@ -597,21 +597,22 @@ deadlock detection algorithm very much, but it makes the bookkeeping more
complicated.
We choose to regard locks held by processes in the same parallel group as
non-conflicting. This means that two processes in a parallel group can hold a
self-exclusive lock on the same relation at the same time, or one process can
acquire an AccessShareLock while the other already holds AccessExclusiveLock.
This might seem dangerous and could be in some cases (more on that below), but
if we didn't do this then parallel query would be extremely prone to
self-deadlock. For example, a parallel query against a relation on which the
leader already had AccessExclusiveLock would hang, because the workers would
try to lock the same relation and be blocked by the leader; yet the leader
can't finish until it receives completion indications from all workers. An
undetected deadlock results. This is far from the only scenario where such a
problem happens. The same thing will occur if the leader holds only
AccessShareLock, the worker seeks AccessShareLock, but between the time the
leader attempts to acquire the lock and the time the worker attempts to
acquire it, some other process queues up waiting for an AccessExclusiveLock.
In this case, too, an indefinite hang results.
non-conflicting with the exception of relation extension and page locks. This
means that two processes in a parallel group can hold a self-exclusive lock on
the same relation at the same time, or one process can acquire an AccessShareLock
while the other already holds AccessExclusiveLock. This might seem dangerous and
could be in some cases (more on that below), but if we didn't do this then
parallel query would be extremely prone to self-deadlock. For example, a
parallel query against a relation on which the leader already had
AccessExclusiveLock would hang, because the workers would try to lock the same
relation and be blocked by the leader; yet the leader can't finish until it
receives completion indications from all workers. An undetected deadlock
results. This is far from the only scenario where such a problem happens. The
same thing will occur if the leader holds only AccessShareLock, the worker
seeks AccessShareLock, but between the time the leader attempts to acquire the
lock and the time the worker attempts to acquire it, some other process queues
up waiting for an AccessExclusiveLock. In this case, too, an indefinite hang
results.
It might seem that we could predict which locks the workers will attempt to
acquire and ensure before going parallel that those locks would be acquired
@ -637,18 +638,23 @@ the other is safe enough. Problems would occur if the leader initiated
parallelism from a point in the code at which it had some backend-private
state that made table access from another process unsafe, for example after
calling SetReindexProcessing and before calling ResetReindexProcessing,
catastrophe could ensue, because the worker won't have that state. Similarly,
problems could occur with certain kinds of non-relation locks, such as
relation extension locks. It's no safer for two related processes to extend
the same relation at the time than for unrelated processes to do the same.
However, since parallel mode is strictly read-only at present, neither this
nor most of the similar cases can arise at present. To allow parallel writes,
we'll either need to (1) further enhance the deadlock detector to handle those
types of locks in a different way than other types; or (2) have parallel
workers use some other mutual exclusion method for such cases; or (3) revise
those cases so that they no longer use heavyweight locking in the first place
(which is not a crazy idea, given that such lock acquisitions are not expected
to deadlock and that heavyweight lock acquisition is fairly slow anyway).
catastrophe could ensue, because the worker won't have that state.
To allow parallel inserts and parallel copy, we have ensured that relation
extension and page locks don't participate in group locking which means such
locks can conflict among the same group members. This is required as it is no
safer for two related processes to extend the same relation or perform clean up
in gin indexes at a time than for unrelated processes to do the same. We don't
acquire a heavyweight lock on any other object after relation extension lock
which means such a lock can never participate in the deadlock cycle. After
acquiring page locks, we can acquire relation extension lock but reverse never
happens, so those will also not participate in deadlock. To allow for other
parallel writes like parallel update or parallel delete, we'll either need to
(1) further enhance the deadlock detector to handle those tuple locks in a
different way than other types; or (2) have parallel workers use some other
mutual exclusion method for such cases. Currently, the parallel mode is
strictly read-only, but now we have the infrastructure to allow parallel
inserts and parallel copy.
Group locking adds three new members to each PGPROC: lockGroupLeader,
lockGroupMembers, and lockGroupLink. A PGPROC's lockGroupLeader is NULL for