fix(walrestore): serve pg_rewind without prefetching and flag machinery (#1007)

When a demoted primary rejoins the cluster after a failover, the
instance manager runs `pg_rewind --restore-target-wal`, and the
resulting `restore_command` invocations are served by this sidecar
exactly as if an instance in recovery were asking. pg_rewind walks the
timeline backwards, fetches every WAL file it needs exactly once, and
treats any restore failure as fatal, so two optimizations meant for
recovery break it: prefetching the following segments is wasted work
that, past the end of the timeline, is guaranteed to end in an archive
miss, and the end-of-wal-stream flag recorded by that miss makes a later
invocation fail without contacting the object store, on a segment the
archive actually has, aborting the whole rewind.

The restore request now carries the context it is made in
(cloudnative-pg/cnpg-i#351). When it says `MODE_REWIND`, the sidecar
restores exactly the requested file: no prefetching, no
end-of-wal-stream flag check, no flag recording. Requests from operators
predating the field keep the current behavior.

This is the plugin-side counterpart of
cloudnative-pg/cloudnative-pg#11204. The cnpg-i dependency points to a
pseudo-version of the protocol pull request and will move to the next
tagged release once it is available.

Signed-off-by: Armando Ruocco <armando.ruocco@enterprisedb.com>
Signed-off-by: Marco Nenciarini <marco.nenciarini@enterprisedb.com>
Co-authored-by: Marco Nenciarini <marco.nenciarini@enterprisedb.com>

internal/cnpgi/common/wal.go

@@ -27,6 +27,7 @@ import (
 	"path"
 	"time"
 
+	barmanapi "github.com/cloudnative-pg/barman-cloud/pkg/api"
 	"github.com/cloudnative-pg/barman-cloud/pkg/archiver"
 	barmanCommand "github.com/cloudnative-pg/barman-cloud/pkg/command"
 	barmanCredentials "github.com/cloudnative-pg/barman-cloud/pkg/credentials"
@@ -249,9 +250,11 @@ func (w WALServiceImplementation) Restore(
 		"Restoring WAL file",
 		"objectStore", objectStore.Name,
 		"serverName", serverName,
-		"walName", walName)
+		"walName", walName,
+		"mode", request.GetMode())
 	return &wal.WALRestoreResult{}, w.restoreFromBarmanObjectStore(
-		ctx, configuration.Cluster, &objectStore, serverName, walName, destinationPath)
+		ctx, configuration.Cluster, &objectStore, serverName, walName, destinationPath,
+		request.GetMode() == wal.WALRestoreRequest_MODE_REWIND)
 }
 
 // resolveRestoreObjectStore selects the object store and server name to use when
@@ -288,6 +291,7 @@ func (w WALServiceImplementation) restoreFromBarmanObjectStore(
 	serverName string,
 	walName string,
 	destinationPath string,
+	rewindMode bool,
 ) error {
 	contextLogger := log.FromContext(ctx)
 	startTime := time.Now()
@@ -319,6 +323,20 @@ func (w WALServiceImplementation) restoreFromBarmanObjectStore(
 		return fmt.Errorf("while creating the restorer: %w", err)
 	}
 
+	// A flag left over from a normal-recovery invocation that ran before this pod
+	// was demoted must not survive into a pg_rewind restore: the flag machinery
+	// does not apply while restoring on behalf of pg_rewind (see
+	// shouldUseEndOfWALStreamFlag below), so it is never checked here, but left
+	// untouched it would resurface and wrongly abort the first normal-recovery
+	// invocation that runs once the rewind is done. This runs unconditionally,
+	// before the spool short-circuit in Step 1, so a request for a WAL file that
+	// happens to already be staged in the spool cannot skip the clear.
+	if rewindMode {
+		if err := clearEndOfWALStreamFlag(walRestorer); err != nil {
+			return err
+		}
+	}
+
 	// Step 1: check if this WAL file is not already in the spool
 	var wasInSpool bool
 	if wasInSpool, err = walRestorer.RestoreFromSpool(walName, destinationPath); err != nil {
@@ -331,8 +349,10 @@ func (w WALServiceImplementation) restoreFromBarmanObjectStore(
 		return nil
 	}
 
