WARNING: another process is updating barman configuration files

[otbutz]

We recently started to receive sporadic cron triggered notification mails with the following content:

WARNING: another process is updating barman configuration files

Barman version: 3.10.0 (installed via apt.postgresql.org)

Barman crontab:

* * * * * barman [ -x /usr/bin/barman ] && /usr/bin/barman -q cron

A quick interactive test revealed that barman cron finishes quite fast without any warnings:

$ time barman cron
Starting WAL archiving for server postgres-01
Starting WAL archiving for server postgres-02

real    0m0.426s
user    0m0.340s
sys     0m0.064s

Since the warning is only triggered once in a while, I suspect that high disk IO is throttling a cron execution to the point where it collides with an upcoming one. Perhaps the possibility of this happening was overlooked in #886?

[gcalacoci]

Hi,

just to be sure I'm understanding correctly, are you suggesting that the message should be debug level or something else?

[otbutz]

Maybe the underlying check that triggers the warning could be improved? Or does cron actually update any configuration files?

[gcalacoci]

Cron does update config files if needed and is part of the new model and config-update features.

Thanks a lot for explaining what you meant and for your suggestions, may I ask how often this is happening for you?

[otbutz]

Multiple occurrences per day:

[mbalmer]

I see this happeing all the time, too