Re: [HACKERS] GUC for cleanup indexes threshold.

At Tue, 20 Mar 2018 13:57:19 +0900 (Tokyo Standard Time), Kyotaro HORIGUCHI <horiguchi(dot)kyotaro(at)lab(dot)ntt(dot)co(dot)jp> wrote in <20180320(dot)135719(dot)90053076(dot)horiguchi(dot)kyotaro(at)lab(dot)ntt(dot)co(dot)jp>
> At Mon, 19 Mar 2018 20:50:48 +0900, Masahiko Sawada <sawada(dot)mshk(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote in <CAD21AoCfWXcX-po8Q1r779nyVGzs01pwpSLM=u7Sx3Hv+L+4gg(at)mail(dot)gmail(dot)com>
> > On Mon, Mar 19, 2018 at 2:45 PM, Kyotaro HORIGUCHI
> > <horiguchi(dot)kyotaro(at)lab(dot)ntt(dot)co(dot)jp> wrote:
> > > At Mon, 19 Mar 2018 11:12:58 +0900, Masahiko Sawada <sawada(dot)mshk(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote in <CAD21AoAB8tQg9xwojupUJjKD=fMhtx6thDEPENDdhftVLWcR8A(at)mail(dot)gmail(dot)com>
> > >> On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 9:25 PM, Alexander Korotkov
> > >> <a(dot)korotkov(at)postgrespro(dot)ru> wrote:
> > >> > On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 7:40 AM, Masahiko Sawada <sawada(dot)mshk(at)gmail(dot)com>
> > >> > wrote:
> > >> >>
> > >> >> On Sat, Mar 10, 2018 at 3:40 AM, Alexander Korotkov
> > >> >> <a(dot)korotkov(at)postgrespro(dot)ru> wrote:
> > >> >> > On Fri, Mar 9, 2018 at 3:12 PM, Masahiko Sawada <sawada(dot)mshk(at)gmail(dot)com>
> > >> >> > wrote:
> > >> >> >>
> > >> >> >> On Fri, Mar 9, 2018 at 8:43 AM, Alexander Korotkov
> > >> >> >> <a(dot)korotkov(at)postgrespro(dot)ru> wrote:
> > >> >> >> > 2) These parameters are reset during btbulkdelete() and set during
> > >> >> >> > btvacuumcleanup().
> > >> >> >>
> > >> >> >> Can't we set these parameters even during btbulkdelete()? By keeping
> > >> >> >> them up to date, we will able to avoid an unnecessary cleanup vacuums
> > >> >> >> even after index bulk-delete.
> > >> >> >
> > >> >> >
> > >> >> > We certainly can update cleanup-related parameters during
> > >> >> > btbulkdelete().
> > >> >> > However, in this case we would update B-tree meta-page during each
> > >> >> > VACUUM cycle. That may cause some overhead for non append-only
> > >> >> > workloads. I don't think this overhead would be sensible, because in
> > >> >> > non append-only scenarios VACUUM typically writes much more of
> > >> >> > information.
> > >> >> > But I would like this oriented to append-only workload patch to be
> > >> >> > as harmless as possible for other workloads.
> > >> >>
> > >> >> What overhead are you referring here? I guess the overhead is only the
> > >> >> calculating the oldest btpo.xact. And I think it would be harmless.
> > >> >
> > >> >
> > >> > I meant overhead of setting last_cleanup_num_heap_tuples after every
> > >> > btbulkdelete with wal-logging of meta-page. I bet it also would be
> > >> > harmless, but I think that needs some testing.
> > >>
> > >> Agreed.
> > >>
> > >> After more thought, it might be too late but we can consider the
> > >> possibility of another idea proposed by Peter. Attached patch
> > >> addresses the original issue of index cleanups by storing the epoch
> > >> number of page deletion XID into PageHeader->pd_prune_xid which is
> > >> 4byte field.
> > >
> > > Mmm. It seems to me that the story is returning to the
> > > beginning. Could I try retelling the story?
> > >
> > > I understant that the initial problem was vacuum runs apparently
> > > unnecessary full-scan on indexes many times. The reason for that
> > > is the fact that a cleanup scan may leave some (or many under
> > > certain condition) dead pages not-recycled but we don't know
> > > whether a cleanup is needed or not. They will be staying left
> > > forever unless we run additional cleanup-scans at the appropriate
> > > timing.
> > >
> > > (If I understand it correctly,) Sawada-san's latest proposal is
> > > (fundamentally the same to the first one,) just skipping the
> > > cleanup scan if the vacuum scan just before found that the number
> > > of *live* tuples are increased. If there where many deletions and
> > > insertions but no increase of total number of tuples, we don't
> > > have a cleanup. Consequently it had a wraparound problem and it
> > > is addressed in this version.
> >
> > No, it doesn't have a wraparound problem. The patch based on Peter's
> > idea I proposed adds an epoch number of page deletion xid and compare
> > them when we judge whether the page is recyclable or not. It's
