Attached is a new patch to demonstrate the bug in make_new_segment. It's not meant as a permanent new test (it's using some hard-coded assumptions about the x64 platform) -- just useful in validating the bug and fix.
From: [email protected] <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, March 4, 2026 12:01 AM To: [email protected] Subject: [BUG + PATCH] DSA pagemap out-of-bounds in make_new_segment odd-sized path Hi hackers, Sorry for the previously poorly-formatted/threaded email. We've identified a bug in the DSA (Dynamic Shared Memory Area) allocator that causes memory corruption and crashes during parallel hash joins with large data sets. The bug has been present since the DSA implementation was introduced and affects all supported branches. Attached is a minimal fix (5 lines added, 0 changed). == Bug Summary == In make_new_segment() (src/backend/utils/mmgr/dsa.c), there are two paths for computing segment layout: Path 1 (geometric): knows total_size upfront, computes total_pages = total_size / FPM_PAGE_SIZE pagemap entries = total_pages <-- correct Path 2 (odd-sized, when requested > geometric): works forward from usable_pages = requested_pages pagemap entries = usable_pages <-- BUG The pagemap is indexed by absolute page number. The FreePageManager hands out pages with indices from metadata_pages to (metadata_pages + usable_pages - 1). Since metadata_pages >= 1, page indices at the high end of the range exceed usable_pages, making the pagemap accesses out-of-bounds. == How It Was Found on Postgres 15 == Multiple parallel worker backends crashed simultaneously with SIGSEGV in dsa_get_address(), called from dsa_free() in ExecHashTableDetachBatch() during parallel hash join batch cleanup. Stack trace: #0 dsa_get_address (area, dp) at dsa.c:955 #1 dsa_free (area, dp) at dsa.c:839 #2 ExecHashTableDetachBatch (hashtable) at nodeHash.c:3189 #3 ExecParallelHashJoinNewBatch (hjstate) at nodeHashjoin.c:1157 All crashing workers computed the same pageno (196993), which was the last valid FPM page but beyond the pagemap array (usable_pages = 196609). == Root Cause (from core dump analysis) == The crashing segment had: usable_pages = 196,609 (pagemap has this many entries) metadata_pages = 385 total_pages = 196,994 (= metadata_pages + usable_pages) last FPM page = 196,993 (= metadata_pages + usable_pages - 1) pagemap valid indices: 0 .. 196,608 FPM page indices: 385 .. 196,993 Pages 196,609 through 196,993 (385 pages) have no valid pagemap entry. The pagemap array ends 3,072 bytes before the data area starts (padding zone). Most out-of-bounds entries fall in this padding and cause silent corruption. The last 17 entries fall in the data area itself, causing bidirectional corruption: pagemap writes destroy allocated object data, and subsequent pagemap reads return garbage, crashing dsa_free(). == The Fix == After computing metadata_bytes with usable_pages pagemap entries, add entries for the metadata pages themselves: metadata_bytes += ((metadata_bytes / (FPM_PAGE_SIZE - sizeof(dsa_pointer))) + 1) * sizeof(dsa_pointer); The divisor (FPM_PAGE_SIZE - sizeof(dsa_pointer)) = 4088 accounts for the circular dependency: each metadata page costs one pagemap entry (8 bytes), so only 4088 of each 4096-byte metadata page is net-free for other pagemap entries. The +1 absorbs the ceiling. == Repro == It's tricky to create a test that causes a failure, or standalone SQL that will cause the bug to manifest. This is a (long) dormant bug that only causes a crash in rare circumstances. -- Thanks, Paul
test_dsa_pagemap_overflow.patch
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