Cascading replication and recovery_target_timeline='latest'

When a cascading standby launches a new walsender, it fetches the 
current recovery timeline:
/* * Use the recovery target timeline ID during recovery */if (am_cascading_walsender)    ThisTimeLineID =
GetRecoveryTargetTLI();

Comment in GetRecoveryTargetTLI() does this:
/* RecoveryTargetTLI doesn't change so we need no lock to copy it */return XLogCtl->RecoveryTargetTLI;


That comment is not true. RecoveryTargetTLI can change during recovery, 
if you set recovery_target_timeline='latest'. In 'latest' mode, when the 
(apparent) end of WAL is reached, the archive is scanned for any new 
timeline history files that may have appeared. If a new timeline is 
found, RecoveryTargetTLI is updated, and recovery is continued on the 
new timeline.

Aside from the missing locking, I wonder what that does to a cascaded 
standby. If there is an active walsender running while RecoveryTargetTLI 
is changed, I think what will happen is that the walsender will continue 
to stream WAL from the old timeline, but because the startup process is 
now actually replaying from a different timeline, the walsender will 
send bogus WAL to the standby.

When a standby ends recovery, creates a new timeline, and switches to 
normal operation, postmaster terminates all walsenders because of the 
timeline change. But don't we have a race condition there, with similar 
effect? It might take a while for a walsender to die, and in that 
window, it might send bogus WAL to the cascaded standby.

- Heikki