> I did this using
> <slon preamble>
> store listen (origin=2, provider=2, receiver=3);
> store listen (origin=2, provider=2, receiver=4);
>
> This seemed to have no effect at all and I can't see any evidence of the
> store listen commands being processed.

STORE LISTEN was turned into a NOOP in version 1.1, which is probably a
mistake, albeit well-intentioned.  The paths are calculated based
primarily on what subscriptions you have in place.

The algorithm for calculating the paths in sl_listen changes in 1.2, for
the better but it seems to me that STORE LISTEN should still be available
even though you'd usually prefer not to use it...

> Is what I am doing correct? Is it possible to now get nodes 3 and 4
> listening directly to node 2, so I can drop node 1 from the replication
> completely?

Well, do you have paths in sl_path for that?  If you do, then they can do so.

When you drop node 1, the paths in sl_listen will get reshaped based on
the way things look after the node is gone.

The two followup questions would be:

1.  Are there entries in sl_path for nodes 3+4 to get directly to node 2?

2.  What is the shape of the subscriptions in sl_subscribe?  The thing
that would be a bad thing would be if anything was still being provided
data by node 1.

You can't drop node 1 until any subscribers that go to node 1 are
redirected to some other provider.