thread-index: Acdx6of5sKzmC0/RSyqi69zfb8rfeQ==
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Subject: Re: [PATCHES] Full page writes improvement, code update
From: "Simon Riggs" <simon@2ndquadrant.com>
To: "Koichi Suzuki" <suzuki.koichi@oss.ntt.co.jp>
Cc: <pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org>,
	<pgsql-patches@postgresql.org>
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	<1175029670.4386.222.camel@silverbirch.site>
	<4609CAC3.7060008@oss.ntt.co.jp>
	<1175072848.4386.323.camel@silverbirch.site>
	<460B7DBB.5040709@oss.ntt.co.jp>
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Date: Thu, 29 Mar 2007 11:07:12 +0100
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On Thu, 2007-03-29 at 17:50 +0900, Koichi Suzuki wrote:

> Not only full-page-writes are written as WAL record.   In my proposal, 
> both full-page-writes and logical log are written in a WAL record, which 
> will make WAL size slightly bigger (five percent or so).   If 
> full_page_compress = off, only a full-page-write will be written in a 
> WAL record.   I thought someone will not be happy with this size growth.

OK, I see what you're doing now and agree with you that we do need a
parameter. Not sure about the name you've chosen though - it certainly
confused me until you explained.

A parameter called ..._compress indicates to me that it would reduce
something in size whereas what it actually does is increase the size of
WAL slightly. We should have a parameter name that indicates what it
actually does, otherwise some people will choose to use this parameter
even when they are not using archive_command with pg_compresslog.

Some possible names...

additional_wal_info = 'COMPRESS'
add_wal_info
wal_additional_info
wal_auxiliary_info
wal_extra_data
attach_wal_info
...
others?

I've got some ideas for the future for adding additional WAL info for
various purposes, so it might be useful to have a parameter that can
cater for multiple types of additional WAL data. Or maybe we go for
something more specific like

wal_add_compress_info = on
wal_add_XXXX_info ...

> > In recovery.conf, I'd like to see a parameter such as
> > 
> > dummy_backup_blocks = off (default) | on
> > 
> > to explicitly indicate to the recovery process that backup blocks are
> > present, yet they are garbage and should be ignored. Having garbage data
> > within the system is potentially dangerous and I want to be told by the
> > user that they were expecting that and its OK to ignore that data.
> > Otherwise I want to throw informative errors. Maybe it seems OK now, but
> > the next change to the system may have unintended consequences and it
> > may not be us making the change. "It's OK the Alien will never escape
> > from the lab" is the starting premise for many good sci-fi horrors and I
> > want to watch them, not be in one myself. :-)
> > 
> > We can call it other things, of course. e.g.
> > ignore_dummy_blocks
> > decompressed_blocks
> > apply_backup_blocks
> 
> So far, we don't need any modification to the recovery and redo 
> functions.   They ignore the dummy and apply logical logs.   Also, if 
> there are both full page writes and logical log, current recovery 
> selects full page writes to apply.
> 
> I agree to introduce this option if 8.3 code introduces any conflict to 
> the current.   Or, we could introduce this option for future safety.  Do 
> you think we should introduce this option?

Yes. You are skipping a correctness test and that should be by explicit
command only. It's no problem to include that as well, since you are
already having to specify pg_... decompress... but the recovery process
doesn't know whether or not you've done that.

> Anyway, could you try to run pg_standby with pg_compresslog and 
> pg_decompresslog?

After freeze, yes.

> ----
> Additional recomment on page header removal:
> 
> I found that it is not simple to keep page header in the compressed 
> archive log.   Because we eliminate unmarked full page writes and shift 
> the rest of the WAL file data, it is not simple to keep page header as 
> the page header in the compressed archive log.   It is much simpler to 
> remove page header as well and rebuild them.   I'd like to keep current 
> implementation in this point.

OK.

This is a good feature. Thanks for your patience with my comments.

-- 
  Simon Riggs             
  EnterpriseDB   http://www.enterprisedb.com