Fix bug in nbtree VACUUM "skip full scan" feature.
Commit 857f9c36cda (which taught nbtree VACUUM to skip a scan of the
index from btcleanup in situations where it doesn't seem worth it) made
VACUUM maintain the oldest btpo.xact among all deleted pages for the
index as a whole. It failed to handle all the details surrounding pages
that are deleted by the current VACUUM operation correctly (though pages
deleted by some previous VACUUM operation were processed correctly).
The most immediate problem was that the special area of the page was
examined without a buffer pin at one point. More fundamentally, the
handling failed to account for the full range of _bt_pagedel()
behaviors. For example, _bt_pagedel() sometimes deletes internal pages
in passing, as part of deleting an entire subtree with btvacuumpage()
caller's page as the leaf level page. The original leaf page passed to
_bt_pagedel() might not be the page that it deletes first in cases where
deletion can take place.
It's unclear how disruptive this bug may have been, or what symptoms
users might want to look out for. The issue was spotted during
unrelated code review.
To fix, push down the logic for maintaining the oldest btpo.xact to
_bt_pagedel(). btvacuumpage() is now responsible for pages that were
fully deleted by a previous VACUUM operation, while _bt_pagedel() is now
responsible for pages that were deleted by the current VACUUM operation
(this includes half-dead pages from a previous interrupted VACUUM
operation that become fully deleted in _bt_pagedel()). Note that
_bt_pagedel() should never encounter an existing deleted page.
This commit theoretically breaks the ABI of a stable release by changing
the signature of _bt_pagedel(). However, if any third party extension
is actually affected by this, then it must already be completely broken
(since there are numerous assumptions made in _bt_pagedel() that cannot
be met outside of VACUUM). It seems highly unlikely that such an
extension actually exists, in any case.
Author: Peter Geoghegan
Reviewed-By: Masahiko Sawada
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CAH2-WzkrXBcMQWAYUJMFTTvzx_r4q=pYSjDe07JnUXhe+OZnJA@mail.gmail.com
Backpatch: 11-, where the "skip full scan" feature was introduced.
Branch
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REL_11_STABLE
Details
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https://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/e4fa6c929554cf6b4087e746e7b40c2007217584
Modified Files
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src/backend/access/nbtree/nbtpage.c | 129 ++++++++++++++++++++++++++----------
src/backend/access/nbtree/nbtree.c | 100 +++++++++++++++-------------
src/include/access/nbtree.h | 3 +-
3 files changed, 149 insertions(+), 83 deletions(-)