pg.ddx.io  pgsql-committers@postgresql.org mailing list archive  
help / color / mirror / Atom feed
pgsql: Fail recovery when missing redo checkpoint record without backup
6+ messages / 1 participants
[nested] [flat]

* pgsql: Fail recovery when missing redo checkpoint record without backup
@ 2025-12-16 04:31 Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread

From: Michael Paquier @ 2025-12-16 04:31 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: pgsql-committers@lists.postgresql.org

Fail recovery when missing redo checkpoint record without backup_label

This commit adds an extra check at the beginning of recovery to ensure
that the redo record of a checkpoint exists before attempting WAL
replay, logging a PANIC if the redo record referenced by the checkpoint
record could not be found.  This is the same level of failure as when a
checkpoint record is missing.  This check is added when a cluster is
started without a backup_label, after retrieving its checkpoint record.
The redo LSN used for the check is retrieved from the checkpoint record
successfully read.

In the case where a backup_label exists, the startup process already
fails if the redo record cannot be found after reading a checkpoint
record at the beginning of recovery.

Previously, the presence of the redo record was not checked.  If the
redo and checkpoint records were located on different WAL segments, it
would be possible to miss a entire range of WAL records that should have
been replayed but were just ignored.  The consequences of missing the
redo record depend on the version dealt with, these becoming worse the
older the version used:
- On HEAD, v18 and v17, recovery fails with a pointer dereference at the
beginning of the redo loop, as the redo record is expected but cannot be
found.  These versions are good students, because we detect a failure
before doing anything, even if the failure is misleading in the shape of
a segmentation fault, giving no information that the redo record is
missing.
- In v16 and v15, problems show at the end of recovery within
FinishWalRecovery(), the startup process using a buggy LSN to decide
from where to start writing WAL.  The cluster gets corrupted, still it
is noisy about it.
- v14 and older versions are worse: a cluster gets corrupted but it is
entirely silent about the matter.  The redo record missing causes the
startup process to skip entirely recovery, because a missing record is
the same as not redo being required at all.  This leads to data loss, as
everything is missed between the redo record and the checkpoint record.

Note that I have tested that down to 9.4, reproducing the issue with a
version of the author's reproducer slightly modified.  The code is wrong
since at least 9.2, but I did not look at the exact point of origin.

This problem has been found by debugging a cluster where the WAL segment
including the redo segment was missing due to an operator error, leading
to a crash, based on an investigation in v15.

Requesting archive recovery with the creation of a recovery.signal or
a standby.signal even without a backup_label would mitigate the issue:
if the record cannot be found in pg_wal/, the missing segment can be
retrieved with a restore_command when checking that the redo record
exists.  This was already the case without this commit, where recovery
would re-fetch the WAL segment that includes the redo record.  The check
introduced by this commit makes the segment to be retrieved earlier to
make sure that the redo record can be found.

On HEAD, the code will be slightly changed in a follow-up commit to not
rely on a PANIC, to include a test able to emulate the original problem.
This is a minimal backpatchable fix, kept separated for clarity.

Reported-by: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Analyzed-by: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Author: Nitin Jadhav <nitinjadhavpostgres@gmail.com>
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/20231023232145.cmqe73stvivsmlhs@awork3.anarazel.de
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CAMm1aWaaJi2w49c0RiaDBfhdCL6ztbr9m=daGqiOuVdizYWYaA@mail.gmail.com
Backpatch-through: 14

Branch
------
master

Details
-------
https://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/dc7c77f825d778cd49d35544c21e7efe1cd240af

Modified Files
--------------
src/backend/access/transam/xlogrecovery.c | 10 ++++++++++
1 file changed, 10 insertions(+)



^ permalink  raw  reply  [nested|flat] 6+ messages in thread

* pgsql: Fail recovery when missing redo checkpoint record without backup
@ 2025-12-16 04:31 Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread

From: Michael Paquier @ 2025-12-16 04:31 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: pgsql-committers@lists.postgresql.org

Fail recovery when missing redo checkpoint record without backup_label

This commit adds an extra check at the beginning of recovery to ensure
that the redo record of a checkpoint exists before attempting WAL
replay, logging a PANIC if the redo record referenced by the checkpoint
record could not be found.  This is the same level of failure as when a
checkpoint record is missing.  This check is added when a cluster is
started without a backup_label, after retrieving its checkpoint record.
The redo LSN used for the check is retrieved from the checkpoint record
successfully read.

