Tatsuo Ishii <ishii(at)sraoss(dot)co(dot)jp> writes:
> In postmaster.c signal handler pmdie() calls ereport() and
> errmsg_internal(), which could call palloc() then malloc() if
> necessary. Because it is possible that pmdie() gets called while
> malloc() gets called in postmaster, I think it is possible that a
> deadlock situation could occur through an internal locking inside
> malloc().
But we keep signals blocked almost all the time in the postmaster,
so in reality no signal handler can interrupt anything except the
select() wait call. People complain about that coding technique
all the time, but no one has presented any reason to believe that
it's broken.
regards, tom lane