MariaDB Enterprise Server InnoDB Purge Threads

This page is part of MariaDB's Documentation.

The parent of this page is: InnoDB Architecture for MariaDB Enterprise Server

Topics on this page:

• Overview

• Feature Summary

• Basic Configuration

Overview

In MariaDB Enterprise Server, the InnoDB storage engine uses Purge Threads to perform garbage collection in the background. The Purge Threads are related to multi-version concurrency control (MVCC).

The Purge Threads perform garbage collection of various items:

• The Purge Threads perform garbage collection of the InnoDB Undo Log. When a row is updated in the clustered index, InnoDB updates the values in the clustered index, and the old row version is added to the Undo Log. The Purge Threads scan the Undo Log for row versions that are not needed by open transactions and permanently delete them. In ES 10.3 and later, if the remaining clustered index record is the oldest possible row version, the Purge Thread resets the record's hidden DB_TRX_ID field to 0.

• The Purge Threads perform garbage collection of index records. When an indexed column is updated, InnoDB creates a new index record for the updated value in each affected index, and the old index records are delete-marked. When the primary key column is updated, InnoDB creates a new index record for the updated value in every index, and each old index record is delete-marked. The Purge Threads scan for delete-marked index records and permanently delete them.

• The Purge Threads perform garbage collection of freed overflow pages. BLOB, CHAR, TEXT, VARCHAR, VARBINARY, and related types are sometimes stored on overflow pages. When the value on the overflow page is deleted or updated, the overflow page is no longer needed. The Purge Threads delete these freed overflow pages.