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<sect1 id="release-8-4-22">

<title>Release 8.4.22</title>

<note>

<title>Release Date</title>

<simpara>2014-07-24</simpara>

</note>

<para>

This release contains a variety of fixes from 8.4.21.

For information about new features in the 8.4 major release, see

<xref linkend="release-8-4">.

</para>

<para>

This is expected to be the last <productname>PostgreSQL</> release

in the 8.4.X series. Users are encouraged to update to a newer

release branch soon.

</para>

<sect2>

<title>Migration to Version 8.4.22</title>

<para>

A dump/restore is not required for those running 8.4.X.

</para>

<para>

However, this release corrects an index corruption problem in some GiST

indexes. See the first changelog entry below to find out whether your

installation has been affected and what steps you should take if so.

</para>

<para>

Also, if you are upgrading from a version earlier than 8.4.19,

see <xref linkend="release-8-4-19">.

</para>

</sect2>

<sect2>

<title>Changes</title>

<itemizedlist>

<listitem>

<para>

Correctly initialize padding bytes in <filename>contrib/btree_gist</>

indexes on <type>bit</> columns (Heikki Linnakangas)

</para>

<para>

This error could result in incorrect query results due to values that

should compare equal not being seen as equal.

Users with GiST indexes on <type>bit</> or <type>bit varying</>

columns should <command>REINDEX</> those indexes after installing this

update.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Protect against torn pages when deleting GIN list pages (Heikki

Linnakangas)

</para>

<para>

This fix prevents possible index corruption if a system crash occurs

while the page update is being written to disk.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Fix possibly-incorrect cache invalidation during nested calls

to <function>ReceiveSharedInvalidMessages</> (Andres Freund)

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Don't assume a subquery's output is unique if there's a set-returning

function in its targetlist (David Rowley)

</para>

<para>

This oversight could lead to misoptimization of constructs

like <literal>WHERE x IN (SELECT y, generate_series(1,10) FROM t GROUP

BY y)</literal>.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Fix failure to detoast fields in composite elements of structured

types (Tom Lane)

</para>

<para>

This corrects cases where TOAST pointers could be copied into other

tables without being dereferenced. If the original data is later

deleted, it would lead to errors like <quote>missing chunk number 0

for toast value ...</> when the now-dangling pointer is used.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Fix <quote>record type has not been registered</> failures with

whole-row references to the output of Append plan nodes (Tom Lane)

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Fix possible crash when invoking a user-defined function while

rewinding a cursor (Tom Lane)

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Fix query-lifespan memory leak while evaluating the arguments for a

function in <literal>FROM</> (Tom Lane)

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Fix session-lifespan memory leaks in regular-expression processing

(Tom Lane, Arthur O'Dwyer, Greg Stark)

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Fix data encoding error in <filename>hungarian.stop</> (Tom Lane)

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Fix liveness checks for rows that were inserted in the current

transaction and then deleted by a now-rolled-back subtransaction

(Andres Freund)

</para>

<para>

This could cause problems (at least spurious warnings, and at worst an

infinite loop) if <command>CREATE INDEX</> or <command>CLUSTER</> were

done later in the same transaction.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Clear <structname>pg_stat_activity</>.<structfield>xact_start</>

during <command>PREPARE TRANSACTION</> (Andres Freund)

</para>

<para>

After the <command>PREPARE</>, the originating session is no longer in

a transaction, so it should not continue to display a transaction

start time.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Fix <command>REASSIGN OWNED</> to not fail for text search objects

(&Aacute;lvaro Herrera)

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Block signals during postmaster startup (Tom Lane)

</para>

<para>

This ensures that the postmaster will properly clean up after itself

if, for example, it receives <systemitem>SIGINT</> while still

starting up.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Secure Unix-domain sockets of temporary postmasters started during

<literal>make check</> (Noah Misch)

</para>

<para>

Any local user able to access the socket file could connect as the

server's bootstrap superuser, then proceed to execute arbitrary code as

the operating-system user running the test, as we previously noted in

CVE-2014-0067. This change defends against that risk by placing the

server's socket in a temporary, mode 0700 subdirectory

of <filename>/tmp</>. The hazard remains however on platforms where

Unix sockets are not supported, notably Windows, because then the

temporary postmaster must accept local TCP connections.

</para>

<para>

A useful side effect of this change is to simplify

<literal>make check</> testing in builds that

override <literal>DEFAULT_PGSOCKET_DIR</>. Popular non-default values

like <filename>/var/run/postgresql</> are often not writable by the

build user, requiring workarounds that will no longer be necessary.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

On Windows, allow new sessions to absorb values of PGC_BACKEND

parameters (such as <xref linkend="guc-log-connections">) from the

configuration file (Amit Kapila)

</para>

<para>

Previously, if such a parameter were changed in the file post-startup,

the change would have no effect.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Properly quote executable path names on Windows (Nikhil Deshpande)

</para>

<para>

This oversight could cause <application>initdb</>

and <application>pg_upgrade</> to fail on Windows, if the installation

path contained both spaces and <literal>@</> signs.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Fix linking of <application>libpython</> on OS X (Tom Lane)

</para>

<para>

The method we previously used can fail with the Python library

supplied by Xcode 5.0 and later.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Avoid buffer bloat in <application>libpq</> when the server

consistently sends data faster than the client can absorb it

(Shin-ichi Morita, Tom Lane)

</para>

<para>

<application>libpq</> could be coerced into enlarging its input buffer

until it runs out of memory (which would be reported misleadingly

as <quote>lost synchronization with server</>). Under ordinary

circumstances it's quite far-fetched that data could be continuously

transmitted more quickly than the <function>recv()</> loop can

absorb it, but this has been observed when the client is artificially

slowed by scheduler constraints.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Ensure that LDAP lookup attempts in <application>libpq</> time out as

intended (Laurenz Albe)

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Fix <application>pg_restore</>'s processing of old-style large object

comments (Tom Lane)

</para>

<para>

A direct-to-database restore from an archive file generated by a

pre-9.0 version of <application>pg_dump</> would usually fail if the

archive contained more than a few comments for large objects.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

In <filename>contrib/pgcrypto</> functions, ensure sensitive

information is cleared from stack variables before returning

(Marko Kreen)

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

In <filename>contrib/uuid-ossp</>, cache the state of the OSSP UUID

library across calls (Tom Lane)

</para>

<para>

This improves the efficiency of UUID generation and reduces the amount

of entropy drawn from <filename>/dev/urandom</>, on platforms that

have that.

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>

<para>

Update time zone data files to <application>tzdata</> release 2014e

for DST law changes in Crimea, Egypt, and Morocco.

</para>

</listitem>

</itemizedlist>

</sect2>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="release-8-4-21">

<title>Release 8.4.21</title>

for DST law changes in Fiji and Turkey, plus historical changes in

Israel and Ukraine.

</para>

<para>

</para>

</listitem>

</itemizedlist>

Prevent crash triggered by constant-false WHERE conditions during

GEQO optimization (Tom Lane)

</para>

<para>

</para>

</listitem>

<listitem>