Re: [HACKERS] pgsql: Fix freezing of a dead HOT-updated tuple

On 2017-11-09 16:45:07 -0800, Peter Geoghegan wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 9, 2017 at 4:17 PM, Andres Freund <andres(at)anarazel(dot)de> wrote:
> >> Actually, on second thought, I take that back -- I don't think that
> >> REINDEXing will even finish once a HOT chain is broken by the bug.
> >> IndexBuildHeapScan() actually does quite a good job of making sure
> >> that HOT chains are sane, which is how the enhanced amcheck notices
> >> the bug here in practice.
> >
> > I think that's too optimistic.
>
> Why? Because the "find the TID of the root" logic in
> IndexBuildHeapScan()/heap_get_root_tuples() won't reliably find the
> actual root (it might be some other HOT chain root following TID
> recycling by VACUUM)?

Primarily because it's not an anti-corruption tool. I'd be surprised if
there weren't ways to corrupt the page using these corruptions that
aren't detected by it. But even if it were, I don't think there's
enough information to do so in the general case. You very well can end
up with pages where subsequent hot pruning has removed a good bit of the
direct evidence of this bug.

But I'm not really sure why the error detection capabilities of matter
much for the principal point I raised, which is how much work we need to
do to not further worsen the corruption.

Greetings,

Andres Freund