From 7582b6ca4a8e03a5fc6177aec1080262e2c875cb Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001
From: David Fetter <david@fetter.org>
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 2010 02:13:02 +0000
Subject: [PATCH] PostgreSQL Weekly News April 25, 2010

git-svn-id: file:///Users/dpage/pgweb/svn-repo/trunk@2664 8f5c7a92-453e-0410-a47f-ad33c8a6b003
---
 portal/files/weeklynews.xml                   |  21 +-
 portal/template/en/community/weeklynews.html  |   1 +
 .../en/community/weeklynews/pwn20100425.html  | 408 ++++++++++++++++++
 3 files changed, 419 insertions(+), 11 deletions(-)
 create mode 100644 portal/template/en/community/weeklynews/pwn20100425.html

diff --git a/portal/files/weeklynews.xml b/portal/files/weeklynews.xml
index 6428d16f..b8a457f3 100644
--- a/portal/files/weeklynews.xml
+++ b/portal/files/weeklynews.xml
@@ -10,6 +10,16 @@
 <description></description>
 <language>en</language>
 
+<item>
+<title>PostgreSQL Weekly News April 25th 2010</title>
+<description>
+SEAPUG and PDXPUG will be staffing a booth at LFNW - stop by!
+
+
+</description>
+<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.postgresql.org/community/weeklynews/pwn20100425</guid>
+<pubDate>Sun, 25 Apr 2010 00:00:00 PST</pubDate>
+</item>
 <item>
 <title>PostgreSQL Weekly News April 18th 2010</title>
 <description>
@@ -115,16 +125,5 @@ information below.
 <guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.postgresql.org/community/weeklynews/pwn20100228</guid>
 <pubDate>Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:00:00 PST</pubDate>
 </item>
-<item>
-<title>PostgreSQL Weekly News February 21st 2010</title>
-<description>
-The final commitfest for 9.0 is winding down.  Thanks to all the
-reviewers, etc., who are participating.
-
-
-</description>
-<guid isPermaLink="true">http://www.postgresql.org/community/weeklynews/pwn20100221</guid>
-<pubDate>Sun, 21 Feb 2010 00:00:00 PST</pubDate>
-</item>
 </channel>
 </rss>
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews.html b/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews.html
index 57941023..f3e1c909 100644
--- a/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews.html
+++ b/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews.html
@@ -9,6 +9,7 @@ Weekly News
 <p>To receive the Weekly News in your inbox, please subscribe to the <a href="/community/lists/subscribe">pgsql-announce@postgresql.org</a> mailing list.</p>
 
 <ul>
+    <li><a href="/community/weeklynews/pwn20100425">April 25th 2010</a></li>
     <li><a href="/community/weeklynews/pwn20100418">April 18th 2010</a></li>
     <li><a href="/community/weeklynews/pwn20100411">April 11th 2010</a></li>
     <li><a href="/community/weeklynews/pwn20100404">April 4th 2010</a></li>
diff --git a/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews/pwn20100425.html b/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews/pwn20100425.html
new file mode 100644
index 00000000..0ab4718f
--- /dev/null
+++ b/portal/template/en/community/weeklynews/pwn20100425.html
@@ -0,0 +1,408 @@
+<!-- BEGIN page_title_block -->
+Weekly News - April 25 2010
+<!-- END page_title_block -->
+
+<h1>PostgreSQL Weekly News - April 25 2010</h1>
+
+<p>
+SEAPUG and PDXPUG will be staffing a booth at LFNW - stop by!
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon Riggs and Hannu Krosing will be speaking about PostgreSQL at
+"Pycon Italia 4" (the Italian Python conference) in Florence, Italy,
+on May 8 and 9, 2010.
+<a href="http://www.pycon.it/">http://www.pycon.it/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Registration for PGCon 2010 is open.  Rooms fill up fast, so if you're
+going, act soon.
+<a href="http://www.pgcon.org/2010/registration.php">http://www.pgcon.org/2010/registration.php</a>
+</p>
+
+<h2>PostgreSQL Product News</h2>
+<p>
+PostgreSQL Maestro 10.4, a GUI for PostgreSQL administration
+development on Windows, released.
+<a href="http://www.sqlmaestro.com/products/postgresql/maestro/">http://www.sqlmaestro.com/products/postgresql/maestro/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+DBD::Pg 2.17.0, a Perl connector for PostgreSQL, released.
