Files
neon/pageserver
Arpad Müller 6149ac8834 Handle race between auto-offload and unarchival (#10305)
## Problem

Auto-offloading as requested by the compaction task is racy with
unarchival, in that the compaction task might attempt to offload an
unarchived timeline. By that point it will already have set the timeline
to the `Stopping` state however, which makes it unusable for any
purpose. For example:

1. compaction task decides to offload timeline
2. timeline gets unarchived
3. `offload_timeline` gets called by compaction task
  * sets timeline's state to `Stopping`
  * realizes that the timeline can't be unarchived, errors out
6. endpoint can't be started as the timeline is `Stopping` and thus
'can't be found'.

A future iteration of the compaction task can't "heal" this state either
as the timeline will still not be archived, same goes for other
automatic stuff. The only way to heal this is a tenant detach+attach, or
alternatively a pageserver restart.

Furthermore, the compaction task is especially amenable for such races
as it first stores `can_offload` into a variable, figures out whether
compaction is needed (which takes some time), and only then does it
attempt an offload operation: the time difference between "check" and
"use" is non-trivially small.

To make it even worse, we start the compaction task right after attach
of a tenant, and it is a common pattern by pageserver users to attach a
tenant to then immediately unarchive a timeline, so that an endpoint can
be started.

## Solutions not adopted

The simplest solution is to move the `can_offload` check to right before
attempting of the offload. But this is not a good solution, as no lock
is held between that check and timeline shutdown. So races would still
be possible, just become less likely.

I explored using the timeline state for this, as in adding an additional
enum variant. But `Timeline::set_state` is racy (#10297).

## Adopted solution

We use the lock on the timeline's upload queue as an arbiter: either
unarchival gets to it first and sours the state for auto-offloading, or
auto-offloading shuts it down, which stops any parallel unarchival in
its tracks. The key part is not releasing the upload queue's lock
between the check whether the timeline is archived or not, and shutting
it down (the actual implementation only sets `shutting_down` but it has
the same effect on `initialized_mut()` as a full shutdown). The rest of
the patch is stuff that follows from this.

We also move the part where we set the state to `Stopping` to after that
arbiter has decided the fate of the timeline. For deletions, we do keep
it inside `DeleteTimelineFlow::prepare` however, so that it is called
with all of the the timelines locks held that the function allocates
(timelines lock most importantly). This is only a precautionary measure
however, as I didn't want to analyze deletion related code for possible
races.

## Future changes

It might make sense to move `can_offload` to right before the offload
attempt. Maybe some other properties might have changed as well.
Although this will not be perfect either as no lock is held. I want to
keep it out of this change to emphasize that this move wasn't the main
reason we are race free now.

Fixes #10220
2025-01-09 20:41:49 +00:00
..