Heikki Linnakangas <hlinnakangas(at)vmware(dot)com> writes:
> At least in back-branches, I'd call this a pilot error. You can't turn a
> master into a standby just by creating a recovery.conf file. At least
> not if the master was not shut down cleanly first.
> ...
> I'm not sure that's worth the trouble, though. Perhaps it would be
> better to just throw an error if the control file state is
> DB_IN_PRODUCTION and a recovery.conf file exists.
+1 for that approach, at least until it's clear there's a market for
doing this sort of thing. I think the error check could be
back-patched, too.
regards, tom lane