+<a href="http://search.cpan.org/dist/DBD-Pg/">http://search.cpan.org/dist/DBD-Pg/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+pgpool-II 2.3.3, a connection pooler and more, released.
+<a href="http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pgpool/">http://pgfoundry.org/projects/pgpool/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+piggly 1.2.0, a PL/pgsql code coverage tool, released.
+<a href="http://github.com/kputnam/piggly">http://github.com/kputnam/piggly</a>
+</p>
+
+<h2>PostgreSQL 9.0 Feature of the Week</h2>
+<p>
+Functions can now have default values for parameters.
+</p>
+
+<h2>PostgreSQL Jobs for April</h2>
+<p>
+<a href="http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-jobs/2010-04/threads.php">http://archives.postgresql.org/pgsql-jobs/2010-04/threads.php</a>
+</p>
+
+<h2>PostgreSQL Local</h2>
+<p>
+The CfP is open for CHAR(10) in Oxford, England on July 1-3 2010.
+Proposals are due April 20.
+<a href="http://www.char10.org">http://www.char10.org</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bruce Momjian will be speaking about PostgreSQL Replication Solutions
+at the NYPUG meeting on April 20th at 6:30-8:30pm at Penn Plaza.
+Details and RSVP below.
+<a href="http://postgresql.meetup.com/3/calendar/12788352/">http://postgresql.meetup.com/3/calendar/12788352/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Linuxfest Northwest 2010 will take place in Bellingham, Washington,
+USA on April 24 and 25.  Session, Booth and Sponsorship are available.
+<a href="http://linuxfestnorthwest.org/">http://linuxfestnorthwest.org/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Andreas (ads) Scherbaum will be teaching a "PostgreSQL for Corporate
+Use" course at the adult education center in Magdeburg, Germany May
+3-7, 2010.  Details below:
+<a href="http://andreas.scherbaum.la/blog/archives/650-PostgreSQL-Schulung-als-Bildungsurlaub-03.-07.05.2010-in-Magdeburg.html">http://andreas.scherbaum.la/blog/archives/650-PostgreSQL-Schulung-als-Bildungsurlaub-03.-07.05.2010-in-Magdeburg.html</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PgCon 2010 will be held May 20-21 2010 in Ottawa with tutorials before
+on the 18th and 19th.
+<a href="http://www.pgcon.org/2010/registration.php">http://www.pgcon.org/2010/registration.php</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+The CfP for OSBridge is open!  OSBridge will be June 1-4, 2010 in
+Portland, Oregon.
+<a href="http://opensourcebridge.org/events/2010/proposals/">http://opensourcebridge.org/events/2010/proposals/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Michael Renner will be speaking at AMOOCON, which goes from June 4-6, 2010.
+<a href="http://www.amoocon.de/speakers/214">http://www.amoocon.de/speakers/214</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Southeast Linuxfest 2010 will take place in Spartanburg, SC, USA on
+June 12-13.  Booths and sponsorships are still available.
+<a href="http://southeastlinuxfest.org/">http://southeastlinuxfest.org/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+OSCON will take place in Portland, Oregon July 19-23, 2010.
+<a href="http://www.oscon.com/oscon2010">http://www.oscon.com/oscon2010</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+
+== PostgreSQL in the News ==
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Planet PostgreSQL: <a href="http://planet.postgresql.org/">http://planet.postgresql.org/</a>
+</p>
+
+<p>
+PostgreSQL Weekly News is brought to you this week by David Fetter
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Submit news and announcements by Sunday at 3:00pm Pacific time.
+Please send English language ones to david@fetter.org, German language
+to pwn@pgug.de, Italian language to pwn@itpug.org.  Spanish language
+to pwn@arpug.com.ar.