In the case where a backup_label exists, the startup process already
fails if the redo record cannot be found after reading a checkpoint
record at the beginning of recovery.

Previously, the presence of the redo record was not checked.  If the
redo and checkpoint records were located on different WAL segments, it
would be possible to miss a entire range of WAL records that should have
been replayed but were just ignored.  The consequences of missing the
redo record depend on the version dealt with, these becoming worse the
older the version used:
- On HEAD, v18 and v17, recovery fails with a pointer dereference at the
beginning of the redo loop, as the redo record is expected but cannot be
found.  These versions are good students, because we detect a failure
before doing anything, even if the failure is misleading in the shape of
a segmentation fault, giving no information that the redo record is
missing.
- In v16 and v15, problems show at the end of recovery within
FinishWalRecovery(), the startup process using a buggy LSN to decide
from where to start writing WAL.  The cluster gets corrupted, still it
is noisy about it.
- v14 and older versions are worse: a cluster gets corrupted but it is
entirely silent about the matter.  The redo record missing causes the
startup process to skip entirely recovery, because a missing record is
the same as not redo being required at all.  This leads to data loss, as
everything is missed between the redo record and the checkpoint record.

Note that I have tested that down to 9.4, reproducing the issue with a
version of the author's reproducer slightly modified.  The code is wrong
since at least 9.2, but I did not look at the exact point of origin.

This problem has been found by debugging a cluster where the WAL segment
including the redo segment was missing due to an operator error, leading
to a crash, based on an investigation in v15.

Requesting archive recovery with the creation of a recovery.signal or
a standby.signal even without a backup_label would mitigate the issue:
if the record cannot be found in pg_wal/, the missing segment can be
retrieved with a restore_command when checking that the redo record
exists.  This was already the case without this commit, where recovery
would re-fetch the WAL segment that includes the redo record.  The check
introduced by this commit makes the segment to be retrieved earlier to
make sure that the redo record can be found.

On HEAD, the code will be slightly changed in a follow-up commit to not
rely on a PANIC, to include a test able to emulate the original problem.
This is a minimal backpatchable fix, kept separated for clarity.

Reported-by: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Analyzed-by: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Author: Nitin Jadhav <nitinjadhavpostgres@gmail.com>
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/20231023232145.cmqe73stvivsmlhs@awork3.anarazel.de
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CAMm1aWaaJi2w49c0RiaDBfhdCL6ztbr9m=daGqiOuVdizYWYaA@mail.gmail.com
Backpatch-through: 14

Branch
------
REL_18_STABLE

Details
-------
https://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/68ebdf2b07f6fb2d83f6e6440310fdb4b7377bb3

Modified Files
--------------
src/backend/access/transam/xlogrecovery.c | 10 ++++++++++
1 file changed, 10 insertions(+)



^ permalink  raw  reply  [nested|flat] 6+ messages in thread

* pgsql: Fail recovery when missing redo checkpoint record without backup
@ 2025-12-16 04:31 Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread

From: Michael Paquier @ 2025-12-16 04:31 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: pgsql-committers@lists.postgresql.org

Fail recovery when missing redo checkpoint record without backup_label

This commit adds an extra check at the beginning of recovery to ensure
that the redo record of a checkpoint exists before attempting WAL
replay, logging a PANIC if the redo record referenced by the checkpoint
record could not be found.  This is the same level of failure as when a
checkpoint record is missing.  This check is added when a cluster is
started without a backup_label, after retrieving its checkpoint record.
The redo LSN used for the check is retrieved from the checkpoint record
successfully read.

In the case where a backup_label exists, the startup process already
fails if the redo record cannot be found after reading a checkpoint
record at the beginning of recovery.

Previously, the presence of the redo record was not checked.  If the
redo and checkpoint records were located on different WAL segments, it
would be possible to miss a entire range of WAL records that should have
been replayed but were just ignored.  The consequences of missing the
redo record depend on the version dealt with, these becoming worse the
older the version used:
- On HEAD, v18 and v17, recovery fails with a pointer dereference at the
beginning of the redo loop, as the redo record is expected but cannot be
found.  These versions are good students, because we detect a failure
before doing anything, even if the failure is misleading in the shape of
a segmentation fault, giving no information that the redo record is
missing.
- In v16 and v15, problems show at the end of recovery within
FinishWalRecovery(), the startup process using a buggy LSN to decide
from where to start writing WAL.  The cluster gets corrupted, still it
is noisy about it.
- v14 and older versions are worse: a cluster gets corrupted but it is
entirely silent about the matter.  The redo record missing causes the
startup process to skip entirely recovery, because a missing record is
the same as not redo being required at all.  This leads to data loss, as
everything is missed between the redo record and the checkpoint record.