-	// We skip this step if streaming connection is not available
-	if isStreamingAvailable(cluster, w.InstanceName) {
+	// Step 2: return error if the end-of-wal-stream flag is set.
+	// We skip this step if the flag machinery does not apply to this invocation
+	useEndOfWALStreamFlag := shouldUseEndOfWALStreamFlag(cluster, w.InstanceName, rewindMode)
+	if useEndOfWALStreamFlag {
 		if err := checkEndOfWALStreamFlag(walRestorer); err != nil {
 			return err
 		}
@@ -340,10 +360,7 @@ func (w WALServiceImplementation) restoreFromBarmanObjectStore(
 
 	// Step 3: gather the WAL files names to restore. If the required file isn't a regular WAL, we download it directly.
 	var walFilesList []string
-	maxParallel := 1
-	if barmanConfiguration.Wal != nil && barmanConfiguration.Wal.MaxParallel > 1 {
-		maxParallel = barmanConfiguration.Wal.MaxParallel
-	}
+	maxParallel := maxWALFilesPerInvocation(barmanConfiguration, rewindMode)
 	if IsWALFile(walName) {
 		// If this is a regular WAL file, we try to prefetch
 		if walFilesList, err = gatherWALFilesToRestore(walName, maxParallel); err != nil {
@@ -365,9 +382,9 @@ func (w WALServiceImplementation) restoreFromBarmanObjectStore(
 		return classifyWALRestoreError(walStatus[0].WalName, walStatus[0].Err)
 	}
 
-	// We skip this step if streaming connection is not available
+	// We skip this step if the flag machinery does not apply to this invocation
 	endOfWALStream := isEndOfWALStream(walStatus)
-	if isStreamingAvailable(cluster, w.InstanceName) && endOfWALStream {
+	if useEndOfWALStreamFlag && endOfWALStream {
 		contextLogger.Info(
 			"Set end-of-wal-stream flag as one of the WAL files to be prefetched was not found")
 
@@ -415,6 +432,38 @@ func (w WALServiceImplementation) SetFirstRequired(
 	panic("implement me")
 }
 
+// maxWALFilesPerInvocation returns how many WAL files a single restore
+// invocation is allowed to fetch, the requested one included. Prefetching is
+// disabled when restoring on behalf of pg_rewind, which walks the WAL
+// backward: the following segments would never be requested, and past the end
+// of the timeline they do not even exist
+func maxWALFilesPerInvocation(barmanConfiguration *barmanapi.BarmanObjectStoreConfiguration, rewindMode bool) int {
+	if rewindMode {
+		return 1
+	}
+
+	if barmanConfiguration.Wal != nil && barmanConfiguration.Wal.MaxParallel > 1 {
+		return barmanConfiguration.Wal.MaxParallel
+	}
+
+	return 1
+}
+
+// shouldUseEndOfWALStreamFlag returns true when the end-of-wal-stream flag
+// machinery applies to the current invocation. The flag makes the following
+// invocation fail, so that PostgreSQL stops polling the WAL archive and
+// switches to streaming replication. It does not apply when no streaming
+// connection is available, nor when restoring on behalf of pg_rewind:
+// pg_rewind cannot fall back to streaming replication, and a stale flag would
+// make it abort on a segment that is available in the archive
+func shouldUseEndOfWALStreamFlag(cluster *cnpgv1.Cluster, podName string, rewindMode bool) bool {
+	if rewindMode {
+		return false
+	}
+
+	return isStreamingAvailable(cluster, podName)
+}
+
 // isStreamingAvailable checks if this pod can replicate via streaming connection.
 func isStreamingAvailable(cluster *cnpgv1.Cluster, podName string) bool {
 	if cluster == nil {
@@ -491,6 +540,22 @@ func checkEndOfWALStreamFlag(walRestorer *barmanRestorer.WALRestorer) error {
 	return nil
 }
 
+// clearEndOfWALStreamFlag removes the end-of-wal-stream flag, if present, without
+// treating it as an error. It is used instead of checkEndOfWALStreamFlag when
+// restoring on behalf of pg_rewind, which must not abort on a flag it did not
+// set itself.
+func clearEndOfWALStreamFlag(walRestorer *barmanRestorer.WALRestorer) error {
+	contain, err := walRestorer.IsEndOfWALStream()
+	if err != nil {
+		return err
+	}
+
+	if contain {
+		return walRestorer.ResetEndOfWalStream()
+	}
+	return nil
+}
+
 // isEndOfWALStream returns true if one of the downloads has returned
 // a file-not-found error.
 func isEndOfWALStream(results []barmanRestorer.Result) bool {

