Re: pg_xlog-files not deleted on a standby after accidental server crash

>
> i am currently encountering a weird problem:
>
> 3 Days ago we had an accidental server crash on one of our database servers (system just restarted).
> After it was up again, i restarted databases (we are running 4 instances of postgres on a 512GB / 64 Processor server). All databases came up fine again.
> Afterwards i restarted the slave postgres instances (running on another physical server) and they could recover correctly and went ahead with receiving WAL via streaming replication. All fine so far.
>
> Then i realized that only on 1 of the 4 slave instances, the WAL-File count under data/pg_xlog was raising and raising, seems like WAL files are not reused / deleted by postgres.
>
> This is weird. Do you see this behavior on master too ?

No - thats the strange thing. I don't have the problem on the master side.
No long running transactions or something like that (we even have a script which cares about these).

> How many files do you see in pg_xlog location at any point-of-time ?

The number is just growing and growing and growing... We let it grow for like 4 days and then we had like 3000 files in pg_xlog on the slave...

> The number-of-files are much bigger than checkpoint_segments configured ??

checkpoint_segments is set to 40...

> Afterwards i tried different things:
> 1. Restarted the slave multiple times without any effect on the xlog behaviour
> 2. Setting up the slave again from a fresh base backup of the master instance
> 3. Checking file permissions, even tried manually deleting a WAL-File under data/pg_xlog (which worked)
>
> Now i'm running out of ideas why these files are not reused/deleted anymore.
> I don't see any errors in the logfiles (not on slave, not on master).
>
> Slave is only showing normal "restartpoint" logs:
>> Mar 24 10:51:10 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [3-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  restartpoint starting: time
>> Mar 24 10:53:42 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [4-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  restartpoint complete: wrote 21264 buffers (0.4%); 0 transaction log file(s) added, 0 removed, 16 recycled; write=149.345 s, sync=2.217 s, total=151.682 s; sync files=1156, longest=0.213 s, average=0.001 s
>> Mar 24 10:53:42 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [5-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  recovery restart point at C3/E9AD3258
>> Mar 24 10:53:42 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [5-2] db=, user=, host= DETAIL:  last completed transaction was at log time 2015-03-24 09:53:42.247769+00
>> Mar 24 10:56:10 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [6-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  restartpoint starting: time
>> Mar 24 10:58:41 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [7-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  restartpoint complete: wrote 6402 buffers (0.1%); 0 transaction log file(s) added, 0 removed, 3 recycled; write=149.516 s, sync=1.101 s, total=150.757 s; sync files=729, longest=0.160 s, average=0.001 s
>> Mar 24 10:58:41 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [8-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  recovery restart point at C3/EDA836D8
>> Mar 24 10:58:41 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [8-2] db=, user=, host= DETAIL:  last completed transaction was at log time 2015-03-24 09:58:40.611415+00
>> Mar 24 11:01:10 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [9-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  restartpoint starting: time
>> Mar 24 11:03:41 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [10-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  restartpoint complete: wrote 11746 buffers (0.2%); 0 transaction log file(s) added, 0 removed, 5 recycled; write=149.652 s, sync=0.936 s, total=150.725 s; sync files=672, longest=0.147 s, average=0.001 s
>> Mar 24 11:03:41 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [11-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  recovery restart point at C3/F046DA18
>> Mar 24 11:03:41 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [11-2] db=, user=, host= DETAIL:  last completed transaction was at log time 2015-03-24 10:03:40.914148+00
>> Mar 24 11:06:10 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [12-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  restartpoint starting: time
>> Mar 24 11:08:41 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [13-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  restartpoint complete: wrote 11155 buffers (0.2%); 0 transaction log file(s) added, 0 removed, 4 recycled; write=149.780 s, sync=1.184 s, total=151.080 s; sync files=758, longest=0.184 s, average=0.001 s
>> Mar 24 11:08:41 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [14-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  recovery restart point at C3/F3C51B40
>> Mar 24 11:08:41 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [14-2] db=, user=, host= DETAIL:  last completed transaction was at log time 2015-03-24 10:08:41.087379+00
>> Mar 24 11:11:10 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [15-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  restartpoint starting: time
>> Mar 24 11:13:41 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [16-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  restartpoint complete: wrote 12602 buffers (0.2%); 0 transaction log file(s) added, 0 removed, 2 recycled; write=149.632 s, sync=1.309 s, total=151.067 s; sync files=728, longest=0.203 s, average=0.001 s
>> Mar 24 11:13:41 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [17-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  recovery restart point at C3/F93AC8F0
>> Mar 24 11:13:41 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [17-2] db=, user=, host= DETAIL:  last completed transaction was at log time 2015-03-24 10:13:41.168975+00
>> Mar 24 11:16:10 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [18-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  restartpoint starting: time
>> Mar 24 11:18:41 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [19-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  restartpoint complete: wrote 10234 buffers (0.2%); 0 transaction log file(s) added, 0 removed, 0 recycled; write=149.411 s, sync=1.175 s, total=150.703 s; sync files=821, longest=0.142 s, average=0.001 s
>> Mar 24 11:18:41 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [20-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  recovery restart point at C3/FDD61320
>> Mar 24 11:18:41 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [20-2] db=, user=, host= DETAIL:  last completed transaction was at log time 2015-03-24 10:18:41.052593+00
>> Mar 24 11:21:10 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [21-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  restartpoint starting: time
>> Mar 24 11:23:40 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [22-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  restartpoint complete: wrote 9105 buffers (0.2%); 0 transaction log file(s) added, 0 removed, 0 recycled; write=149.598 s, sync=0.842 s, total=150.579 s; sync files=687, longest=0.061 s, average=0.001 s
>> Mar 24 11:23:40 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [23-1] db=, user=, host= LOG:  recovery restart point at C4/290A078
>> Mar 24 11:23:40 ct-db1b ct-db1-1[65432]: [23-2] db=, user=, host= DETAIL:  last completed transaction was at log time 2015-03-24 10:23:40.446308+00
> Looking at your logs, it does make sense why the WAL files are not getting deleted. If you observe you logfile - the checkpoint-log-message always says "0 removed and # recycled", this precisely means, files are getting reused and are not getting deleted. I am curious to know how did you get to a conclusion that WAL files are not getting reused.

Because i knew the behaviour from bevore and i see the behaviour from the other instances... Can't be that the number is just growing and growing and growing...

>
> If you are concerned about number of files in pg_xlog, then it must be due to huge checkpoint_segments or long checkpoint_timeout or you may have wal_keep_segments configured (i am completely not sure about this parameter effect on standby).

as i said, checkpoint_segments is 40, checkpoint_timeout is 5 min and wal_keep_segments is set to 32

> Ideally, CHECKPOINT process is responsible for deleting the WAL files from pg_xlog location periodically and it takes in to account WAL_KEEP_SEGMENTS. If you see any big transactions generating huge WAL files, then you must notice the same behavior on master as well.

For now we set the archive_cleanup command on the slave for deleting the xlogs under data/pg_xlog - But it shouldn't be like that - This should happen automatically...

Still out of ideas...


--
Mit freundlichen Grüßen / Kind regards

Paul Dunkler