Re: About to add WAL write/fsync statistics to pg_stat_wal view

On Mon, 25 Jan 2021 at 09:36, Masahiko Sawada <sawada(dot)mshk(at)gmail(dot)com> wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 22, 2021 at 10:05 PM Masahiro Ikeda
> <ikedamsh(at)oss(dot)nttdata(dot)com> wrote:
>>
>> On 2021-01-22 14:50, Masahiko Sawada wrote:
>> > On Fri, Dec 25, 2020 at 6:46 PM Masahiro Ikeda
>> > <ikedamsh(at)oss(dot)nttdata(dot)com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Hi,
>> >>
>> >> I rebased the patch to the master branch.
>> >
>> > Thank you for working on this. I've read the latest patch. Here are
>> > comments:
>> >
>> > ---
>> > + if (track_wal_io_timing)
>> > + {
>> > + INSTR_TIME_SET_CURRENT(duration);
>> > + INSTR_TIME_SUBTRACT(duration, start);
>> > + WalStats.m_wal_write_time +=
>> > INSTR_TIME_GET_MILLISEC(duration);
>> > + }
>> >
>> > * I think it should add the time in micro sec.
>> > After running pgbench with track_wal_io_timing = on for 30 sec,
>> > pg_stat_wal showed the following on my environment:
>> >
>> > postgres(1:61569)=# select * from pg_stat_wal;
>> > -[ RECORD 1 ]----+-----------------------------
>> > wal_records | 285947
>> > wal_fpi | 53285
>> > wal_bytes | 442008213
>> > wal_buffers_full | 0
>> > wal_write | 25516
>> > wal_write_time | 0
>> > wal_sync | 25437
>> > wal_sync_time | 14490
>> > stats_reset | 2021-01-22 10:56:13.29464+09
>> >
>> > Since writes can complete less than a millisecond, wal_write_time
>> > didn't increase. I think sync_time could also have the same problem.
>>
>> Thanks for your comments. I didn't notice that.
>> I changed the unit from milliseconds to microseconds.
>>
>> > ---
>> > + /*
>> > + * Measure i/o timing to fsync WAL data.
>> > + *
>> > + * The wal receiver skip to collect it to avoid performance
>> > degradation of standy servers.
>> > + * If sync_method doesn't have its fsync method, to skip too.
>> > + */
>> > + if (!AmWalReceiverProcess() && track_wal_io_timing &&
>> > fsyncMethodCalled())
>> > + INSTR_TIME_SET_CURRENT(start);
>> >
>> > * Why does only the wal receiver skip it even if track_wal_io_timinig
>> > is true? I think the performance degradation is also true for backend
>> > processes. If there is another reason for that, I think it's better to
>> > mention in both the doc and comment.
>> > * How about checking track_wal_io_timing first?
>> > * s/standy/standby/
>>
>> I fixed it.
>> As kuroda-san mentioned too, the skip is no need to be considered.
>
> I think you also removed the code to have the wal receiver report the
> stats. So with the latest patch, the wal receiver tracks those
> statistics but doesn't report.
>
> And maybe XLogWalRcvWrite() also needs to track I/O?
>
>>
>> > ---
>> > + /* increment the i/o timing and the number of times to fsync WAL
>> > data */
>> > + if (fsyncMethodCalled())
>> > + {
>> > + if (!AmWalReceiverProcess() && track_wal_io_timing)
>> > + {
>> > + INSTR_TIME_SET_CURRENT(duration);
>> > + INSTR_TIME_SUBTRACT(duration, start);
>> > + WalStats.m_wal_sync_time +=
>> > INSTR_TIME_GET_MILLISEC(duration);
>> > + }
>> > +
>> > + WalStats.m_wal_sync++;
>> > + }
>> >
>> > * I'd avoid always calling fsyncMethodCalled() in this path. How about
>> > incrementing m_wal_sync after each sync operation?
>>
>> I think if syncing the disk does not occur, m_wal_sync should not be
>> incremented.
>> It depends enableFsync and sync_method.
>>
>> enableFsync is checked in each fsync method like
>> pg_fsync_no_writethrough(),
>> so if incrementing m_wal_sync after each sync operation, it should be
>> implemented
>> in each fsync method. It leads to many duplicated codes.
>
> Right. I missed that each fsync function checks enableFsync.
>
>> So, why don't you change the function to a flag whether to
>> sync data to the disk will be occurred or not in issue_xlog_fsync()?
>
> Looks better. Since we don't necessarily need to increment m_wal_sync
> after doing fsync we can write the code without an additional variable
> as follows:
>
> if (enableFsync)
> {
> switch (sync_method)
> {
> case SYNC_METHOD_FSYNC:
> #ifdef HAVE_FSYNC_WRITETHROUGH
> case SYNC_METHOD_FSYNC_WRITETHROUGH:
> #endif
> #ifdef HAVE_FDATASYNC
> case SYNC_METHOD_FDATASYNC:
> #endif
> WalStats.m_wal_sync++;
> if (track_wal_io_timing)
> INSTR_TIME_SET_CURRENT(start);
> break;
> default:
> break;
> }
> }
>
> (do fsync and error handling here)
>
> /* increment the i/o timing and the number of times to fsync WAL data */
> if (track_wal_io_timing)
> {
> INSTR_TIME_SET_CURRENT(duration);
> INSTR_TIME_SUBTRACT(duration, start);
> WalStats.m_wal_sync_time = INSTR_TIME_GET_MICROSEC(duration);
> }
>
> I think we can change the first switch-case to an if statement.
>

+1. We can also narrow the scope of "duration" into "if (track_wal_io_timing)" branch.

--
Regrads,
Japin Li.
ChengDu WenWu Information Technology Co.,Ltd.