internal/cnpgi/common/wal_test.go

@@ -20,6 +20,10 @@ SPDX-License-Identifier: Apache-2.0
 package common
 
 import (
+	"context"
+
+	barmanapi "github.com/cloudnative-pg/barman-cloud/pkg/api"
+	barmanRestorer "github.com/cloudnative-pg/barman-cloud/pkg/restorer"
 	cnpgv1 "github.com/cloudnative-pg/cloudnative-pg/api/v1"
 	. "github.com/onsi/ginkgo/v2"
 	. "github.com/onsi/gomega"
@@ -96,3 +100,80 @@ var _ = Describe("resolveRestoreObjectStore", func() {
 			"cluster-server", "cluster-store"),
 	)
 })
+
+var _ = Describe("maxWALFilesPerInvocation", func() {
+	configWithMaxParallel := func(maxParallel int) *barmanapi.BarmanObjectStoreConfiguration {
+		return &barmanapi.BarmanObjectStoreConfiguration{
+			Wal: &barmanapi.WalBackupConfiguration{MaxParallel: maxParallel},
+		}
+	}
+
+	DescribeTable(
+		"computes how many WAL files a single invocation may fetch",
+		func(cfg *barmanapi.BarmanObjectStoreConfiguration, rewindMode bool, want int) {
+			Expect(maxWALFilesPerInvocation(cfg, rewindMode)).To(Equal(want))
+		},
+
+		Entry("no WAL configuration", &barmanapi.BarmanObjectStoreConfiguration{}, false, 1),
+		Entry("parallel restore configured", configWithMaxParallel(8), false, 8),
+
+		// pg_rewind walks the timeline backwards: prefetching must stay off no
+		// matter what the object store configuration asks for
+		Entry("rewind mode overrides the configured parallelism", configWithMaxParallel(8), true, 1),
+	)
+})
+
+var _ = Describe("shouldUseEndOfWALStreamFlag", func() {
+	clusterWithPrimary := func(currentPrimary string) *cnpgv1.Cluster {
+		return &cnpgv1.Cluster{
+			Status: cnpgv1.ClusterStatus{CurrentPrimary: currentPrimary},
+		}
+	}
+
+	DescribeTable(
+		"decides whether the end-of-wal-stream flag machinery applies",
+		func(cluster *cnpgv1.Cluster, podName string, rewindMode bool, want bool) {
+			Expect(shouldUseEndOfWALStreamFlag(cluster, podName, rewindMode)).To(Equal(want))
+		},
+
+		Entry("replica with streaming available", clusterWithPrimary("cluster-1"), "cluster-2", false, true),
+		Entry("primary cannot stream from anyone", clusterWithPrimary("cluster-1"), "cluster-1", false, false),
+
+		// pg_rewind cannot fall back to streaming replication: the flag machinery
+		// must stay off even where a standby would use it
+		Entry("rewind mode wins over streaming availability", clusterWithPrimary("cluster-1"), "cluster-2", true, false),
+	)
+})
+
+var _ = Describe("clearEndOfWALStreamFlag", func() {
+	newRestorer := func() *barmanRestorer.WALRestorer {
+		restorer, err := barmanRestorer.New(context.Background(), nil, GinkgoT().TempDir())
+		Expect(err).ToNot(HaveOccurred())
+		return restorer
+	}
+
+	It("is a no-op when the flag is not set", func() {
+		restorer := newRestorer()
+
+		Expect(clearEndOfWALStreamFlag(restorer)).To(Succeed())
+
+		isEOS, err := restorer.IsEndOfWALStream()
+		Expect(err).ToNot(HaveOccurred())
+		Expect(isEOS).To(BeFalse())
+	})
+
+	// Regression guard: a flag left over from a normal-recovery invocation that
+	// ran before this pod was demoted must not survive a pg_rewind restore, or
+	// it would resurface and wrongly abort the first normal-recovery invocation
+	// that runs once the rewind is done.
+	It("removes a pre-existing flag without returning an error", func() {
+		restorer := newRestorer()
+		Expect(restorer.SetEndOfWALStream()).To(Succeed())
+
+		Expect(clearEndOfWALStreamFlag(restorer)).To(Succeed())
+
+		isEOS, err := restorer.IsEndOfWALStream()
+		Expect(err).ToNot(HaveOccurred())
+		Expect(isEOS).To(BeFalse())
+	})
+})