Note that I have tested that down to 9.4, reproducing the issue with a
version of the author's reproducer slightly modified.  The code is wrong
since at least 9.2, but I did not look at the exact point of origin.

This problem has been found by debugging a cluster where the WAL segment
including the redo segment was missing due to an operator error, leading
to a crash, based on an investigation in v15.

Requesting archive recovery with the creation of a recovery.signal or
a standby.signal even without a backup_label would mitigate the issue:
if the record cannot be found in pg_wal/, the missing segment can be
retrieved with a restore_command when checking that the redo record
exists.  This was already the case without this commit, where recovery
would re-fetch the WAL segment that includes the redo record.  The check
introduced by this commit makes the segment to be retrieved earlier to
make sure that the redo record can be found.

On HEAD, the code will be slightly changed in a follow-up commit to not
rely on a PANIC, to include a test able to emulate the original problem.
This is a minimal backpatchable fix, kept separated for clarity.

Reported-by: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Analyzed-by: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Author: Nitin Jadhav <nitinjadhavpostgres@gmail.com>
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/20231023232145.cmqe73stvivsmlhs@awork3.anarazel.de
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CAMm1aWaaJi2w49c0RiaDBfhdCL6ztbr9m=daGqiOuVdizYWYaA@mail.gmail.com
Backpatch-through: 14

Branch
------
REL_17_STABLE

Details
-------
https://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/f5927da4ff6c4447109cd00e584a5f29fcc62625

Modified Files
--------------
src/backend/access/transam/xlogrecovery.c | 10 ++++++++++
1 file changed, 10 insertions(+)



^ permalink  raw  reply  [nested|flat] 6+ messages in thread

* pgsql: Fail recovery when missing redo checkpoint record without backup
@ 2025-12-16 04:31 Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread

From: Michael Paquier @ 2025-12-16 04:31 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: pgsql-committers@lists.postgresql.org

Fail recovery when missing redo checkpoint record without backup_label

This commit adds an extra check at the beginning of recovery to ensure
that the redo record of a checkpoint exists before attempting WAL
replay, logging a PANIC if the redo record referenced by the checkpoint
record could not be found.  This is the same level of failure as when a
checkpoint record is missing.  This check is added when a cluster is
started without a backup_label, after retrieving its checkpoint record.
The redo LSN used for the check is retrieved from the checkpoint record
successfully read.

In the case where a backup_label exists, the startup process already
fails if the redo record cannot be found after reading a checkpoint
record at the beginning of recovery.

Previously, the presence of the redo record was not checked.  If the
redo and checkpoint records were located on different WAL segments, it
would be possible to miss a entire range of WAL records that should have
been replayed but were just ignored.  The consequences of missing the
redo record depend on the version dealt with, these becoming worse the
older the version used:
- On HEAD, v18 and v17, recovery fails with a pointer dereference at the
beginning of the redo loop, as the redo record is expected but cannot be
found.  These versions are good students, because we detect a failure
before doing anything, even if the failure is misleading in the shape of
a segmentation fault, giving no information that the redo record is
missing.
- In v16 and v15, problems show at the end of recovery within
FinishWalRecovery(), the startup process using a buggy LSN to decide
from where to start writing WAL.  The cluster gets corrupted, still it
is noisy about it.
- v14 and older versions are worse: a cluster gets corrupted but it is
entirely silent about the matter.  The redo record missing causes the
startup process to skip entirely recovery, because a missing record is
the same as not redo being required at all.  This leads to data loss, as
everything is missed between the redo record and the checkpoint record.

Note that I have tested that down to 9.4, reproducing the issue with a
version of the author's reproducer slightly modified.  The code is wrong
since at least 9.2, but I did not look at the exact point of origin.

This problem has been found by debugging a cluster where the WAL segment
including the redo segment was missing due to an operator error, leading
to a crash, based on an investigation in v15.

Requesting archive recovery with the creation of a recovery.signal or
a standby.signal even without a backup_label would mitigate the issue:
if the record cannot be found in pg_wal/, the missing segment can be
retrieved with a restore_command when checking that the redo record
exists.  This was already the case without this commit, where recovery
would re-fetch the WAL segment that includes the redo record.  The check
introduced by this commit makes the segment to be retrieved earlier to
make sure that the redo record can be found.