+</p>
+
+<h2>Applied Patches</h2>
+<p>
+Magnus Hagander committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Add wrapper function libpqrcv_PQexec() in the walreceiver that uses
+  async libpq to send queries, making the waiting for responses
+  interruptible on platforms where PQexec() can't normally be
+  interrupted by signals, such as win32.  Fujii Masao and Magnus
+  Hagander.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Tom Lane committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/access/nbtree/nbtxlog.c, fix uninitialized
+  local variables.  Not sure why gcc doesn't complain about these ---
+  maybe because they're effectively unused?  MSVC does complain
+  though, per buildfarm.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Move the responsibility for calling StartupXLOG into InitPostgres,
+  for those process types that go through InitPostgres; in particular,
+  bootstrap and standalone-backend cases.  This ensures that we have
+  set up a PGPROC and done some other basic initialization steps
+  (corresponding to the if (IsUnderPostmaster) block in
+  AuxiliaryProcessMain) before we attempt to run WAL recovery in a
+  standalone backend.  As was discovered last September, this is
+  necessary for some corner-case code paths during WAL recovery,
+  particularly end-of-WAL cleanup.  Moving the bootstrap case here too
+  is not necessary for correctness, but it seems like a good idea
+  since it reduces the number of distinct code paths.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/replication/walreceiver.c, fix code that
+  doesn't work on machines with strict alignment requirements: must
+  use memcpy here rather than struct assignment.  In passing,
+  rearrange some randomly-ordered declarations to be a tad less
+  random.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Arrange for client authentication to occur before we select a
+  specific database to connect to. This is necessary for the walsender
+  code to work properly (it was previously using an untenable
+  assumption that template1 would always be available to connect to).
+  This also gets rid of a small security shortcoming that was
+  introduced in the original patch to eliminate the flat
+  authentication files: before, you could find out whether or not the
+  requested database existed even if you couldn't pass the
+  authentication checks.  The changes needed to support this are
+  mainly just to treat pg_authid and pg_auth_members as nailed
+  relations, so that we can read them without having to be able to
+  locate real pg_class entries for them.  This mechanism was already
+  debugged for pg_database, but we hadn't recognized the value of
+  applying it to those catalogs too.  Since the current code doesn't
+  have support for accessing toast tables before we've brought up all
+  of the relcache, remove pg_authid's toast table to ensure that no
+  one can store an out-of-line toasted value of rolpassword.  The case
+  seems quite unlikely to occur in practice, and was effectively
+  unsupported anyway in the old "flatfiles" implementation.  Update
+  genbki.pl to actually implement the same rules as bootstrap.c does
+  for not-nullability of catalog columns.  The previous coding was a
+  bit cheesy but worked all right for the previous set of bootstrap
+  catalogs.  It does not work for pg_authid, where rolvaliduntil needs
+  to be nullable.  Initdb forced due to minor catalog changes (mainly
+  the toast table removal).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Move the check for whether walreceiver has authenticated as a
+  superuser from walsender.c, where it didn't really belong, to
+  postinit.c where it does belong (and is essentially free, too).
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Fix pg_hba.conf matching so that replication connections only match
+  records with database = replication.  The previous coding would
+  allow them to match ordinary records too, but that seems like a
+  recipe for security breaches.  Improve the messages associated with
+  no-such-pg_hba.conf entry to report replication connections as such,
+  since that's now a critical aspect of whether the connection
+  matches.  Make some cursory improvements in the related
+  documentation, too.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Enforce superuser permissions checks during ALTER ROLE/DATABASE SET,
+  rather than during define_custom_variable().  This entails rejecting
+  an ALTER command if the target variable doesn't have a known
+  (non-placeholder) definition, unless the calling user is superuser.
+  When the variable *is* known, we can correctly apply the rule that
+  only superusers can issue ALTER for SUSET parameters.  This allows
+  define_custom_variable to apply ALTER's values for SUSET parameters
+  at module load time, secure in the knowledge that only a superuser
+  could have set the ALTER value.  This change fixes a longstanding
+  gotcha in the usage of SUSET-level custom parameters; which is a
+  good thing to fix now that plpgsql defines such a parameter.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon Riggs committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/storage/ipc/procarray.c, check
+  RecoveryInProgress() while holding ProcArrayLock during snapshots.
+  This prevents a rare, yet possible race condition at the exact
+  moment of transition from recovery to normal running.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Add new message for explicit rejection by pg_hba.conf.  Implicit
+  rejection retains same message as before.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Fix oversight in collecting values for cleanup_info records.
