Thread: [HACKERS] Why does logical replication launcher exit with exit code 1?
Hi, When I shut down a cluster that isn't using logical replication, it always logs a line like the following. So do the build farm members I looked at. I didn't see anything about this in the open items list -- isn't it a bug? 2017-08-02 10:39:25.007 NZST [34781] LOG: worker process: logical replication launcher (PID 34788) exited with exit code 1 -- Thomas Munro http://www.enterprisedb.com
Hi, On 2017-08-02 10:58:32 +1200, Thomas Munro wrote: > When I shut down a cluster that isn't using logical replication, it > always logs a line like the following. So do the build farm members I > looked at. I didn't see anything about this in the open items list -- > isn't it a bug? > > 2017-08-02 10:39:25.007 NZST [34781] LOG: worker process: logical > replication launcher (PID 34788) exited with exit code 1 Exit code 0 signals that a worker should be restarted. Therefore graceful exit can't really use that. I think a) we really need to improve bgworker infrastructure around that b) shows the limit of using bgworkers for this kinda thing - we should probably have a more bgworker like infrastructure for internal workers. - Andres
On 02/08/17 11:03, Andres Freund wrote: > Hi, > > On 2017-08-02 10:58:32 +1200, Thomas Munro wrote: >> When I shut down a cluster that isn't using logical replication, it >> always logs a line like the following. So do the build farm members I >> looked at. I didn't see anything about this in the open items list -- >> isn't it a bug? >> >> 2017-08-02 10:39:25.007 NZST [34781] LOG: worker process: logical >> replication launcher (PID 34788) exited with exit code 1 > Exit code 0 signals that a worker should be restarted. Therefore > graceful exit can't really use that. I think a) we really need to > improve bgworker infrastructure around that b) shows the limit of using > bgworkers for this kinda thing - we should probably have a more bgworker > like infrastructure for internal workers. > > - Andres > > Returning zero to indicate success is a holdover to the time computers could only run one program at a time. At the end of the code there was a jump table of 4 byte entries. The first entry with a displacement of zero was the location to jump to for a normal exit, subsequent entries where for various error conditions. This why often return codes where in positive multiples of 4, since we don't use jump tables now - more & more people are using any integers they want. So apart from convention, returning zero is no longer held to be a sacred to indicate something exited okay. In fact since, zero could simply mean a value was not explicitly assigned, hence it is actually a very dangerous value to be used to indicate success! Cheers, Gavin
On 2017-08-02 11:19:39 +1200, Gavin Flower wrote: > Returning zero to indicate success is a holdover to the time computers could > only run one program at a time. At the end of the code there was a jump > table of 4 byte entries. The first entry with a displacement of zero was > the location to jump to for a normal exit, subsequent entries where for > various error conditions. This why often return codes where in positive > multiples of 4, since we don't use jump tables now - more & more people are > using any integers they want. > > So apart from convention, returning zero is no longer held to be a sacred to > indicate something exited okay. In fact since, zero could simply mean a > value was not explicitly assigned, hence it is actually a very dangerous > value to be used to indicate success! This has nothing to do with this thread. - Andres
On Wed, Aug 2, 2017 at 11:03 AM, Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de> wrote: > On 2017-08-02 10:58:32 +1200, Thomas Munro wrote: >> When I shut down a cluster that isn't using logical replication, it >> always logs a line like the following. So do the build farm members I >> looked at. I didn't see anything about this in the open items list -- >> isn't it a bug? >> >> 2017-08-02 10:39:25.007 NZST [34781] LOG: worker process: logical >> replication launcher (PID 34788) exited with exit code 1 > > Exit code 0 signals that a worker should be restarted. Therefore > graceful exit can't really use that. I think a) we really need to > improve bgworker infrastructure around that b) shows the limit of using > bgworkers for this kinda thing - we should probably have a more bgworker > like infrastructure for internal workers. I see. In the meantime IMHO I think we should try to find a way to avoid printing out this message -- it looks like something is wrong to the uninitiated. Possibly stupid question: why do we restart workers when we know we're shutting down anyway? Hmm, I suppose there might conceivably be workers that need to do something during shutdown and they might not have done it yet. -- Thomas Munro http://www.enterprisedb.com
