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Date: Tue, 03 Mar 2026 16:07:11 -0500
From: "Greg Burd" <greg@burd.me>
To: "Tom Lane" <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Cc: "PostgreSQL Hackers" <pgsql-hackers@lists.postgresql.org>,
 "Thomas Munro" <thomas.munro@gmail.com>
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In-Reply-To: <892477.1772489759@sss.pgh.pa.us>
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 <2cbf958e-a36f-4121-b9e9-13ebaaa1cb2c@app.fastmail.com>
 <892477.1772489759@sss.pgh.pa.us>
Subject: Re: Areas for Solaris support modernization
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On Mon, Mar 2, 2026, at 5:15 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
> "Greg Burd" <greg@burd.me> writes:
>> On Sun, Mar 1, 2026, at 9:50 PM, Tom Lane wrote:
>>>> Also, while playing with said local OpenIndiana image, I noticed
>>>> that ps_status.c isn't working: "ps auxww" shows all the child
>>>> processes with the same command line as the postmaster.  I thought
>>>> maybe we'd diked out something important in d2ea2d310, but none
>>>> of the code removed there claims to apply to Solaris.  So maybe
>>>> it never worked on Solaris?
>>>
>>> Anyway, here's a slightly cleaned-up reversion of the relevant
>>> bits of d2ea2d310, with PS_USE_CHANGE_ARGV now selected by
>>> "defined(__sun)" not the previous logic
>>> "(defined(BSD) || defined(__hurd__)) && !defined(__darwin__)".
>
>> I've started a build/test on "icarus" with your patch applied.  I'll =
let you know how it goes, hopefully that won't take as long now.

Hey Tom,

> Oh, now THIS is interesting: I just updated to current OpenIndiana
> (previously I was on Dec-2025 or thereabouts), and now ps_status
> seems to be working *without* any patch!  It works with the patch
> too, but now I'm thinking I hit some bug in their "ps" that got
> fixed and perhaps wasn't of long standing.
>
> So maybe we don't need this patch.  I'd be interested to know what
> you see on whatever Solaris boxen you have.  Note that the regression
> tests will not reveal anything --- you need to eyeball what "ps auxww"
> shows for a running postmaster and its children.  With current HEAD
> and all-default settings, I see something like
>
> $ ps auxww | grep tgl
> ...
> tgl       17855  0.1  0.6 211008 21792 pts/2    S 22:07:24  0:00=20
> postgres -F
> tgl       17860  0.0  0.1 211056 3384 ?        S 22:07:24  0:00=20
> postgres: background writer
> tgl       17856  0.0  0.1 211056 3480 ?        S 22:07:24  0:00=20
> postgres: io worker 0
> tgl       17857  0.0  0.1 211056 3480 ?        S 22:07:24  0:00=20
> postgres: io worker 1
> tgl       17858  0.0  0.1 211040 3112 ?        S 22:07:24  0:00=20
> postgres: io worker 2
> tgl       17859  0.0  0.1 211072 3288 ?        S 22:07:24  0:00=20
> postgres: checkpointer
> tgl       17862  0.0  0.1 212080 4148 ?        S 22:07:24  0:00=20
> postgres: walwriter
> tgl       17863  0.0  0.2 212528 6224 ?        S 22:07:24  0:00=20
> postgres: autovacuum launcher
> tgl       17864  0.0  0.2 212512 5940 ?        S 22:07:24  0:00=20
> postgres: logical replication launcher
> ...
>
> if it's working, and a bunch of identical command lines if not.

$ ps -auxww | grep gburd
...
gburd     37564  0.0  0.6 1180392 85672 ?        S 15:58:03  0:00 /scrat=
ch/pg/2026-03-03/bin/postgres -D /scratch/pg/2026-03-03/db
gburd     37565  0.0  0.3 1180392 44376 ?        S 15:58:04  0:00 /scrat=
ch/pg/2026-03-03/bin/postgres -D /scratch/pg/2026-03-03/db
gburd     37566  0.0  0.2 1180392 27880 ?        S 15:58:04  0:00 /scrat=
ch/pg/2026-03-03/bin/postgres -D /scratch/pg/2026-03-03/db
gburd     37567  0.0  0.2 1180392 27880 ?        S 15:58:04  0:00 /scrat=
ch/pg/2026-03-03/bin/postgres -D /scratch/pg/2026-03-03/db
gburd     37568  0.0  0.2 1180392 27912 ?        S 15:58:04  0:00 /scrat=
ch/pg/2026-03-03/bin/postgres -D /scratch/pg/2026-03-03/db
gburd     37569  0.0  0.3 1180392 48392 ?        S 15:58:04  0:00 /scrat=
ch/pg/2026-03-03/bin/postgres -D /scratch/pg/2026-03-03/db
gburd     37571  0.0  0.3 1184488 45288 ?        S 15:58:04  0:00 /scrat=
ch/pg/2026-03-03/bin/postgres -D /scratch/pg/2026-03-03/db
gburd     37572  0.0  0.3 1184904 50304 ?        S 15:58:04  0:00 /scrat=
ch/pg/2026-03-03/bin/postgres -D /scratch/pg/2026-03-03/db
gburd     37573  0.0  0.3 1184888 37728 ?        S 15:58:04  0:00 /scrat=
ch/pg/2026-03-03/bin/postgres -D /scratch/pg/2026-03-03/db
...

