diora-web/docs/database.md
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SQLite im WAL-Modus, Transaktionen IMMEDIATE: Leser warten nicht mehr auf lange Schreibvorgänge (Feed-Abruf, große Uploads) – kein „database is locked“ mehr bei GET /books/
Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <noreply@anthropic.com>
2026-10-19 15:04:37 +02:00

1.4 KiB

The database

One SQLite file, data/db.sqlite3 (on the server /home/marwin/diora-prod-data, mounted into diora-prod at /app/data). The books live in it too, encrypted, so it is large (2.5 GB in October 2026) and some writes are big (a scanned book of 30 MB).

Write-ahead log (since 2026-10-19)

diora/sqlite.py puts every connection in WAL mode (PRAGMA journal_mode=WAL, set once per file, it stays) with synchronous=NORMAL; settings.DATABASES has transaction_mode: IMMEDIATE, so a transaction takes the write lock when it begins.

Why: in the rollback-journal mode before, a long write kept all readers out. The podcast refresh (cron, every 15 minutes) and big uploads made requests fail with "database is locked", GET /books/ among them — the apps then saw no new books and no changed titles. With WAL, readers read on while one writer writes; writers still take turns (20 s timeout).

Next to db.sqlite3 there are now db.sqlite3-wal and db.sqlite3-shm. They belong to the database: a copy of db.sqlite3 alone may miss the latest writes. To copy it safely:

docker exec diora-prod python -c "import sqlite3; s=sqlite3.connect('data/db.sqlite3'); d=sqlite3.connect('data/backup.sqlite3'); s.backup(d)"

or stop the container first. Back to the old mode, if ever needed: PRAGMA journal_mode=DELETE (with no other connection open) and remove diora/sqlite.py's hook.