DataDog/wal-e — pull request #2 by bunelr (2014-06-11 20:46:39+00:00)
Title: Rudy/hot standby

@miketheman
Managed to have it working.
On a replication-node, I can
- Do a wal-e backup-push --hot-standby
- rm the $PG_DATA folder
- Do a wal-e backup-fetch
- Add a recovery.conf file with a restore-command containing 'wal-e wal-fetch'
- start postgres

and it will come up and follow the master

This will only work if you do it on a real hot-standby instance.
If the backup is done this way on a host that is running as a master (added a check to prevent it), you are not going to be able to restore cleanly.