Design notes for BufMgrLock rewrite - Mailing list pgsql-hackers

I'm working on an experimental patch to break up the BufMgrLock along
the lines we discussed a few days ago --- in particular, using a clock
sweep algorithm instead of LRU lists for the buffer replacement strategy.
I started by writing up some design notes, which are attached for
review in case anyone has better ideas.

One thing I realized quickly is that there is no natural way in a clock
algorithm to discourage VACUUM from blowing out the cache.  I came up
with a slightly ugly idea that's described below.  Can anyone do better?
        regards, tom lane


Buffer manager's internal locking
---------------------------------

Before PostgreSQL 8.1, all operations of the shared buffer manager itself
were protected by a single system-wide lock, the BufMgrLock, which
unsurprisingly proved to be a source of contention.  The new locking scheme
avoids grabbing system-wide exclusive locks in common code paths.  It works
like this:

* There is a system-wide LWLock, the BufMappingLock, that notionally
protects the mapping from buffer tags (page identifiers) to buffers.
(Physically, it can be thought of as protecting the hash table maintained
by buf_table.c.)  To look up whether a buffer exists for a tag, it is
sufficient to obtain share lock on the BufMappingLock.  Note that one
must pin the found buffer, if any, before releasing the BufMappingLock.
To alter the page assignment of any buffer, one must hold exclusive lock
on the BufMappingLock.  This lock must be held across adjusting the buffer's
header fields and changing the buf_table hash table.  The only common
operation that needs exclusive lock is reading in a page that was not
in shared buffers already, which will require at least a kernel call
and usually a wait for I/O, so it will be slow anyway.

* A separate system-wide LWLock, the BufFreelistLock, provides mutual
exclusion for operations that access the buffer free list or select
buffers for replacement.  This is always taken in exclusive mode since
there are no read-only operations on those data structures.  The buffer
management policy is designed so that BufFreelistLock need not be taken
except in paths that will require I/O, and thus will be slow anyway.
(Details appear below.)  It is never necessary to hold the BufMappingLock
and the BufFreelistLock at the same time.

* Each buffer header contains a spinlock that must be taken when examining
or changing fields of that buffer header.  This allows operations such as
ReleaseBuffer to make local state changes without taking any system-wide
lock.  We use a spinlock, not an LWLock, since there are no cases where
the lock needs to be held for more than a few instructions.

Note that a buffer header's spinlock does not control access to the data
held within the buffer.  Each buffer header also contains an LWLock, the
"buffer context lock", that *does* represent the right to access the data
in the buffer.  It is used per the rules above.

There is yet another set of per-buffer LWLocks, the io_in_progress locks,
that are used to wait for I/O on a buffer to complete.  The process doing
a read or write takes exclusive lock for the duration, and processes that
need to wait for completion try to take shared locks (which they release
immediately upon obtaining).  XXX on systems where an LWLock represents
nontrivial resources, it's fairly annoying to need so many locks.  Possibly
we could use per-backend LWLocks instead (a buffer header would then contain
a field to show which backend is doing its I/O).


Buffer replacement strategy
---------------------------

There is a "free list" of buffers that are prime candidates for replacement.
In particular, buffers that are completely free (contain no valid page) are
always in this list.  We may also throw buffers into this list if we
consider their pages unlikely to be needed soon.  The list is singly-linked
using fields in the buffer headers; we maintain head and tail pointers in
global variables.  (Note: although the list links are in the buffer headers,
they are considered to be protected by the BufFreelistLock, not the
buffer-header spinlocks.)  To choose a victim buffer to recycle when there
are no free buffers available, we use a simple clock-sweep algorithm, which
avoids the need to take system-wide locks during common operations.  It
works like this:

Each buffer header contains a "recently used" flag bit, which is set true
whenever the buffer is unpinned.  (Setting this bit requires only the
buffer header spinlock, which would have to be taken anyway to decrement
the buffer reference count, so it's nearly free.)

The "clock hand" is a buffer index, NextVictimBuffer, that moves circularly
through all the available buffers.  NextVictimBuffer is protected by the
BufFreelistLock.

The algorithm for a process that needs to obtain a victim buffer is:

1. Obtain BufFreelistLock.

2. If buffer free list is nonempty, remove its head buffer.  If the buffer
is pinned or has its "recently used" bit set, it cannot be used; ignore
it and return to the start of step 2.  Otherwise, pin the buffer,
release BufFreelistLock, and return the buffer.

3. Otherwise, select the buffer pointed to by NextVictimBuffer, and
circularly advance NextVictimBuffer for next time.

4. If the selected buffer is pinned or has its "recently used" bit set,
it cannot be used.  Clear its "recently used" bit and return to step 3
to examine the next buffer.

5. Pin the selected buffer, release BufFreelistLock, and return the buffer.

(Note that if the selected buffer is dirty, we will have to write it out
before we recycle it; if someone else pins the buffer meanwhile we will
have to give up and try another buffer.  This however is not a concern
of the basic select-a-victim-buffer algorithm.)

This scheme selects only victim buffers that have gone unused since they
were last passed over by the "clock hand".

A special provision is that while running VACUUM, a backend does not set the
"recently used" bit on buffers it accesses.  In fact, if ReleaseBuffer sees
that it is dropping the pin count to zero and the "recently used" bit is not
set, then it appends the buffer to the tail of the free list.  (This implies
that VACUUM, but only VACUUM, must take the BufFreelistLock during
ReleaseBuffer; this shouldn't create much of a contention problem.)  This
provision encourages VACUUM to work in a relatively small number of buffers
rather than blowing out the entire buffer cache.  It is reasonable since a
page that has been touched only by VACUUM is unlikely to be needed again
soon.

Since VACUUM usually requests many pages very fast, the effect of this is that
it will get back the very buffers it filled and possibly modified on the next
call and will therefore do its work in a few shared memory buffers, while
being able to use whatever it finds in the cache already.  This also implies
that most of the write traffic caused by a VACUUM will be done by the VACUUM
itself and not pushed off onto other processes.