Thanks for the input Jeff. The purpose is primarily automating failover (high-availability). There is no intention of using PITR.
We decided to actually keep the WAL logs in the archive directory (until they start to pose a storage problem) and delete what's under pg_xlog (in the situation I already mentioned in my original message).
> Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2012 08:24:21 -0800
> Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Deleting WAL archives and pg_xlog when there is not a shared drive
> From: jeff.janes@gmail.com
> To: iyamen@live.com
> CC: pgsql-general@postgresql.org
>
> On Tue, Dec 11, 2012 at 9:37 AM, Eng. AlSamman <iyamen@live.com> wrote:
> > Hello everyone,
> >
> > I am trying to implement a high-availability cluster using only two nodes,
> > without any shared disk storage.
> >
> > In my implementation, the primary database has continuous archiving set up
> > to a directory residing on the second node, where the standby database is.
> > Streaming replication is also established between the two. When failover
> > occurs, the standby is promoted to primary, and will start its continuous
> > archiving but now on a directory on the other (former primary) node.
> >
> > Call the primary node N1 and the standby N2. When N1 fails and N2 is
> > promoted, can I safely delete the archive logs stored on N2 (which were
> > archived by N1 when it was primary?)?
>
> That depends on your backup policy. Do you try to maintain some kind
> of PITR availability window, or are you solely concerned with hardware
> issues and not human error?
>
> In any case, in the middle of an unusual event seems like a poor time
> to go around cleaning up only tangentially related things.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Jeff