On 2017-08-02 12:14:18 +1200, Thomas Munro wrote: > On Wed, Aug 2, 2017 at 11:03 AM, Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de> wrote: > > On 2017-08-02 10:58:32 +1200, Thomas Munro wrote: > >> When I shut down a cluster that isn't using logical replication, it > >> always logs a line like the following. So do the build farm members I > >> looked at. I didn't see anything about this in the open items list -- > >> isn't it a bug? > >> > >> 2017-08-02 10:39:25.007 NZST [34781] LOG: worker process: logical > >> replication launcher (PID 34788) exited with exit code 1 > > > > Exit code 0 signals that a worker should be restarted. Therefore > > graceful exit can't really use that. I think a) we really need to > > improve bgworker infrastructure around that b) shows the limit of using > > bgworkers for this kinda thing - we should probably have a more bgworker > > like infrastructure for internal workers. > > I see. In the meantime IMHO I think we should try to find a way to > avoid printing out this message -- it looks like something is wrong to > the uninitiated. Well, that's how it is for all bgworkers - maybe a better solution is to adjust that message in the postmaster rather than fiddle with the worker exist code? Seems like we could easily take pmStatus into account inside LogChildExit() and set the log level to DEBUG1 even for EXIT_STATUS_1 in that case? Additionally we probably should always log a better message for bgworkers exiting with exit 1, something about unregistering the worker or such. > Possibly stupid question: why do we restart workers when we know we're > shutting down anyway? Hmm, I suppose there might conceivably be > workers that need to do something during shutdown and they might not > have done it yet. The launcher doesn't really know the reason for the shutdown. - Andres
On Tue, Aug 1, 2017 at 7:03 PM, Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de> wrote: > On 2017-08-02 10:58:32 +1200, Thomas Munro wrote: >> When I shut down a cluster that isn't using logical replication, it >> always logs a line like the following. So do the build farm members I >> looked at. I didn't see anything about this in the open items list -- >> isn't it a bug? >> >> 2017-08-02 10:39:25.007 NZST [34781] LOG: worker process: logical >> replication launcher (PID 34788) exited with exit code 1 > > Exit code 0 signals that a worker should be restarted. Therefore > graceful exit can't really use that. I think a) we really need to > improve bgworker infrastructure around that b) shows the limit of using > bgworkers for this kinda thing - we should probably have a more bgworker > like infrastructure for internal workers. You might've missed commit be7558162acc5578d0b2cf0c8d4c76b6076ce352. -- Robert Haas EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
On 2017-08-01 20:37:07 -0400, Robert Haas wrote: > On Tue, Aug 1, 2017 at 7:03 PM, Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de> wrote: > > On 2017-08-02 10:58:32 +1200, Thomas Munro wrote: > >> When I shut down a cluster that isn't using logical replication, it > >> always logs a line like the following. So do the build farm members I > >> looked at. I didn't see anything about this in the open items list -- > >> isn't it a bug? > >> > >> 2017-08-02 10:39:25.007 NZST [34781] LOG: worker process: logical > >> replication launcher (PID 34788) exited with exit code 1 > > > > Exit code 0 signals that a worker should be restarted. Therefore > > graceful exit can't really use that. I think a) we really need to > > improve bgworker infrastructure around that b) shows the limit of using > > bgworkers for this kinda thing - we should probably have a more bgworker > > like infrastructure for internal workers. > > You might've missed commit be7558162acc5578d0b2cf0c8d4c76b6076ce352. Not really, just thinko-ing it. We don't want to unregister, so we can't return 0, IOW, I just * -1'd my comment ;) We intentionally return 1, so we *do* get restarted: else if (IsLogicalLauncher()) { ereport(DEBUG1, (errmsg("logical replication launcher shutting down"))); /* * The logical replication launcher can be stopped at any time. * Use exit status 1 so the backgroundworker is restarted. */ proc_exit(1); } - Andres
Re: [HACKERS] Why does logical replication launcher exit with exitcode 1?
