Building a Custom PostgreSQL WAL Receiver: A Developer's Technical Journey
By
alzhi7
Hand-rolled, kettle-boiled, baked to perfection. Worth every minute at the bakery.
Summary
A developer shares their journey of deep technical exploration into PostgreSQL's WAL (Write-Ahead Log) system, starting from simple curiosity about how pg_receivewal works internally to building their own WAL receiver from scratch. The article details the process of examining PostgreSQL source code, understanding the WAL streaming protocol, implementing a custom receiver, and dealing with technical challenges like fsync operations and .partial files. It's a technical deep-dive that combines personal narrative with practical programming insights.
Key quotes
· 5 pulledSome thoughts are unpredictable. For example: 'I wonder how pg_receivewal works internally?'
From the outside, it sounds almost innocent. Really, what could possibly be wrong with that? Just ordinary engineering curiosity.
But then, for some reason, this happens: you are already building PostgreSQL from source, digging into receivelog.c, comparing the behavior of your little creation with the original step by step.
arguing with fsync, looking at .partial files like old friends
I will take a quick look, understand the general structure, satisfy my curiosity, and then go on living peacefully.
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