When executing repmgr on remote nodes, we otherwise end up jumping
through hoops as we can't make assumptions about where the configuration
file is located, but really need to be able to provide it.
From a support point of view it will also make life easier as it will
be easy to specify exactly which file to provide.
If the current primary (demotion candidate) still has any files to archive,
it will delay the shutdown until all files are archived. If there is a
substantial number of files, and/or the archive command executes slowly,
this will probably lead to an unwelcome delay in the switchover process.
The repmgr3 implementation required the promotion candidate (standby)
to directly work with the demotion candidate's data directory,
directly execute server control commands etc.
Here we delegated a lot more of that work to the repmgr on the
demotion candidate, which reduces the amount of back-and-forth
over SSH and generally makes things cleaner and smoother.
In particular the repmgr on the demotion candidate will carry
out a thorough check that the node is shut down and report
the last checkpoint LSN to the promotion candidate; this
can then be used to determine whether pg_rewind needs to be
executed on the demoted primary before reintegrating it back
into the cluster (todo).
Also implement "--dry-run" for this action, which will sanity-check the
nodes as far as possible without executing the switchover.
Additionally some of the new repmgr node commands (or command options)
introduced for this can be also executed by the user to obtain
additional information about the status of each node.
There are some circumstances, e.g. during switchover operations,
where repmgr may need to operate on a data directory while the
server isn't running, in which case there's no way to retrieve
that information.
Also add configuration file option "pgdata" for hard-coding the
node's data directory - if the "repmgr" DB user isn't a superuser
or doesn't have permission to extract the data directory, we'll
need another way of finding out.
In previous versions of repmgr, some options had ambiguous meanings,
and/or were used for slightly different purposes. This way we end
up with a couple more options (most of which probably won't need
adjusting) but greater clarity and flexibility.
Removed:
master_reponse_timeout:
renamed to "async_query_timeout", as this was its main usage
retry_promote_interval_secs:
replaced by "primary_notification_timeout"
Added:
async_query_timeout:
timeout (in seconds) when executing asynchronous queries
primary_notification_timeout:
number of seconds to wait for notification from the new primary
after a failover
primary_follow_timeout:
number of seconds to wait for the new primary to become available
when executing "repmgr standby follow"
