pgsql: Fix possible HOT corruption when RECENTLY_DEAD changes to DEAD w - Mailing list pgsql-committers

Fix possible HOT corruption when RECENTLY_DEAD changes to DEAD while pruning.

Since dc7420c2c92 the horizon used for pruning is determined "lazily". A more
accurate horizon is built on-demand, rather than in GetSnapshotData(). If a
horizon computation is triggered between two HeapTupleSatisfiesVacuum() calls
for the same tuple, the result can change from RECENTLY_DEAD to DEAD.

heap_page_prune() can process the same tid multiple times (once following an
update chain, once "directly"). When the result of HeapTupleSatisfiesVacuum()
of a tuple changes from RECENTLY_DEAD during the first access, to DEAD in the
second, the "tuple is DEAD and doesn't chain to anything else" path in
heap_prune_chain() can end up marking the target of a LP_REDIRECT ItemId
unused.

Initially not easily visible,
Once the target of a LP_REDIRECT ItemId is marked unused, a new tuple version
can reuse it. At that point the corruption may become visible, as index
entries pointing to the "original" redirect item, now point to a unrelated
tuple.

To fix, compute HTSV for all tuples on a page only once. This fixes the entire
class of problems of HTSV changing inside heap_page_prune(). However,
visibility changes can obviously still occur between HTSV checks inside
heap_page_prune() and outside (e.g. in lazy_scan_prune()).

The computation of HTSV is now done in bulk, in heap_page_prune(), rather than
on-demand in heap_prune_chain(). Besides being a bit simpler, it also is
faster: Memory accesses can happen sequentially, rather than in the order of
HOT chains.

There are other causes of HeapTupleSatisfiesVacuum() results changing between
two visibility checks for the same tuple, even before dc7420c2c92. E.g.
HEAPTUPLE_INSERT_IN_PROGRESS can change to HEAPTUPLE_DEAD when a transaction
aborts between the two checks. None of the these other visibility status
changes are known to cause corruption, but heap_page_prune()'s approach makes
it hard to be confident.

A patch implementing a more fundamental redesign of heap_page_prune(), which
fixes this bug and simplifies pruning substantially, has been proposed by
Peter Geoghegan in
https://postgr.es/m/CAH2-WzmNk6V6tqzuuabxoxM8HJRaWU6h12toaS-bqYcLiht16A@mail.gmail.com

However, that redesign is larger change than desirable for backpatching. As
the new design still benefits from the batched visibility determination
introduced in this commit, it makes sense to commit this narrower fix to 14
and master, and then commit Peter's improvement in master.

The precise sequence required to trigger the bug is complicated and hard to do
exercise in an isolation test (until we have wait points). Due to that the
isolation test initially posted at
https://postgr.es/m/20211119003623.d3jusiytzjqwb62p%40alap3.anarazel.de
and updated in
https://postgr.es/m/20211122175914.ayk6gg6nvdwuhrzb%40alap3.anarazel.de
isn't committable.

A followup commit will introduce additional assertions, to detect problems
like this more easily.

Bug: #17255
Reported-By: Alexander Lakhin <exclusion@gmail.com>
Debugged-By: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Debugged-By: Peter Geoghegan <pg@bowt.ie>
Author: Andres Freund <andres@andres@anarazel.de>
Reviewed-By: Peter Geoghegan <pg@bowt.ie>
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/20211122175914.ayk6gg6nvdwuhrzb@alap3.anarazel.de
Backpatch: 14-, the oldest branch containing dc7420c2c92

Branch
------
REL_14_STABLE

Details
-------
https://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/dad1539aec28ae3d024b00ae322f02f7fe0c41ee

Modified Files
--------------
src/backend/access/heap/pruneheap.c | 107 +++++++++++++++++++++++++++---------
1 file changed, 82 insertions(+), 25 deletions(-)