Fix race condition in 028_pitr_timelines.pl test, add note to docs.

The 028_pitr_timelines.pl test would sometimes hang, waiting for a WAL
segment that was just filled up to be archived. It was because the
test used 'pg_stat_archiver.last_archived_wal' to check if a file was
archived, but the order that WAL files are archived when a standby is
promoted is not fully deterministic, and 'last_archived_wal' tracks
the last segment that was archived, not the highest-numbered WAL
segment. Because of that, if the archiver archived segment 3, and then
2, 'last_archived_wal' say 2, and the test query would think that 3
has not been archived yet.

Normally, WAL files are marked ready for archival in order, and the
archiver process will process them in order, so that issue doesn't
arise.  We have used the same query on 'last_archived_wal' in a few
other tests with no problem. But when a standby is promoted, things
are a bit chaotic. After promotion, the server will try to archive all
the WAL segments from the old timeline that are in pg_wal, as well as
the history file and any new WAL segments on the new timeline. The
end-of-recovery checkpoint will create the .ready files for all the
WAL files on the old timeline, but at the same time, the new timeline
is opened up for business. A file from the new timeline can therefore
be archived before the files from the old timeline have been marked as
ready for archival.

It turns out that we don't really need to wait for the archival in
this particular test, because the standby server is about to be
stopped, and stopping a server will wait for the end-of-recovery
checkpoint and all WAL archivals to finish, anyway. So we can just
remove it from the test.

Add a note to the docs on 'pg_stat_archiver' view that files can be
archived out of order.

Reviewed-by: Tom Lane
Discussion: https://www.postgresql.org/message-id/3186114.1644960507@sss.pgh.pa.us

2 files changed, 15 insertions, 15 deletions

diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/monitoring.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/monitoring.sgml
index 62f2a3332bd..bf7625d9889 100644
--- a/doc/src/sgml/monitoring.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/monitoring.sgml
@@ -3422,7 +3422,7 @@ SELECT pid, wait_event_type, wait_event FROM pg_stat_activity WHERE wait_event i
        <structfield>last_archived_wal</structfield> <type>text</type>
       </para>
       <para>
-       Name of the last WAL file successfully archived
+       Name of the WAL file most recently successfully archived
       </para></entry>
      </row>
 
@@ -3431,7 +3431,7 @@ SELECT pid, wait_event_type, wait_event FROM pg_stat_activity WHERE wait_event i
        <structfield>last_archived_time</structfield> <type>timestamp with time zone</type>
       </para>
       <para>
-       Time of the last successful archive operation
+       Time of the most recent successful archive operation
       </para></entry>
      </row>
 
@@ -3449,7 +3449,7 @@ SELECT pid, wait_event_type, wait_event FROM pg_stat_activity WHERE wait_event i
        <structfield>last_failed_wal</structfield> <type>text</type>
       </para>
       <para>
-       Name of the WAL file of the last failed archival operation
+       Name of the WAL file of the most recent failed archival operation
       </para></entry>
      </row>
 
@@ -3458,7 +3458,7 @@ SELECT pid, wait_event_type, wait_event FROM pg_stat_activity WHERE wait_event i
        <structfield>last_failed_time</structfield> <type>timestamp with time zone</type>
       </para>
       <para>
-       Time of the last failed archival operation
+       Time of the most recent failed archival operation
       </para></entry>
      </row>
 
@@ -3474,6 +3474,15 @@ SELECT pid, wait_event_type, wait_event FROM pg_stat_activity WHERE wait_event i
    </tgroup>
   </table>
 
+  <para>
+    Normally, WAL files are archived in order, oldest to newest, but that is
+    not guaranteed, and does not hold under special circumstances like when
+    promoting a standby or after crash recovery. Therefore it is not safe to
+    assume that all files older than
+    <structfield>last_archived_wal</structfield> have also been successfully
+    archived.
+  </para>
+
  </sect2>
 
  <sect2 id="monitoring-pg-stat-bgwriter-view">
diff --git a/src/test/recovery/t/028_pitr_timelines.pl b/src/test/recovery/t/028_pitr_timelines.pl
index c0b76fe37b2..a8b12d9af6e 100644
--- a/src/test/recovery/t/028_pitr_timelines.pl
+++ b/src/test/recovery/t/028_pitr_timelines.pl
@@ -36,7 +36,6 @@ use File::Compare;
 # Initialize and start primary node with WAL archiving
 my $node_primary = PostgreSQL::Test::Cluster->new('primary');
 $node_primary->init(has_archiving => 1, allows_streaming => 1);
-$node_primary->append_conf('postgresql.conf', 'log_min_messages=debug1');
 $node_primary->start;
 
 # Take a backup.
@@ -70,7 +69,6 @@ $node_standby->init_from_backup(
 	has_archiving => 1,
 	has_restoring => 0);
 $node_standby->append_conf('postgresql.conf', 'archive_mode = always');
-$node_standby->append_conf('postgresql.conf', 'log_min_messages=debug1');
 $node_standby->start;
 $node_primary->wait_for_catchup($node_standby);
 
@@ -93,15 +91,8 @@ my $walfile_to_be_archived = $node_standby->safe_psql('postgres',
 # Make WAL segment eligible for archival
 $node_standby->safe_psql('postgres', 'SELECT pg_switch_wal()');
 
-# Wait until the WAL segment has been archived.
-my $archive_wait_query =
-  "SELECT '$walfile_to_be_archived' <= last_archived_wal FROM pg_stat_archiver;";
-$node_standby->poll_query_until('postgres', $archive_wait_query)
-  or die "Timed out while waiting for WAL segment to be archived";
-my $last_archived_wal_file = $walfile_to_be_archived;
-
-# Ok, the standby has now archived the WAL on timeline 2.  We don't
-# need the standby anymore.
+# We don't need the standby anymore, request shutdown. The server will
+# finish archiving all the WAL on timeline 2 before it exits.
 $node_standby->stop;
 
 # Contents of the WAL archive at this point: