From 00234c83cedcb684f4b6e12d22608f929f4d3c0b Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: Bharath Rupireddy <bharath.rupireddyforpostgres@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, 18 May 2023 14:15:05 +0000
Subject: [PATCH v4] Optimize walsender wake up logic with Conditional
 Variables

WalSndWakeup() currently loops through all the walsenders slots,
with a spinlock acquisition and release for every iteration, just
to wake up only the waiting walsenders. WalSndWakeup() gets
costlier even when there's a single walsender available on the
standby (i.e., a cascading replica or a logical decoding client).

This wasn't a problem before e101dfac3a53c. But, for allowing
logical decoding on standby, we needed to wake up logical
walsenders after every WAL record is applied on the standby. This
really made WalSndWakeup() costly, causing performance regression.

To solve this, we use condition variable (CV) to efficiently wake
up walsenders in WalSndWakeup().

Every walsender prepares to sleep on a shared memory CV. Note that
it just prepares to sleep on the CV (i.e., adds itself to the CV's
waitlist), but does not actually wait on the CV (IOW, it never
calls ConditionVariableSleep()). It still uses WaitEventSetWait()
for waiting, because CV infrastructure doesn't handle FeBe socket
events currently. The processes (startup process, walreceiver etc.)
wanting to wake up walsenders use ConditionVariableBroadcast(),
which in turn calls SetLatch(), helping walsenders come out of
WaitEventSetWait().

This approach is simple and efficient because it makes
WalSndWakeup() life easy. A desirable future improvement would be to
add support for CVs into WaitEventSetWait().

And, we use separate shared memory CVs for physical and logical
walsenders for selective wake ups, see WalSndWakeup() for more
details.

Reported-by: Andres Freund
Suggested-by: Andres Freund
Author: Bharath Rupireddy
Reviewed-by: Drouvot, Bertrand
Reviewed-by: Zhijie Hou
Discussion: https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/20230509190247.3rrplhdgem6su6cg%40awork3.anarazel.de
---
 src/backend/replication/walsender.c         | 72 ++++++++++++++-------
 src/include/replication/walsender_private.h |  7 ++
 2 files changed, 55 insertions(+), 24 deletions(-)

diff --git a/src/backend/replication/walsender.c b/src/backend/replication/walsender.c
index 45b8b3684f..57ef3dbb67 100644
--- a/src/backend/replication/walsender.c
+++ b/src/backend/replication/walsender.c
@@ -3309,6 +3309,9 @@ WalSndShmemInit(void)
 
 			SpinLockInit(&walsnd->mutex);
 		}
+
+		ConditionVariableInit(&WalSndCtl->physicalWALSndCV);
+		ConditionVariableInit(&WalSndCtl->logicalWALSndCV);
 	}
 }
 
@@ -3330,31 +3333,17 @@ WalSndShmemInit(void)
 void
 WalSndWakeup(bool physical, bool logical)
 {
-	int			i;
-
-	for (i = 0; i < max_wal_senders; i++)
-	{
-		Latch	   *latch;
-		ReplicationKind kind;
-		WalSnd	   *walsnd = &WalSndCtl->walsnds[i];
-
-		/*
-		 * Get latch pointer with spinlock held, for the unlikely case that
-		 * pointer reads aren't atomic (as they're 8 bytes). While at it, also
-		 * get kind.
-		 */
-		SpinLockAcquire(&walsnd->mutex);
-		latch = walsnd->latch;
-		kind = walsnd->kind;
-		SpinLockRelease(&walsnd->mutex);
-
-		if (latch == NULL)
-			continue;
+	/*
+	 * Let's wake up all the waiting physical and/or logical walsenders using
+	 * their respective condition variables (CVs). Note that every walsender
+	 * would have prepared to sleep on the CV (i.e., added itself to the CV's
+	 * waitlist) in WalSndWait before actually waiting.
+	 */
+	if (physical)
+		ConditionVariableBroadcast(&WalSndCtl->physicalWALSndCV);
 
-		if ((physical && kind == REPLICATION_KIND_PHYSICAL) ||
-			(logical && kind == REPLICATION_KIND_LOGICAL))
-			SetLatch(latch);
-	}
+	if (logical)
+		ConditionVariableBroadcast(&WalSndCtl->logicalWALSndCV);
 }
 
 /*
@@ -3368,9 +3357,44 @@ WalSndWait(uint32 socket_events, long timeout, uint32 wait_event)
 	WaitEvent	event;
 
 	ModifyWaitEvent(FeBeWaitSet, FeBeWaitSetSocketPos, socket_events, NULL);
+
+	/*
+	 * We use condition variable (CV) to efficiently wake up walsenders in
+	 * WalSndWakeup().
+	 *
+	 * Every walsender prepares to sleep on a shared memory CV. Note that it
+	 * just prepares to sleep on the CV (i.e., adds itself to the CV's
+	 * waitlist), but does not actually wait on the CV (IOW, it never calls
+	 * ConditionVariableSleep()). It still uses WaitEventSetWait() for waiting,
+	 * because CV infrastructure doesn't handle FeBe socket events currently.
+	 * The processes (startup process, walreceiver etc.) wanting to wake up
+	 * walsenders use ConditionVariableBroadcast(), which in turn calls
+	 * SetLatch(), helping walsenders come out of WaitEventSetWait().
+	 *
+	 * This approach is simple and efficient because, one doesn't have to loop
+	 * through all the walsenders slots, with a spinlock acquisition and
+	 * release for every iteration, just to wake up only the waiting
+	 * walsenders. It makes WalSndWakeup() callers' life easy.
+	 *
+	 * XXX: A desirable future improvement would be to add support for CVs into
+	 * WaitEventSetWait().
+	 *
+	 * And, we use separate shared memory CVs for physical and logical
+	 * walsenders for selective wake ups, see WalSndWakeup() for more details.
+	 */
+	if (MyWalSnd->kind == REPLICATION_KIND_PHYSICAL)
+		ConditionVariablePrepareToSleep(&WalSndCtl->physicalWALSndCV);
+	else if (MyWalSnd->kind == REPLICATION_KIND_LOGICAL)
+		ConditionVariablePrepareToSleep(&WalSndCtl->logicalWALSndCV);
+
 	if (WaitEventSetWait(FeBeWaitSet, timeout, &event, 1, wait_event) == 1 &&
 		(event.events & WL_POSTMASTER_DEATH))
+	{
+		ConditionVariableCancelSleep();
 		proc_exit(1);
+	}
+
+	ConditionVariableCancelSleep();
 }
 
 /*
diff --git a/src/include/replication/walsender_private.h b/src/include/replication/walsender_private.h
index ff25aa70a8..4b33a96d25 100644
--- a/src/include/replication/walsender_private.h
+++ b/src/include/replication/walsender_private.h
@@ -17,6 +17,7 @@
 #include "nodes/nodes.h"
 #include "nodes/replnodes.h"
 #include "replication/syncrep.h"
+#include "storage/condition_variable.h"
 #include "storage/latch.h"
 #include "storage/shmem.h"
 #include "storage/spin.h"
@@ -108,6 +109,12 @@ typedef struct
 	 */
 	bool		sync_standbys_defined;
 
+	/* Used to wake up physical walsenders */
+	ConditionVariable	physicalWALSndCV;
+
+	/* Used to wake up logical walsenders */
+	ConditionVariable	logicalWALSndCV;
+
 	WalSnd		walsnds[FLEXIBLE_ARRAY_MEMBER];
 } WalSndCtlData;
 
-- 
2.34.1

