Re: Support logical replication of DDLs

On 7/22/22 17:18, Zheng Li wrote:
> Here is a patch that supports replication of global object commands,
> these include ROLE statements, database statements and tablespace statements.
> The patch should be applied on top of the v13 DDL replication patch set that
> ZJ Hou sent in the previous email.
> 
> Global objects commands are different from other DDL commands in
> that:
> 1. Global objects commands are allowed to be executed in any databases
> 2. Global objects are not schema qualified
> 2. Global objects commands are not captured by event triggers
> 
> This patch supports global objects commands replication by WAL
> logging the command using the same function for DDL logging -
> LogLogicalDDLMessage, towards the end of standard_ProcessUtility.
> Because global objects are not schema qualified, we can skip the deparser
> invocation and directly log the original command string for replay on
> the subscriber.

I have not looked at the patch but +1 for the general concept. Seems 
like you might want to start a separate thread, perhaps after the 
currently running commitfest is over.

> A key problem is global objects can get inconsistent between the
> publisher and the subscriber if a command changes the global object
> in a database (on the source side) which doesn't configure logical replication.
> I think we can work on the following directions in order to avoid such
> inconsistency:
> 
> 1. Introduce a publication option for global objects command replication
> and document that logical replication of global objects commands is preferred
> to be configured on all databases. Otherwise inconsistency can happen
> if a command changes the global object in a database which doesn't configure
> logical replication.
> 
> 2. Introduce database cluster level logical replication to avoid
> such inconsistency, this is especially handy when there is a large
> number of databases to configure for logical replication.

I would strongly favor #2, although I admittedly have no idea what 
complexities it adds.

-- 
Joe Conway
RDS Open Source Databases
Amazon Web Services: https://aws.amazon.com