On HEAD, the code will be slightly changed in a follow-up commit to not
rely on a PANIC, to include a test able to emulate the original problem.
This is a minimal backpatchable fix, kept separated for clarity.

Reported-by: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Analyzed-by: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Author: Nitin Jadhav <nitinjadhavpostgres@gmail.com>
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/20231023232145.cmqe73stvivsmlhs@awork3.anarazel.de
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CAMm1aWaaJi2w49c0RiaDBfhdCL6ztbr9m=daGqiOuVdizYWYaA@mail.gmail.com
Backpatch-through: 14

Branch
------
REL_16_STABLE

Details
-------
https://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/1aa57e9ed548c8cb6371a6a43f3ed90b2c16fc79

Modified Files
--------------
src/backend/access/transam/xlogrecovery.c | 10 ++++++++++
1 file changed, 10 insertions(+)



^ permalink  raw  reply  [nested|flat] 6+ messages in thread

* pgsql: Fail recovery when missing redo checkpoint record without backup
@ 2025-12-16 04:31 Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread

From: Michael Paquier @ 2025-12-16 04:31 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: pgsql-committers@lists.postgresql.org

Fail recovery when missing redo checkpoint record without backup_label

This commit adds an extra check at the beginning of recovery to ensure
that the redo record of a checkpoint exists before attempting WAL
replay, logging a PANIC if the redo record referenced by the checkpoint
record could not be found.  This is the same level of failure as when a
checkpoint record is missing.  This check is added when a cluster is
started without a backup_label, after retrieving its checkpoint record.
The redo LSN used for the check is retrieved from the checkpoint record
successfully read.

In the case where a backup_label exists, the startup process already
fails if the redo record cannot be found after reading a checkpoint
record at the beginning of recovery.

Previously, the presence of the redo record was not checked.  If the
redo and checkpoint records were located on different WAL segments, it
would be possible to miss a entire range of WAL records that should have
been replayed but were just ignored.  The consequences of missing the
redo record depend on the version dealt with, these becoming worse the
older the version used:
- On HEAD, v18 and v17, recovery fails with a pointer dereference at the
beginning of the redo loop, as the redo record is expected but cannot be
found.  These versions are good students, because we detect a failure
before doing anything, even if the failure is misleading in the shape of
a segmentation fault, giving no information that the redo record is
missing.
- In v16 and v15, problems show at the end of recovery within
FinishWalRecovery(), the startup process using a buggy LSN to decide
from where to start writing WAL.  The cluster gets corrupted, still it
is noisy about it.
- v14 and older versions are worse: a cluster gets corrupted but it is
entirely silent about the matter.  The redo record missing causes the
startup process to skip entirely recovery, because a missing record is
the same as not redo being required at all.  This leads to data loss, as
everything is missed between the redo record and the checkpoint record.

Note that I have tested that down to 9.4, reproducing the issue with a
version of the author's reproducer slightly modified.  The code is wrong
since at least 9.2, but I did not look at the exact point of origin.

This problem has been found by debugging a cluster where the WAL segment
including the redo segment was missing due to an operator error, leading
to a crash, based on an investigation in v15.

Requesting archive recovery with the creation of a recovery.signal or
a standby.signal even without a backup_label would mitigate the issue:
if the record cannot be found in pg_wal/, the missing segment can be
retrieved with a restore_command when checking that the redo record
exists.  This was already the case without this commit, where recovery
would re-fetch the WAL segment that includes the redo record.  The check
introduced by this commit makes the segment to be retrieved earlier to
make sure that the redo record can be found.

On HEAD, the code will be slightly changed in a follow-up commit to not
rely on a PANIC, to include a test able to emulate the original problem.
This is a minimal backpatchable fix, kept separated for clarity.

Reported-by: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Analyzed-by: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Author: Nitin Jadhav <nitinjadhavpostgres@gmail.com>
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/20231023232145.cmqe73stvivsmlhs@awork3.anarazel.de
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CAMm1aWaaJi2w49c0RiaDBfhdCL6ztbr9m=daGqiOuVdizYWYaA@mail.gmail.com
Backpatch-through: 14

Branch
------
REL_15_STABLE

Details
-------
https://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/95ef6f4904a53a643590021fbcc27812df169379

Modified Files
--------------
src/backend/access/transam/xlogrecovery.c | 10 ++++++++++
1 file changed, 10 insertions(+)