From
Peter Eisentraut
Date:
On 8/1/17 20:20, Andres Freund wrote: > Well, that's how it is for all bgworkers - maybe a better solution is to > adjust that message in the postmaster rather than fiddle with the worker > exist code? Seems like we could easily take pmStatus into account > inside LogChildExit() and set the log level to DEBUG1 even for > EXIT_STATUS_1 in that case? Additionally we probably should always log > a better message for bgworkers exiting with exit 1, something about > unregistering the worker or such. Maybe it doesn't need to be logged at all (other than perhaps as DEBUG)?A few months ago, people were complaining about toomany messages about background workers starting. Now we are having complaints about messages about background workers stopping. -- Peter Eisentraut http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/ PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services
On Wed, Aug 2, 2017 at 4:38 PM, Peter Eisentraut <peter.eisentraut@2ndquadrant.com> wrote: > Maybe it doesn't need to be logged at all (other than perhaps as DEBUG)? > A few months ago, people were complaining about too many messages about > background workers starting. Now we are having complaints about > messages about background workers stopping. I actually don't think it's that unreasonable to get notified when system-wide processes like the autovacuum launcher or the logical replication launcher start or stop. That's stuff somebody might want to know. It's not going to generate a lot of log volume, and it might be useful, so why suppress it? Where things get ugly is if you start to get a high rate of messages - e.g. from starting and stopping parallel query workers or other kinds of things where you might have workers starting and stopping very frequently. But surely this isn't an example of that. -- Robert Haas EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
On 2017-08-02 16:52:01 -0400, Robert Haas wrote: > On Wed, Aug 2, 2017 at 4:38 PM, Peter Eisentraut > <peter.eisentraut@2ndquadrant.com> wrote: > > Maybe it doesn't need to be logged at all (other than perhaps as DEBUG)? > > A few months ago, people were complaining about too many messages about > > background workers starting. Now we are having complaints about > > messages about background workers stopping. > > I actually don't think it's that unreasonable to get notified when > system-wide processes like the autovacuum launcher or the logical > replication launcher start or stop. That's stuff somebody might want > to know. It's not going to generate a lot of log volume, and it might > be useful, so why suppress it? > > Where things get ugly is if you start to get a high rate of messages - > e.g. from starting and stopping parallel query workers or other kinds > of things where you might have workers starting and stopping very > frequently. But surely this isn't an example of that. I generally agree. But in the shutdown case it's just useless and confusing - the launcher is stopping because the entire server is being stopped, and that's very much not clear from the message. - Andres
Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de> writes: > On 2017-08-02 16:52:01 -0400, Robert Haas wrote: >> I actually don't think it's that unreasonable to get notified when >> system-wide processes like the autovacuum launcher or the logical >> replication launcher start or stop. That's stuff somebody might want >> to know. It's not going to generate a lot of log volume, and it might >> be useful, so why suppress it? > I generally agree. But in the shutdown case it's just useless and > confusing - the launcher is stopping because the entire server is being > stopped, and that's very much not clear from the message. Yes. The main complaint here is not about the existence of the message but about the fact that it looks like it's reporting a failure. I would vote for removing it if it's not simple to fix that problem. Even if we fix that, though, I think it is reasonable to downgrade it to DEBUG1. We did that already for other standard background processes such as the autovac launcher, and it's not apparent to me why the logrep launcher should be chattier. Now, *unexpected* starts or stops should certainly deserve a higher log rating ... but the general rule ought to be that totally-expected behavior does not deserve a log entry by default. regards, tom lane
On 2017-08-02 17:09:10 -0400, Tom Lane wrote: > Even if we fix that, though, I think it is reasonable to downgrade it to > DEBUG1. We did that already for other standard background processes such > as the autovac launcher, and it's not apparent to me why the logrep > launcher should be chattier. Now, *unexpected* starts or stops should > certainly deserve a higher log rating ... but the general rule ought to be > that totally-expected behavior does not deserve a log entry by default. Well, every exit *other* than during a shutdown is unexpected. That's why I suggested changing the log level for exit code 1 depending on the cluster being shut down or not. - Andres
Re: [HACKERS] Why does logical replication launcher exit with exitcode 1?
