Re: pg_subtrans keeps bloating up in the standby

On 27/08/10 20:17, Fujii Masao wrote:
> Yes. StartupXLOG calls that before bgwriter is invoked. That is, we can
> ensure that StartupSUBTRANS has always been done before bgwriter
> performs a restartpoint.

Hmm, the comment in CreateCheckpoint() isn't totally accurate either:

> * Truncate pg_subtrans if possible. We can throw away all data before
> * the oldest XMIN of any running transaction. No future transaction will
> * attempt to reference any pg_subtrans entry older than that (see Asserts
> * in subtrans.c). During recovery, though, we mustn't do this because
> * StartupSUBTRANS hasn't been called yet.

because in Hot Standby mode, StartSUBTRANS has been called already. We
could truncate pg_subtrans there too when hot standby is enabled. But
this is only about the startup checkpoint at the end of recovery, so I'm
inclined to not change that, not right now just before release anyway,
just in case we're missing something...

However, is it safe to use GetOldestXMin() during recovery? Or to put it
other way, is GetOldestXMin() functioning correctly during hot standby?
It only scans through the ProcArray, but not the known-assigned xids
array. That seems like an oversight that needs to be fixed.

--
Heikki Linnakangas
EnterpriseDB http://www.enterprisedb.com