+  vacuum_log_cleanup_info() now generates log records with a valid
+  latestRemovedXid set in all cases.  Also be careful not to zero the
+  value when we do a round of vacuuming part-way through
+  lazy_scan_heap().  Incidentally, this reduces frequency of conflicts
+  in Hot Standby.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Relax locking during GetCurrentVirtualXIDs().  Earlier improvements
+  to handling of btree delete records mean that all snapshot conflicts
+  on standby now have a valid, useful latestRemovedXid.  Our earlier
+  approach using LW_EXCLUSIVE was useful when we didnt always have a
+  valid value, though is no longer useful or necessary.  Asserts added
+  to code path to prove and ensure this is the case.  This will reduce
+  contention and improve performance of larger Hot Standby servers.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/commands/vacuumlazy.c, only send cleanup_info
+  messages if VACUUM removes any tuples.  There is no other purpose
+  for this message type than to report the latestRemovedXid of removed
+  tuples, prior to index scans.  Removes overlooked path for sending
+  invalid latestRemovedXid.  Fixes buildfarm failure on centaur.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Further reductions in Hot Standby conflict processing.  These come
+  from the realistion that HEAP2_CLEAN records don't always remove
+  user visible data, so conflict processing for them can be skipped.
+  Confirm validity using Assert checks, clarify circumstances under
+  which we log heap_cleanup_info records.  Tuning arises from bug
+  fixing of earlier safety check failures.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Optimise btree delete processing when no active backends.  Clarify
+  comments, downgrade a message to DEBUG and remove some debug
+  counters.  Direct from ideas by Heikki Linnakangas.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Make CheckRequiredParameterValues() depend upon correct combination
+  of parameters.  Fix bug report by Robert Haas that error message and
+  hint was incorrect if wrong mode parameters specified on master.
+  Internal changes only.  Proposals for parameter simplification on
+  master/primary still under way.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Previous patch revoked following objections.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Add missing optimizer hooks for function cost and number of rows.
+  Closely follow design of other optimizer hooks: if hook exists
+  retrieve value from plugin; if still not set then get from cache.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Patch revoked because of objections.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Robert Haas committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Update docs as to when WAL logging can be skipped.  In 8.4 and
+  prior, WAL-logging could potentially be skipped whenever
+  archive_mode=off.  With streaming replication, this is now true only
+  if max_wal_senders=0.  Fujii Masao, with light copyediting by me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Rename standby_keep_segments to wal_keep_segments.  Also, make the
+  name of the GUC and the name of the backing variable match.  Alnong
+  the way, clean up a couple of slight typographical errors in the
+  related docs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- Fix various instances of "the the".  Two of these were pointed out
+  by Erik Rijkers; the rest I found.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+ITAGAKI Takahiro committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/utils/adt/pg_locale.c, fix encoding issue when
+  lc_monetary or lc_numeric are different encoding from lc_ctype, that
+  could happen on Windows.  We need to change lc_ctype together with
+  lc_monetary or lc_numeric, and convert strings in lconv from
+  lc_ctype encoding to the database encoding.  The bug reported by
+  Mikko, original patch by Hiroshi Inoue, with changes by Bruce and
+  me.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Peter Eisentraut committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/utils/misc/guc.c, fix message punctuation.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bruce Momjian committed:
+</p>
+
+<p>
+- In pgsql/src/backend/utils/adt/pg_locale.c, add C comments for
+  recent to_char('L') fix for Win32.
+</p>
+
+<h2>Rejected Patches (for now)</h2>
+<p>
+Simon Riggs's patch to speed up ALTER TABLE...SET TABLESPACE.  Timing
+is not right for 9.0.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Nikhil Sontakke's patch to estimate the costs of SRFs.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon Riggs's patch to make the "ALL" in GRANT ... ON ALL optional.
+</p>
+
+<h2>Pending Patches</h2>
+<p>
+Robert Haas sent in a patch to cause walsender not to consume
+superuser_reserved_connection slots.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Simon Riggs sent in a patch to implement prefetching during replay of
+btree delete records.  The patch is intended to fix a performance
+issue reported by Erik Rijkers where a Hot Standby slave's performance
+is much lower than on the master's.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Bruce Momjian sent in a patch per prior discussion to re-order the
+timestamps displayed in the pg_stat_activity view.
+</p>
+
+<p>
+Robert Haas sent in a WIP patch to ush isTemp down into the smgr
+layer.  This is intended to be infrastructure for global temporary
+tables per the SQL standard.
+
+</p>
+
-- 
2.39.5