From
Peter Eisentraut
Date:
On 8/2/17 16:52, Robert Haas wrote: > I actually don't think it's that unreasonable to get notified when > system-wide processes like the autovacuum launcher or the logical > replication launcher start or stop. But we got rid of those start messages recently due to complaints. -- Peter Eisentraut http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/ PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Remote DBA, Training & Services
On Wed, Aug 2, 2017 at 9:33 PM, Peter Eisentraut <peter.eisentraut@2ndquadrant.com> wrote: > On 8/2/17 16:52, Robert Haas wrote: >> I actually don't think it's that unreasonable to get notified when >> system-wide processes like the autovacuum launcher or the logical >> replication launcher start or stop. > > But we got rid of those start messages recently due to complaints. Yeah, true. I'm just talking about what *I* think. :-) -- Robert Haas EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
On Thu, Aug 3, 2017 at 1:41 PM Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> wrote: > On Wed, Aug 2, 2017 at 9:33 PM, Peter Eisentraut > <peter.eisentraut@2ndquadrant.com> wrote: > > On 8/2/17 16:52, Robert Haas wrote: > >> I actually don't think it's that unreasonable to get notified when > >> system-wide processes like the autovacuum launcher or the logical > >> replication launcher start or stop. > > > > But we got rid of those start messages recently due to complaints. > > Yeah, true. I'm just talking about what *I* think. :-) I still think the current situation is non-ideal. I don't have a strong view on whether some or all system-wide processes should say hello and goodbye explicitly in the log, but I do think we need a way to make that not look like an error condition, and ideally without special cases for known built-in processes. I looked into this a bit today, while debugging an extension that runs a background worker. Here are some assorted approaches to shutdown: 0. The default SIGTERM handler for bgworkers is bgworker_die(), which generates a FATAL ereport "terminating background worker \"%s\" due to administrator command", directly in the signal handler (hmm, see also recent discussions about the legality of similar code in quickdie()). 1. Some processes install their own custom SIGTERM handler that sets a flag, and use that to break out of their main loop and exit quietly. Example: autovacuum.c, or the open-source pg_cron extension, and probably many other things that just want a nice quiet shutdown. 2. Some processes install the standard SIGTERM handler die(), and then use CHECK_FOR_INTERRUPTS() to break out of their main loop. By default this looks like "FATAL: terminating connection due to administrator command". This approach is effectively required if the main loop will reach other code that has a CHECK_FOR_INTERRUPTS() wait loop. For example, a "launcher"-type process that calls WaitForBackgroundWorkerStartup() could hang forever if it used approach 1 (ask me how I know). 3. Some system processes generally use approach 2, but have a special case in ProcessInterrupts() to suppress or alter the usual FATAL message or behaviour. This includes the logical replication launcher. A couple of thoughts: * Extensions that need to use die() (or something else that would be compatible with CFI() wait loops) should ideally have a way to control how ProcessInterrupts() reports this to the user, since shutdown is an expected condition for long-lived processes. * We really should get rid of that "exited with exit code 1". -- Thomas Munro http://www.enterprisedb.com
Fwd: background worker shudown (was Re: [HACKERS] Why does logicalreplication launcher exit with exit code 1?)
