On 2013-02-01 08:55:24 -0500, Peter Eisentraut wrote:
>> I found an old patch that I had prepared for this, which I have
>> attached. YMMV.

>> +static void
>> +quickdie_alarm_handler(SIGNAL_ARGS)
>> +{
>> + /*
>> + * We got here if ereport() was blocking, so don't go there again
>> + * except when really asked for.
>> + */
>> + elog(DEBUG5, "quickdie aborted by alarm");
>> +

> Its probably not wise to enter elog.c again, that path might allocate
> memory and we wouldn't be any wiser. Unfortunately there's not much
> besides a write(2) to stderr that can safely be done...

Another objection to this is it still doesn't fix the case where the
process has blocked SIGQUIT. My faith that libperl, libR, etc will
never do that is nil.

I think if we want something that's actually trustworthy, the
wait-and-then-kill logic has to be in the postmaster.

regards, tom lane