So, not working - and that's the patched version too. :(

$ uname -a
SunOS sun 5.11 illumos-31d3d510d0 sun4u sparc SUNW,A70

$ cat /etc/release
             OpenIndiana Hipster 2025.12 (powered by illumos)
        OpenIndiana Project, part of The Illumos Foundation (C) 2010-2025
                        Use is subject to license terms.
                           Assembled 27 December 2025

$ gcc -v
Using built-in specs.
COLLECT_GCC=3Dgcc
COLLECT_LTO_WRAPPER=3D/usr/gcc/13/lib/gcc/sparcv9-sun-solaris2.11/13.4.0=
/lto-wrapper
Target: sparcv9-sun-solaris2.11
Configured with: /ws/oi-userland/components/developer/gcc-13/gcc-release=
s-gcc-13.4.0/configure CC=3D/usr/gcc/13/bin/gcc CXX=3D/usr/gcc/13/bin/g+=
+ F77=3D/usr/gcc/13/bin/gfortran FC=3D/usr/gcc/13/bin/gfortran CFLAGS=3D=
-O2 CXXFLAGS=3D-O2 FFLAGS=3D'  -O3 -mptr64 -mcpu=3Dultrasparc -mvis -mfs=
muld -mno-app-regs' FCFLAGS=3D-O2 LDFLAGS=3D-RPT/lib PKG_CONFIG_PATH=3D/=
usr/mariadb/10.6/lib/sparcv9/pkgconfig:/usr/openssl/3/lib/sparcv9/pkgcon=
fig:/usr/lib/sparcv9/pkgconfig:/usr/lib/pkgconfig --prefix=3D/usr/gcc/13=
 --mandir=3D/usr/gcc/13/share/man --bindir=3D/usr/gcc/13/bin --includedi=
r=3D/usr/include --infodir=3D/usr/gcc/13/share/info --libdir=3D/usr/gcc/=
13/lib --libexecdir=3D/usr/gcc/13/libexec --localstatedir=3D/var --sbind=
ir=3D/usr/gcc/13/sbin --sysconfdir=3D/etc --localedir=3D/usr/gcc/13/shar=
e/locale --sbindir=3D/usr/gcc/13/bin --libdir=3D/usr/gcc/13/lib --libexe=
cdir=3D/usr/gcc/13/lib --host sparcv9-sun-solaris2.11 --build sparcv9-su=
n-solaris2.11 --target sparcv9-sun-solaris2.11 --with-pkgversion=3D'Open=
Indiana 13.4.0-oi-0' --with-bugurl=3Dhttps://bugs.openindiana.org --with=
out-gnu-ld --with-ld=3D/usr/bin/ld --with-build-time-tools=3D/usr/gnu/sp=
arcv9-sun-solaris2.11/bin --with-gnu-as --with-as=3D/usr/bin/gas LDFLAGS=
=3D-R/usr/gcc/13/lib --with-mulhigh-size=3D2048 --with-cpu=3Dultrasparc =
--with-build-time-tools=3D/usr/gnu/sparcv9-sun-solaris2.11/bin --with-bu=
ild-config=3Dno --enable-languages=3Dc,c++,fortran,go,objc --enable-shar=
ed --with-system-zlib --enable-plugins --enable-__cxa_atexit --enable-in=
itfini-array --with-diagnostics-urls=3Dauto-if-env enable_frame_pointer=3D=
yes
Thread model: posix
Supported LTO compression algorithms: zlib zstd
gcc version 13.4.0 (OpenIndiana 13.4.0-oi-0)

What is your definition of "current OpenIndiana"?  I'm in contact with t=
he maintainers of the distro I use so maybe I can nudge them to update.

I'm on an UltraSPARC 45 running the *only* OpenIndiana distro that still=
 works on this platform.  To answer the implied question, yes I know SPA=
RC is essentially dead but I felt it might have some interesting coverag=
e for us.  I've yet to prove that to be true.

> 			regards, tom lane

The good news is that I think that my attempts to build sparcv9 binaries=
 and/or use clang might be the root cause of the timeouts.  Building wit=
h less ambitious goals and using GCC I pass all the tests in a reasonabl=
e amount of time.

The diff implementation (/usr/bin/diff) outputs "no differences found" r=
ather than the expected silence and exit 0 so that was causing issues bu=
t when I fixed that (by putting a GNU diff in the path first ahead of /u=
sr/bin) all tests pass.  Okay, they pass with your two patches applied. =
 It takes a loooong time to rebuild so I've not re-tested without those =
patches (yet) but AFAICT they didn't cause issues and likely helped.

I'll update my build-farm.conf and get icarus flying closer to the Sun a=
gain tomorrow.

best.

-greg