Make _bt_killitems drop pins it acquired itself.

petergeoghegan · petergeoghegan · commit d2ec671092a1 · 2025-06-11T09:17:29.000-04:00
Teach nbtree's _bt_killitems to leave the so->currPos page that it sets LP_DEAD items on in whatever state it was in when _bt_killitems was called. In particular, make sure that so->dropPin scans don't acquire a pin whose reference is saved in so->currPos.buf. Allowing _bt_killitems to change so->currPos.buf like this is wrong. The immediate consequence of allowing it is that code in _bt_steppage (that copies so->currPos into so->markPos) will behave as if the scan is a !so->dropPin scan. so->markPos will therefore retain the buffer pin indefinitely, even though _bt_killitems only needs to acquire a pin (along with a lock) for long enough to mark known-dead items LP_DEAD. This issue came to light following a report of a failure of an assertion from recent commit e6eed40. The test case in question involves the use of mark and restore. An initial call to _bt_killitems takes place that leaves so->currPos.buf in a state that is inconsistent with the scan being so->dropPin. A subsequent call to _bt_killitems for the same position (following so->currPos being saved in so->markPos, and then restored as so->currPos) resulted in the failure of an assertion that tests that so->currPos.buf is InvalidBuffer when the scan is so->dropPin (non-assert builds got a "resource was not closed" WARNING instead). The same problem exists on earlier releases, though the issue is far more subtle there. Recent commit e6eed40 introduced the so->dropPin field as a partial replacement for testing so->currPos.buf directly. Earlier releases won't get an assertion failure (or buffer pin leak), but they will allow the second _bt_killitems call from the test case to behave as if a buffer pin was consistently held since the original call to _bt_readpage. This is wrong; there will have been an initial window during which no pin was held on the so->currPos page, and yet the second _bt_killitems call will neglect to check if so->currPos.lsn continues to match the page's now-current LSN. As a result of all this, it's just about possible that _bt_killitems will set the wrong items LP_DEAD (on release branches). This could only happen with merge joins (the sole user of nbtree mark/restore support), when a concurrently inserted index tuple used a recently-recycled TID (and only when the new tuple was inserted onto the same page as a distinct concurrently-removed tuple with the same TID). This is exactly the scenario that _bt_killitems' check of the page's now-current LSN against the LSN stashed in currPos was supposed to prevent. A follow-up commit will make nbtree completely stop conditioning whether or not a position's pin needs to be dropped on whether the 'buf' field is set. All call sites that might need to drop a still-held pin will be taught to rely on the scan-level so->dropPin field recently introduced by commit e6eed40. That will make bugs of the same general nature as this one impossible (or make them much easier to detect, at least). Author: Peter Geoghegan <pg@bowt.ie> Reported-By: Alexander Lakhin <exclusion@gmail.com> Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/545be1e5-3786-439a-9257-a90d30f8b849@gmail.com Backpatch-through: 13
diff --git a/src/backend/access/nbtree/nbtutils.c b/src/backend/access/nbtree/nbtutils.c
@@ -1713,9 +1713,9 @@ _bt_check_rowcompare(ScanKey skey, IndexTuple tuple, int tupnatts,
  * current page and killed tuples thereon (generally, this should only be
  * called if so->numKilled > 0).
  *
- * The caller does not have a lock on the page and may or may not have the
- * page pinned in a buffer.  Note that read-lock is sufficient for setting
- * LP_DEAD status (which is only a hint).
+ * Caller should not have a lock on the so->currPos page, but may hold a
+ * buffer pin.  When we return, it still won't be locked.  It'll continue to
+ * hold whatever pins were held before calling here.
  *
  * We match items by heap TID before assuming they are the right ones to
  * delete.  We cope with cases where items have moved right due to insertions.
@@ -1747,7 +1747,8 @@ _bt_killitems(IndexScanDesc scan)
 	int			i;
 	int			numKilled = so->numKilled;
 	bool		killedsomething = false;
-	bool		droppedpin PG_USED_FOR_ASSERTS_ONLY;
+	bool		droppedpin;
+	Buffer		buf;
 
 	Assert(BTScanPosIsValid(so->currPos));
 
@@ -1766,29 +1767,31 @@ _bt_killitems(IndexScanDesc scan)
 		 * LSN.
 		 */
 		droppedpin = false;
-		_bt_lockbuf(scan->indexRelation, so->currPos.buf, BT_READ);
-
-		page = BufferGetPage(so->currPos.buf);
+		buf = so->currPos.buf;
+		_bt_lockbuf(scan->indexRelation, buf, BT_READ);
 	}
 	else
 	{
-		Buffer		buf;
+		XLogRecPtr	latestlsn;
 
 		droppedpin = true;
 		/* Attempt to re-read the buffer, getting pin and lock. */
 		buf = _bt_getbuf(scan->indexRelation, so->currPos.currPage, BT_READ);
 
-		page = BufferGetPage(buf);
-		if (BufferGetLSNAtomic(buf) == so->currPos.lsn)
-			so->currPos.buf = buf;
-		else
+		latestlsn = BufferGetLSNAtomic(buf);
+		Assert(!XLogRecPtrIsInvalid(so->currPos.lsn));
+		Assert(so->currPos.lsn <= latestlsn);
+		if (so->currPos.lsn != latestlsn)
 		{
 			/* Modified while not pinned means hinting is not safe. */
 			_bt_relbuf(scan->indexRelation, buf);
 			return;
 		}
+
+		/* Unmodified, hinting is safe */
 	}
 
+	page = BufferGetPage(buf);
 	opaque = BTPageGetOpaque(page);
 	minoff = P_FIRSTDATAKEY(opaque);
 	maxoff = PageGetMaxOffsetNumber(page);
@@ -1905,10 +1908,13 @@ _bt_killitems(IndexScanDesc scan)
 	if (killedsomething)
 	{
 		opaque->btpo_flags |= BTP_HAS_GARBAGE;
-		MarkBufferDirtyHint(so->currPos.buf, true);
+		MarkBufferDirtyHint(buf, true);
 	}
 
-	_bt_unlockbuf(scan->indexRelation, so->currPos.buf);
+	if (!droppedpin)
+		_bt_unlockbuf(scan->indexRelation, buf);
+	else
+		_bt_relbuf(scan->indexRelation, buf);
 }
 
 