From
Robert Haas
Date:
On Thu, Oct 4, 2018 at 7:37 PM Thomas Munro <thomas.munro@enterprisedb.com> wrote: > I still think the current situation is non-ideal. I don't have a > strong view on whether some or all system-wide processes should say > hello and goodbye explicitly in the log, but I do think we need a way > to make that not look like an error condition, and ideally without > special cases for known built-in processes. > > I looked into this a bit today, while debugging an extension that runs > a background worker. Here are some assorted approaches to shutdown: > > 0. The default SIGTERM handler for bgworkers is bgworker_die(), which > generates a FATAL ereport "terminating background worker \"%s\" due to > administrator command", directly in the signal handler (hmm, see also > recent discussions about the legality of similar code in quickdie()). Yeah, I think that code is bad news, for the same reasons discussed with regard to quickdie(). > 1. Some processes install their own custom SIGTERM handler that sets > a flag, and use that to break out of their main loop and exit quietly. > Example: autovacuum.c, or the open-source pg_cron extension, and > probably many other things that just want a nice quiet shutdown. > > 2. Some processes install the standard SIGTERM handler die(), and > then use CHECK_FOR_INTERRUPTS() to break out of their main loop. By > default this looks like "FATAL: terminating connection due to > administrator command". This approach is effectively required if the > main loop will reach other code that has a CHECK_FOR_INTERRUPTS() wait > loop. For example, a "launcher"-type process that calls > WaitForBackgroundWorkerStartup() could hang forever if it used > approach 1 (ask me how I know). My experience with background workers has been that approach #1 does not really work. I mean, if you aren't doing anything complicated it might be OK, if for example you are executing SQL queries, and you try to do #1, then your SQL queries don't respond to interrupts. And that sucks. So I have generally adopted approach #2. To put that another way, nearly everything can reach CHECK_FOR_INTERRUPTS(), so saying that this is required whenever that in the case isn't much different from saying that it is required, full stop. > 3. Some system processes generally use approach 2, but have a special > case in ProcessInterrupts() to suppress or alter the usual FATAL > message or behaviour. This includes the logical replication launcher. Maybe we could replace this by a general-purpose hook. So instead of the various tests for process types that are there now, we would just have if (procdie_hook != NULL) (*procdie_hook)(); And that hook can do whatever you like (but probably including dying). -- Robert Haas EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company
On Fri, Oct 5, 2018 at 12:36 PM Thomas Munro <thomas.munro@enterprisedb.com> wrote: > * We really should get rid of that "exited with exit code 1". Robert and I just discussed this subproblem (the original complaint of this thread) off-list. Our questions are: does anyone actually want that message from the postmaster in the log, and if not, shouldn't we just do this? diff --git a/src/backend/postmaster/postmaster.c b/src/backend/postmaster/postmaster.c index 41de140ae0..b34655b4bd 100644 --- a/src/backend/postmaster/postmaster.c +++ b/src/backend/postmaster/postmaster.c @@ -3193,8 +3193,7 @@ CleanupBackgroundWorker(int pid, rw->rw_child_slot = 0; ReportBackgroundWorkerExit(&iter); /* report child death */ - LogChildExit(EXIT_STATUS_0(exitstatus) ? DEBUG1 : LOG, - namebuf, pid, exitstatus); + LogChildExit(DEBUG1, namebuf, pid, exitstatus); return true; } As for the problem of the behaviour of bgworker processes themselves on SIGTERM, let's discuss that separately in the other subthread[1] (well, my mail client thinks it's a different thread, but the archives think it's the same thread with a different subject). [1] https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/CA%2BTgmobwExL4kNj_eXJxPah_tVQ31N0cYDbUN0FFm6uaY_%2BX%3Dw%40mail.gmail.com -- Thomas Munro http://www.enterprisedb.com
Re: background worker shudown (was Re: [HACKERS] Why does logicalreplication launcher exit with exit code 1?)
