Refactor updating relation size cache on reads (#7376)

Instead of trusting that a request with latest == true means that the
request LSN was at least last_record_lsn, remember explicitly when the
relation cache was initialized.

Incidentally, this allows updating the relation size cache also on reads
from read-only endpoints, when the endpoint is at a relatively recent
LSN (more recent than the end of the timeline when the timeline was
loaded in the pageserver).

Add a comment to wait_or_get_last_lsn() that it might be better to use
an older LSN when possible. Note that doing that would be unsafe,
without the relation cache changes in this commit!

pageserver/src/page_service.rs

@@ -874,6 +874,11 @@ impl PageServerHandler {
             // walsender completes the authentication and starts streaming the
             // WAL.
             if lsn <= last_record_lsn {
+                // It might be better to use max(lsn, latest_gc_cutoff_lsn) instead
+                // last_record_lsn. That would give the same result, since we know
+                // that there haven't been modifications since 'lsn'. Using an older
+                // LSN might be faster, because that could allow skipping recent
+                // layers when finding the page.
                 lsn = last_record_lsn;
             } else {
                 timeline

pageserver/src/pgdatadir_mapping.rs

@@ -252,16 +252,8 @@ impl Timeline {
         let mut buf = version.get(self, key, ctx).await?;
         let nblocks = buf.get_u32_le();
 
-        if latest {
-            // Update relation size cache only if "latest" flag is set.
-            // This flag is set by compute when it is working with most recent version of relation.
-            // Typically master compute node always set latest=true.
-            // Please notice, that even if compute node "by mistake" specifies old LSN but set
-            // latest=true, then it can not cause cache corruption, because with latest=true
-            // pageserver choose max(request_lsn, last_written_lsn) and so cached value will be
-            // associated with most recent value of LSN.
-            self.update_cached_rel_size(tag, version.get_lsn(), nblocks);
-        }
+        self.update_cached_rel_size(tag, version.get_lsn(), nblocks);
+
         Ok(nblocks)
     }
 
@@ -817,7 +809,7 @@ impl Timeline {
     /// Get cached size of relation if it not updated after specified LSN
     pub fn get_cached_rel_size(&self, tag: &RelTag, lsn: Lsn) -> Option<BlockNumber> {
         let rel_size_cache = self.rel_size_cache.read().unwrap();
-        if let Some((cached_lsn, nblocks)) = rel_size_cache.get(tag) {
+        if let Some((cached_lsn, nblocks)) = rel_size_cache.map.get(tag) {
             if lsn >= *cached_lsn {
                 return Some(*nblocks);
             }
@@ -828,7 +820,16 @@ impl Timeline {
     /// Update cached relation size if there is no more recent update
     pub fn update_cached_rel_size(&self, tag: RelTag, lsn: Lsn, nblocks: BlockNumber) {
         let mut rel_size_cache = self.rel_size_cache.write().unwrap();
-        match rel_size_cache.entry(tag) {
+
+        if lsn < rel_size_cache.complete_as_of {
+            // Do not cache old values. It's safe to cache the size on read, as long as
+            // the read was at an LSN since we started the WAL ingestion. Reasoning: we
+            // never evict values from the cache, so if the relation size changed after
+            // 'lsn', the new value is already in the cache.
+            return;
+        }
+
+        match rel_size_cache.map.entry(tag) {
             hash_map::Entry::Occupied(mut entry) => {
                 let cached_lsn = entry.get_mut();
                 if lsn >= cached_lsn.0 {
@@ -844,13 +845,13 @@ impl Timeline {
     /// Store cached relation size
     pub fn set_cached_rel_size(&self, tag: RelTag, lsn: Lsn, nblocks: BlockNumber) {
         let mut rel_size_cache = self.rel_size_cache.write().unwrap();
-        rel_size_cache.insert(tag, (lsn, nblocks));
+        rel_size_cache.map.insert(tag, (lsn, nblocks));
     }
 
     /// Remove cached relation size
     pub fn remove_cached_rel_size(&self, tag: &RelTag) {
         let mut rel_size_cache = self.rel_size_cache.write().unwrap();
-        rel_size_cache.remove(tag);
+        rel_size_cache.map.remove(tag);
     }
 }
 

pageserver/src/tenant/timeline.rs

@@ -182,6 +182,16 @@ pub(crate) struct AuxFilesState {
     pub(crate) n_deltas: usize,
 }
 
+/// The relation size cache caches relation sizes at the end of the timeline. It speeds up WAL
+/// ingestion considerably, because WAL ingestion needs to check on most records if the record
+/// implicitly extends the relation.  At startup, `complete_as_of` is initialized to the current end
+/// of the timeline (disk_consistent_lsn).  It's used on reads of relation sizes to check if the
+/// value can be used to also update the cache, see [`Timeline::update_cached_rel_size`].
+pub(crate) struct RelSizeCache {
+    pub(crate) complete_as_of: Lsn,
+    pub(crate) map: HashMap<RelTag, (Lsn, BlockNumber)>,
+}
+
 pub struct Timeline {
     conf: &'static PageServerConf,
     tenant_conf: Arc<ArcSwap<AttachedTenantConf>>,
@@ -324,7 +334,7 @@ pub struct Timeline {
     pub walreceiver: Mutex<Option<WalReceiver>>,
 
     /// Relation size cache
-    pub rel_size_cache: RwLock<HashMap<RelTag, (Lsn, BlockNumber)>>,
+    pub(crate) rel_size_cache: RwLock<RelSizeCache>,
 
     download_all_remote_layers_task_info: RwLock<Option<DownloadRemoteLayersTaskInfo>>,
 
@@ -1951,7 +1961,10 @@ impl Timeline {
                 last_image_layer_creation_check_at: AtomicLsn::new(0),
 
                 last_received_wal: Mutex::new(None),
-                rel_size_cache: RwLock::new(HashMap::new()),
+                rel_size_cache: RwLock::new(RelSizeCache {
+                    complete_as_of: disk_consistent_lsn,
+                    map: HashMap::new(),
+                }),
 
                 download_all_remote_layers_task_info: RwLock::new(None),