Re: Cross-backend signals and administration (Was: Re: pg_terminate_backend for same-role)

On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 18:48, Daniel Farina <daniel@heroku.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 20, 2012 at 10:13 AM, Tom Lane <tgl@sss.pgh.pa.us> wrote:
>> Robert Haas <robertmhaas@gmail.com> writes:
>>> Maybe we should just not worry about this.
>>
>> That's been my reaction right along.  There's no evidence that PID
>> recycling is a problem in the real world.
>
> I'm entirely willing to acquiesce to that point of view.  I only
> thought this was the blocker as to why pg_terminate_backend was left
> out of the pg_cancel_backend patch.

Late back into this thread.

I wasn't aware that was the reason there. I think it was the general
"leftovers" from previous times. When we first created
pg_terminate_backend() there was a general thought that it might not
be safe to just SIGTERM a backend to make it quit. A bunch of fixes
were put in place to make it more safe, but I'm not sure anybody
actually declared it fully safe. And I think it's a lot of legacy from
that time that just steers people towards the baby-steps approach.

I'm not sure - perhaps we're past that worry these days?

--
 Magnus Hagander
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