[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] IMPORTANT: Postgres bug affecting Streaming Replication

[Mike Rylander]

UPDATE

I need clarify and correct the information below: this is not
restricted streaming-replication based hot-standby replicas, it is for
all hot_standby-enabled replicas (regardless of the mechanism used to
ship the WAL data) when there is a recovery.conf in place. This is
per: http://markmail.org/message/p6bcdo5h2ll4kk3k


On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 1:35 PM, Mike Rylander <mrylander at gmail.com> wrote:
> THE BAD NEWS:
>
> If your site uses Postgres' streaming replication to create a
> read-only hot-standby, such as for reporting or to support search
> capacity needs, this message is for you.
>
> On Nov, 18, a bug was reported to the Postgres hackers list that can
> cause extreme corruption of hot-standby secondary servers.  Known
> affected versions include 9.2.5 and 9.3.1.  It is likely that this
> goes as far back as 9.1.
>
> The nature of the bug is such that it is somewhat hard to provoke.
> However, it can occur at any standby startup if the secondary is in
> hot-standby mode, and not only during the initial secondary creation.
> In other words, every restart of a hot-standby secondary instance of
> Postgres is another chance to run afoul of this bug.  It is most
> likely to occur under high write load or situations where there is
> significant lag during standby startup.
>
> Symptoms include: missing data; apparently-duplicated data; mismatch
> between index and heap data; "impossible" constraint violations
> (unique and fkey).
>
> The underlying cause of these symptoms is a loss of proper transaction
> visibility information on the hot-standby secondary.
>
> THE GOOD NEWS:
>
> There is an apparent fix being tested now by several large Postgres
> entities.  It is expected that a point release for all affected
> versions will be made available ASAP.  Additionally, if you have
> already been bitten by the corruption bug, there is a straight-forward
> procedure for recover, which I am sure will be detailed in the release
> notes for the upcoming point releases.
>
> You can read the full thread from the pgsql-hackers mailing list here:
> http://markmail.org/message/p54pqkykjtwvog3h
>
> --
> Mike Rylander
>  | Director of Research and Development
>  | Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
>  | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
>  | email:  miker at esilibrary.com
>  | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com



-- 
Mike Rylander
 | Director of Research and Development
 | Equinox Software, Inc. / Your Library's Guide to Open Source
 | phone:  1-877-OPEN-ILS (673-6457)
 | email:  miker at esilibrary.com
 | web:  http://www.esilibrary.com