I've followed the implementation instructions at 24.4.2:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/warm-standby.html
And I've used the archive/restore commands from the example in F23.2:
http://www.postgresql.org/docs/current/static/pgstandby.html
This all works great. The primary backs up the WAL archives to a mutually accessible folder and the backup system is continuously reading in the logs. Monitoring the "standby.log" file shows that the system is working as it should.
My question is, if the main system goes down, what do I do to the backup machine to make it come alive? Currently, when I attempt to login to the database, I get the error: "psql: FATAL: the database is starting up" I'm assuming this means it can't be accessed while its in continuous recovery mode. I attempted to turn off postgresql on the main server and try connecting again, same error (was obvious, but I do things one step at a time...) So then I removed the "recovery.conf" file on the backup server and attempted to restart postgresql. It stopped fine, but the restart failed.
The pg_log/postgresql-XXXX-XX-XX.log file says:
LOG: database system was interrupted while in recovery at log time 2009-04-14 17:36:14 CDT
HINT: If this has occurred more than once some data might be corrupted and you might need to choose an earlier recovery target.
LOG: could not open file "pg_xlog/0000000100000002000000DD" (log file 2, segment 221): No such file or directory
LOG: invalid primary checkpoint record
LOG: could not open file "pg_xlog/0000000100000002000000DC" (log file 2, segment 220): No such file or directory
LOG: invalid secondary checkpoint record
PANIC: could not locate a valid checkpoint record
LOG: startup process (PID 3756) was terminated by signal 6: Aborted
LOG: aborting startup due to startup process failure
Any ideas what I'm doing wrong? How do I bring the standby server out of standby do act as the primary?