> > something like we create 64-bit xid of deletion xid. Also, if there is
> > even one deletion the bulk-delete will be performed instead of the
> > index cleanup. So with this patch we do the index cleanup only when
> > the reltuple of table is increased by fraction of
> > vacuum_index_cleanup_scale_factor from previous stats. It doesn't need
> > to do the index cleanup by any xid thresholds.
>
>
> Perhaps you took me wrong. I know the last patch doesn't have (or
> at least intends to get rid of ) the problem, and I wrote that
> the problem was introduced by your *first* patch.
>
> > > (ditto.) Alexander proposed to record the oldest xid of
> > > recyclable pages in metapage (and the number of tuples at the
> > > last cleanup). This prevents needless cleanup scan and surely
> > > runs cleanups to remove all recyclable pages.
> >
> > Yes, but the concerns we discussed are that we need extra WAL-logging
> > for updating the metapage and it works only for append-only case. If
> > we also want to support more cases we will need to update the metapage
> > during bulk-delete. The overhead of WAL-logging would be harmless but
> > should be tested as Alexander mentioned.
>
> Agreed.
>
> > > I think that we can accept Sawada-san's proposal if we accept the
> > > fact that indexes can retain recyclable pages for a long
> > > time. (Honestly I don't think so.)
> > >
> > > If (as I might have mentioned as the same upthread for Yura's
> > > patch,) we accept to hold the information on index meta page,
> > > Alexander's way would be preferable. The difference betwen Yura's
> > > and Alexander's is the former runs cleanup scan if a recyclable
> > > page is present but the latter avoids that before any recyclable
> > > pages are knwon to be removed.
> > >
> > >> Comparing to the current proposed patch this patch
> > >> doesn't need neither the page upgrade code nor extra WAL-logging. If
> > >
> > > # By the way, my proposal was storing the information as Yura
> > > # proposed into stats collector. The information maybe be
> > > # available a bit lately, but it doesn't harm. This doesn't need
> > > # extra WAL logging nor the upgrad code:p
> > >
> > >> we also want to address cases other than append-only case we will
> > >
> > > I'm afraid that "the problem for the other cases" is a new one
> > > that this patch introduces, not an existing one.
> >
> > I meant that the current Alexandor's proposal works for append-only
> > table. If we want to support other cases we have to update metapage
> > during bulk-delete, which assumes that bulk-delete always scans whole
> > index.
>
> True. Currently no patches so far gets rid of the whole-cleanup-scan.
>
> > >> require the bulk-delete method of scanning whole index and of logging
> > >> WAL. But it leads some extra overhead. With this patch we no longer
> > >> need to depend on the full scan on b-tree index. This might be useful
> > >> for a future when we make the bulk-delete of b-tree index not scan
> > >> whole index.
> > >
> > > Perhaps I'm taking something incorrectly, but is it just the
> > > result of skipping 'maybe needed' scans without condiering the
> > > actual necessity?
> >
> > I meant to scan only index pages that are relevant with garbages TIDs
> > on a table. The current b-tree index bulk-deletion is very slow and
> > heavy because we always scans the whole index even if there is only 1
> > dead tuples in a table. To address this problem I'm thinking a way to
> > make bulk-delete not scan whole index if there is a few dead tuples in
> > a table. That is, we do index scans to collect the stack of btree
> > pages and reclaim garbage. Maybe we will full index scan if there are
> > a lot of dead tuples, which would be same as what we're doing on
> > planning access paths.
>
> Yeah, that seems good! A possible problem of that is that the
> pages we want to recycle in a cleanup scan can *not* be only them
> that have found to be recyclable in the vacuum-scan just
> before. When we leave some recyclable pages in a cleanup scan, we
> should do whole-scan at the next chance if we don't have the TID
> list (or in other smaller form, or just the number of recyclable
> pages?) at the time.

"the number of recyclable pages?" is wrong. It doesn't work to
avoid whole-scan. It just indicates whether the "this" round of
cleanup needs whole-scan or not.

regards,

--
Kyotaro Horiguchi
NTT Open Source Software Center