Remove documentation of waiting restore_command.

Following the removal of pg_standby, also remove the documentation
section that describes how to write your own "waiting restore_command"
along the same lines.

Discussion: https://postgr.es/m/20201029024412.GP5380%40telsasoft.com
Reviewed-by: Michael Paquier <michael@paquier.xyz>

diff --git a/doc/src/sgml/high-availability.sgml b/doc/src/sgml/high-availability.sgml
index 9364dc74f71d0afce5433ec9843a145159a785c0..f49f5c01081dbf8e0d19bdd82527fdb648984ed8 100644 (file)
--- a/doc/src/sgml/high-availability.sgml
+++ b/doc/src/sgml/high-availability.sgml
@@ -1486,143 +1486,6 @@ synchronous_standby_names = 'ANY 2 (s1, s2, s3)'
    </para>
   </sect1>
 
-  <sect1 id="log-shipping-alternative">
-   <title>Alternative Method for Log Shipping</title>
-
-   <para>
-    An alternative to the built-in standby mode described in the previous
-    sections is to use a <varname>restore_command</varname> that polls the archive location.
-    This was the only option available in versions 8.4 and below.
-   </para>
-
-   <para>
-    Note that in this mode, the server will apply WAL one file at a
-    time, so if you use the standby server for queries (see Hot Standby),
-    there is a delay between an action in the primary and when the
-    action becomes visible in the standby, corresponding to the time it takes
-    to fill up the WAL file. <varname>archive_timeout</varname> can be used to make that delay
-    shorter. Also note that you can't combine streaming replication with
-    this method.
-   </para>
-
-   <para>
-    The operations that occur on both primary and standby servers are
-    normal continuous archiving and recovery tasks. The only point of
-    contact between the two database servers is the archive of WAL files
-    that both share: primary writing to the archive, standby reading from
-    the archive. Care must be taken to ensure that WAL archives from separate
-    primary servers do not become mixed together or confused. The archive
-    need not be large if it is only required for standby operation.
-   </para>
-
-   <para>
-    The magic that makes the two loosely coupled servers work together is
-    simply a <varname>restore_command</varname> used on the standby that,
-    when asked for the next WAL file, waits for it to become available from
-    the primary. Normal recovery
-    processing would request a file from the WAL archive, reporting failure
-    if the file was unavailable.  For standby processing it is normal for
-    the next WAL file to be unavailable, so the standby must wait for
-    it to appear. For files ending in
-    <literal>.history</literal> there is no need to wait, and a non-zero return
-    code must be returned. A waiting <varname>restore_command</varname> can be
-    written as a custom script that loops after polling for the existence of
-    the next WAL file. There must also be some way to trigger failover, which
-    should interrupt the <varname>restore_command</varname>, break the loop and
-    return a file-not-found error to the standby server. This ends recovery
-    and the standby will then come up as a normal server.
-   </para>
-
-   <para>
-    Pseudocode for a suitable <varname>restore_command</varname> is:
-<programlisting>
-triggered = false;
-while (!NextWALFileReady() &amp;&amp; !triggered)
-{
-    sleep(100000L);         /* wait for ~0.1 sec */
-    if (CheckForExternalTrigger())
-        triggered = true;
-}
-if (!triggered)
-        CopyWALFileForRecovery();
-</programlisting>
-   </para>
-
-   <para>
-    The method for triggering failover is an important part of planning
-    and design. One potential option is the <varname>restore_command</varname>
-    command.  It is executed once for each WAL file, but the process
-    running the <varname>restore_command</varname> is created and dies for
-    each file, so there is no daemon or server process, and
-    signals or a signal handler cannot be used. Therefore, the
-    <varname>restore_command</varname> is not suitable to trigger failover.
-    It is possible to use a simple timeout facility, especially if
-    used in conjunction with a known <varname>archive_timeout</varname>
-    setting on the primary. However, this is somewhat error prone
-    since a network problem or busy primary server might be sufficient
-    to initiate failover. A notification mechanism such as the explicit
-    creation of a trigger file is ideal, if this can be arranged.
-   </para>
-
-  <sect2 id="warm-standby-config">
-   <title>Implementation</title>
-
-   <para>
-    The short procedure for configuring a standby server using this alternative
-    method is as follows. For
-    full details of each step, refer to previous sections as noted.
-    <orderedlist>
-     <listitem>
-      <para>
-       Set up primary and standby systems as nearly identical as
-       possible, including two identical copies of
-       <productname>PostgreSQL</productname> at the same release level.
-      </para>
-     </listitem>
-     <listitem>
-      <para>
-       Set up continuous archiving from the primary to a WAL archive
-       directory on the standby server. Ensure that
-       <xref linkend="guc-archive-mode"/>,
-       <xref linkend="guc-archive-command"/> and
-       <xref linkend="guc-archive-timeout"/>
-       are set appropriately on the primary
-       (see <xref linkend="backup-archiving-wal"/>).
-      </para>
-     </listitem>
-     <listitem>
-      <para>
-       Make a base backup of the primary server (see <xref
-       linkend="backup-base-backup"/>), and load this data onto the standby.
-      </para>
-     </listitem>
-     <listitem>
-      <para>
-       Begin recovery on the standby server from the local WAL
-       archive, using <varname>restore_command</varname> that waits
-       as described previously (see <xref linkend="backup-pitr-recovery"/>).
-      </para>
-     </listitem>
-    </orderedlist>
-   </para>
-
-   <para>
-    Recovery treats the WAL archive as read-only, so once a WAL file has
-    been copied to the standby system it can be copied to tape at the same
-    time as it is being read by the standby database server.
-    Thus, running a standby server for high availability can be performed at
-    the same time as files are stored for longer term disaster recovery
-    purposes.
-   </para>
-
-   <para>
-    For testing purposes, it is possible to run both primary and standby
-    servers on the same system. This does not provide any worthwhile
-    improvement in server robustness, nor would it be described as HA.
-   </para>
-  </sect2>
- </sect1>
-
  <sect1 id="hot-standby">
   <title>Hot Standby</title>