^ permalink  raw  reply  [nested|flat] 6+ messages in thread

* pgsql: Fail recovery when missing redo checkpoint record without backup
@ 2025-12-16 04:31 Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 6+ messages in thread

From: Michael Paquier @ 2025-12-16 04:31 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: pgsql-committers@lists.postgresql.org

Fail recovery when missing redo checkpoint record without backup_label

This commit adds an extra check at the beginning of recovery to ensure
that the redo record of a checkpoint exists before attempting WAL
replay, logging a PANIC if the redo record referenced by the checkpoint
record could not be found.  This is the same level of failure as when a
checkpoint record is missing.  This check is added when a cluster is
started without a backup_label, after retrieving its checkpoint record.
The redo LSN used for the check is retrieved from the checkpoint record
successfully read.

In the case where a backup_label exists, the startup process already
fails if the redo record cannot be found after reading a checkpoint
record at the beginning of recovery.

Previously, the presence of the redo record was not checked.  If the
redo and checkpoint records were located on different WAL segments, it
would be possible to miss a entire range of WAL records that should have
been replayed but were just ignored.  The consequences of missing the
redo record depend on the version dealt with, these becoming worse the
older the version used:
- On HEAD, v18 and v17, recovery fails with a pointer dereference at the
beginning of the redo loop, as the redo record is expected but cannot be
found.  These versions are good students, because we detect a failure
before doing anything, even if the failure is misleading in the shape of
a segmentation fault, giving no information that the redo record is
missing.
- In v16 and v15, problems show at the end of recovery within
FinishWalRecovery(), the startup process using a buggy LSN to decide
from where to start writing WAL.  The cluster gets corrupted, still it
is noisy about it.
- v14 and older versions are worse: a cluster gets corrupted but it is
entirely silent about the matter.  The redo record missing causes the
startup process to skip entirely recovery, because a missing record is
the same as not redo being required at all.  This leads to data loss, as
everything is missed between the redo record and the checkpoint record.

Note that I have tested that down to 9.4, reproducing the issue with a
version of the author's reproducer slightly modified.  The code is wrong
since at least 9.2, but I did not look at the exact point of origin.

This problem has been found by debugging a cluster where the WAL segment
including the redo segment was missing due to an operator error, leading
to a crash, based on an investigation in v15.

Requesting archive recovery with the creation of a recovery.signal or
a standby.signal even without a backup_label would mitigate the issue:
if the record cannot be found in pg_wal/, the missing segment can be
retrieved with a restore_command when checking that the redo record
exists.  This was already the case without this commit, where recovery
would re-fetch the WAL segment that includes the redo record.  The check
introduced by this commit makes the segment to be retrieved earlier to
make sure that the redo record can be found.

On HEAD, the code will be slightly changed in a follow-up commit to not
rely on a PANIC, to include a test able to emulate the original problem.
This is a minimal backpatchable fix, kept separated for clarity.

Reported-by: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Analyzed-by: Andres Freund <andres@anarazel.de>
Author: Nitin Jadhav <nitinjadhavpostgres@gmail.com>
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/20231023232145.cmqe73stvivsmlhs@awork3.anarazel.de
Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/CAMm1aWaaJi2w49c0RiaDBfhdCL6ztbr9m=daGqiOuVdizYWYaA@mail.gmail.com
Backpatch-through: 14

Branch
------
REL_14_STABLE

Details
-------
https://git.postgresql.org/pg/commitdiff/14161bca40a0013b78e301fb5966d21c9e57819b

Modified Files
--------------
src/backend/access/transam/xlog.c | 10 ++++++++++
1 file changed, 10 insertions(+)



^ permalink  raw  reply  [nested|flat] 6+ messages in thread


end of thread, other threads:[~2025-12-16 04:31 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 6+ messages (download: mbox mbox.gz follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2025-12-16 04:31 pgsql: Fail recovery when missing redo checkpoint record without backup Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>
2025-12-16 04:31 pgsql: Fail recovery when missing redo checkpoint record without backup Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>
2025-12-16 04:31 pgsql: Fail recovery when missing redo checkpoint record without backup Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>
2025-12-16 04:31 pgsql: Fail recovery when missing redo checkpoint record without backup Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>
2025-12-16 04:31 pgsql: Fail recovery when missing redo checkpoint record without backup Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>
2025-12-16 04:31 pgsql: Fail recovery when missing redo checkpoint record without backup Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>

This inbox is served by DDX for PostgreSQL; see mirroring instructions
for how to clone and mirror all data and code used for this inbox