Re: Parallel autovacuum: DROP DATABASE WITH (FORCE) fails on the parallel workers

On Tue, Oct 13, 2026 at 9:01 PM Bharath Rupireddy
<bharath(dot)rupireddyforpostgres(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
>
>
> > Also, regarding the following documentation change:
> >
> > - This terminates background worker connections and connections that the
> > - current user has permission to terminate
> > + This terminates background worker connections, the parallel workers they
> > + launch, and connections that the current user has permission to terminate
> >
> > I think we don't need this change as parallel workers are background
> > workers, no?
>
> I would like to keep it for clarity, especially since not every
> parallel worker is exempted here, only the ones started by autovacuum
> workers or bg workers.

I think that distinction is not visible to users. A parallel worker
always connects to the same database as its leader, so the leader is
checked too, with the same role. If the current user cannot terminate
the leader, the command fails whether or not the worker is exempted.
So I think the existing sentence is already accurate for parallel
workers: if the command succeeds, all parallel workers in the database
have been terminated. Also, I think the new text could be misleading.
Since parallel workers are background workers too, "the parallel
workers they launch" is either redundant with the first item
"background worker connections", or reads as if other parallel workers
are not terminated, which is not the case.

Regards,

--
Masahiko Sawada
Amazon Web Services: https://aws.amazon.com