From
Thomas Munro
Date:
On Wed, Oct 10, 2018 at 7:29 AM Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> wrote: > On Thu, Oct 4, 2018 at 7:37 PM Thomas Munro > <thomas.munro@enterprisedb.com> wrote: > > 0. The default SIGTERM handler for bgworkers is bgworker_die(), which > > generates a FATAL ereport "terminating background worker \"%s\" due to > > administrator command", directly in the signal handler (hmm, see also > > recent discussions about the legality of similar code in quickdie()). > > Yeah, I think that code is bad news, for the same reasons discussed > with regard to quickdie(). So I suppose we should just remove it, with something like 0002. I'm a bit uneasy about existing code out there that might be not calling CFI. OTOH I suspect that a lot of code copied worker_spi.c and installed its own handler. > > 1. Some processes install their own custom SIGTERM handler that sets > > a flag, and use that to break out of their main loop and exit quietly. > > Example: autovacuum.c, or the open-source pg_cron extension, and > > probably many other things that just want a nice quiet shutdown. > > > > 2. Some processes install the standard SIGTERM handler die(), and > > then use CHECK_FOR_INTERRUPTS() to break out of their main loop. By > > default this looks like "FATAL: terminating connection due to > > administrator command". This approach is effectively required if the > > main loop will reach other code that has a CHECK_FOR_INTERRUPTS() wait > > loop. For example, a "launcher"-type process that calls > > WaitForBackgroundWorkerStartup() could hang forever if it used > > approach 1 (ask me how I know). > > My experience with background workers has been that approach #1 does > not really work. I mean, if you aren't doing anything complicated it > might be OK, if for example you are executing SQL queries, and you try > to do #1, then your SQL queries don't respond to interrupts. And that > sucks. So I have generally adopted approach #2. Maybe src/test/modules/worker_spi.c shouldn't use approach #1 (even if it might technically be OK for that code)? I think I might have been guilty of copying that. > To put that another way, nearly everything can reach > CHECK_FOR_INTERRUPTS(), so saying that this is required whenever that > in the case isn't much different from saying that it is required, full > stop. > > 3. Some system processes generally use approach 2, but have a special > > case in ProcessInterrupts() to suppress or alter the usual FATAL > > message or behaviour. This includes the logical replication launcher. > > Maybe we could replace this by a general-purpose hook. So instead of > the various tests for process types that are there now, we would just > have > > if (procdie_hook != NULL) > (*procdie_hook)(); > > And that hook can do whatever you like (but probably including dying). Ok, patch 0001 is a sketch like that, for discussion. -- Thomas Munro http://www.enterprisedb.com
Attachment
Re: background worker shudown (was Re: [HACKERS] Why does logicalreplication launcher exit with exit code 1?)
From
Robert Haas
Date:
On Wed, Oct 10, 2018 at 12:00 AM Thomas Munro <thomas.munro@enterprisedb.com> wrote: > So I suppose we should just remove it, with something like 0002. I'm > a bit uneasy about existing code out there that might be not calling > CFI. OTOH I suspect that a lot of code copied worker_spi.c and > installed its own handler. I agree -- I think worker_spi.c has probably been copied a lot, and that's not a good thing. > Maybe src/test/modules/worker_spi.c shouldn't use approach #1 (even if > it might technically be OK for that code)? I think I might have been > guilty of copying that. +1. It's not *really* OK unless all of the SQL queries it executes are super-short and can't possibly block ... which I guess is never really true of any SQL queries, right? > > Maybe we could replace this by a general-purpose hook. So instead of > > the various tests for process types that are there now, we would just > > have > > > > if (procdie_hook != NULL) > > (*procdie_hook)(); > > > > And that hook can do whatever you like (but probably including dying). > > Ok, patch 0001 is a sketch like that, for discussion. I was assuming that we'd replace the existing message-selection logic with customer proc-die handlers. Also, I think we should not indicate in the comments that the handler is expected to proc_exit() or ereport(FATAL), because you might want to do something else there, then return and let the usual thing happen. -- Robert Haas EnterpriseDB: http://www.enterprisedb.com The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company