The original patch author: Chris Marcellino <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
was not CC'ed as part of this email thread. That was a mistake. Chris, the email thread discussing your patch is here: http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-hackers/2008-03/msg01262.php Please read the discussion --- the bottom line is that there isn't much support for the patch. Magnus was able to do the POSIX usage without relying on shared memory, but I just talked to him via IM and he said it used a Win32-specific feature that isn't portable to Unix. I am holding this patch for the next commit fest in hopes you can adjust it, but if not the patch will be rejected at that time. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Stephen Frost wrote: -- Start of PGP signed section. > Chris, et al, > > (commit-fest consensus discussion) > * Chris Marcellino wrote: > > In case you haven't had enough, here is another version of the code > > to make Postgres use POSIX shared memory. Along with the issues that > > have already been addressed, this version ensures that orphaned > > backends are not in the database when restarting Postgres by using a > > single 1 byte SysV segment to see who is attached to the segment > > using shmctl/IPC_STAT/nattach. > > This really feels like a deal-breaker to me. My first reaction to this > patch, honestly, is that it's being justified for all the wrong reasons. > Changing to POSIX shm seems like a reasonable goal in general, provided > it can do what we need, but doing it to work around silly defaults > doesn't really work for me. If the real issue you have is with the SysV > limits then I'd suggest you bring that up with the kernel/distribution > folks to get them to use something more sane. > > Looking around a bit, it looks like it's already being addressed in some > places, for example Solaris 10 apparently uses 1/4th of memory, while > Centos 5 uses 4GB. Suse also uses a larger default, from what I > understand. Supporting this effort to get it raised on various > platforms and distributions seems like a much better approach. > > Additionally, it strikes me that there *is* a limit on POSIX shared > memory too, generally half of ram on the systems I've looked at, but > there's no guarentee that'll always be the default or that half of ram > will always be enough for us. So, even with this change, the problem > isn't completely 'solved'. > > Finding a way for POSIX shm to do what we need, including Tom's > concerns, without depending on SvsV shm as a crutch work around, would > make this change much more reasonable and could be justified as moving > to a well defined POSIX standard, and means we may be able to support > platforms which either are new and don't implement SysV but just POSIX, > or cases where SysV is being actively depreceated. Neither of which is > possible if we're stuck with using it in some cases. > > Thanks, > > Stephen -- End of PGP section, PGP failed! -- Bruce Momjian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://momjian.us EnterpriseDB http://enterprisedb.com + If your life is a hard drive, Christ can be your backup. + -- Sent via pgsql-hackers mailing list (pgsql-hackers@postgresql.org) To make changes to your subscription: http://www.postgresql.org/mailpref/pgsql-hackers