[RFC] Shouldn't we remove annoying FATAL messages from server log? - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

Hello,

My customers and colleagues sometimes (or often?) ask about the following 
message:

FATAL:  the database system is starting up

This message is often output dozens of times during a failover or PITR.  The 
users seem to be worried because the message level is FATAL and they don't 
know why such severe message is output in a successful failover and 
recovery.  I can blame the users, because the message is merely a 
sub-product of pg_ctl's internal ping.

Similarly, the below message is output when I stop the standby server 
normally.  Why FATAL as a result of successful operation?  I'm afraid DBAs 
are annoyed by these messages, as system administration software collects 
ERROR and more severe messages for daily monitoring.

FATAL:  terminating walreceiver process due to administrator command

Shouldn't we lower the severity or avoiding those messages to server log? 
How about the following measures?

1. FATAL:  the database system is starting up
2. FATAL:  the database system is shutting down
3. FATAL:  the database system is in recovery mode
4. FATAL:  sorry, too many clients already
Report these as FATAL to the client because the client wants to know the 
reason.  But don't output them to server log because they are not necessary 
for DBAs (4 is subtle.)

5. FATAL:  terminating walreceiver process due to administrator command
6. FATAL:  terminating background worker \"%s\" due to administrator command
Don't output these to server log.  Why are they necessary?  For 
troubleshooting purposes?  If necessary, the severity should be LOG (but I 
wonder why other background processes are not reported...)


To suppress server log output, I think we can do as follows.  I guess 
ereport(FATAL) is still needed for easily handling both client report and 
process termination.

log_min_messages = PANIC;
ereport(FATAL,   (errcode(ERRCODE_CANNOT_CONNECT_NOW),   errmsg("the database system is starting up")));


May I hear your opinions?

Regards
MauMau




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