pgsql: Avoid potential deadlock in InitCatCachePhase2().

From: Tom Lane <tgl(at)sss(dot)pgh(dot)pa(dot)us>
To: pgsql-committers(at)postgresql(dot)org
Subject: pgsql: Avoid potential deadlock in InitCatCachePhase2().
Date: 2011-03-22 17:01:37
Message-ID: E1Q24xd-0001bT-R4@gemulon.postgresql.org
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Avoid potential deadlock in InitCatCachePhase2().

Opening a catcache's index could require reading from that cache's own
catalog, which of course would acquire AccessShareLock on the catalog.
So the original coding here risks locking index before heap, which could
deadlock against another backend trying to get exclusive locks in the
normal order. Because InitCatCachePhase2 is only called when a backend
has to start up without a relcache init file, the deadlock was seldom seen
in the field. (And by the same token, there's no need to worry about any
performance disadvantage; so not much point in trying to distinguish
exactly which catalogs have the risk.)

Bug report, diagnosis, and patch by Nikhil Sontakke. Additional commentary
by me. Back-patch to all supported branches.

Branch
------
master

Details
-------
http://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/1192ba8b67df1446973c71aafde5f6f613dce0af

Modified Files
--------------
src/backend/utils/cache/catcache.c | 9 +++++++++
src/backend/utils/cache/relcache.c | 10 ++++++++++
2 files changed, 19 insertions(+), 0 deletions(-)

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