Thread: Problem with SSL - Server went 100% Busy

Problem with SSL - Server went 100% Busy

From
"Alex Shepherd"
Date:
Hi,

This is my first PostgreSQL post so hopefully I've chosen the right list for
my problem. I've relatively new to PostgreSQL but have had quite a bit of
admin experience with Informix 7/9 over the years.

I have PostgreSQL 8.0 installed on a Windows2003 server (SP1) and configured
to use SSL on the server and Client Certificates. The clients are written in
Delphi5 using the PostgresDAC component.

All this seems to usually work fine. However, last night the server started
to run at 100% CPU as or just after I restarted an app and went home. Later
I checked the server from home and was unable to connect properly as it
would just sit there without a timeout, but not connect properly either.

I then connect to the server using Remote Desktop and found 2 postmaster.exe
processes consuming 100% of the CPU. I tried to shutdown the service but not
all the postmaster.exe processes went away. Finally I tried to restart the
system but it took about 1-2 hours before that completed.

During this time about 1000 10M log files were created, and they all
contained the following line, over and over:

2005-05-10 18:13:31 LOG:  SSL SYSCALL error: A blocking operation was
interrupted by a call to WSACancelBlockingCall.

The line before the first occurrence was:

2005-05-10 17:57:27 ERROR:  value too long for type character varying(20)
2005-05-10 17:59:55 ERROR:  value too long for type character varying(20)

Which seems unrelated.

After the server rebooted, it all started to work as normal.

I have downloaded the 8.0.2 release. Should I upgrade the server to 8.0.2
first and see if the problem reoccurs or wait for wait in case one of the
developers wants to know more about the system as is?

Given that this is an SSL related issue, should I upgrade the OpenSSL
installation on this system or must I only use known PostgreSQL Server
versions with particular OpenSSL versions?

Cheers

Alex Shepherd

Phone: (Mobile) +64 (21) 777764
Phone: (Home)   +64 (7) 854 0819
Email:  alex@ajsystems.co.nz