To start the process, we simulate a failure of the pg-primary PostgreSQL node. The simplest way to do this is to stop the PostgreSQL service. After the database stops serving requests, repmgr will detect that pg-primary is no longer active. If we tried the next step before stopping the existing master node, repmgr would refuse to honor the request. After all, we can't promote a standby when there's already a functional master.
Next, we invoke the repmgr tool from pg-clone with standby promote. This tells repmgr that this node should be the new master. This is necessary because repmgr allows several nodes to act as standby systems, and any could be a candidate for promotion. If we didn't do this manually, repmgr would hold ...