Re: avoid multiple hard links to same WAL file after a crash

On Fri, Apr 08, 2022 at 10:38:03AM -0400, Robert Haas wrote:
> I'd actually be in favor of nuking durable_rename_excl() from orbit
> and putting the file-exists tests in the callers. Otherwise, someone
> might assume that it actually has the semantics that its name
> suggests, which could be pretty disastrous. If we don't want to do
> that, then I'd changing to do the stat-then-durable-rename thing
> internally, so we don't leave hard links lying around in *any* code
> path. Perhaps that's the right answer for the back-branches in any
> case, since there could be third-party code calling this function.

I've attached a patch that simply removes durable_rename_excl() and
replaces existing calls with durable_rename().  I noticed that Andres
expressed similar misgivings about durable_rename_excl() last year [0] [1].
I can create a stat-then-durable-rename version of this for back-patching
if that is still the route we want to go.

[0] https://postgr.es/me/20210318014812.ds2iz4jz5h7la6un%40alap3.anarazel.de
[1] https://postgr.es/m/20210318023004.gz2aejhze2kkkqr2%40alap3.anarazel.de

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Nathan Bossart
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