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Conference star::wizards

Title: "ASK THE WIZARDS"
Moderator:QUARK::LIONEL
Created:Mon Oct 30 1995
Last Modified:Mon May 12 1997
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:1857
Total number of notes:3728

1429.0. "Open: what if i set the clock ahead?" by STAR::JKEENAN () Thu Jan 16 1997 08:58

T.RTitleUserPersonal
Name
DateLines
1429.1Use Consistent VMScluster TimeXDELTA::HOFFMANSteve, OpenVMS EngineeringMon Feb 03 1997 15:2431
:I'm  setting up a Y2K VMS environment and am
: wondering what the impact would be on an LAVC if I set the 
:clock ahead on just on of the satellites (VAX STATION 3100).
:The boot node would remain at current date / time and the
:workstation would be set to 2000 for testing purposes.

   Don't do this -- the time is generally expected to be the same
   (or only slightly skewed) across all nodes in a VMScluster.
   Either remove the node from the VMScluster, or move the entire
   VMScluster to the new time.

   One option is to reboot one or more nodes standalone (or in a
   seperate VMScluster) with the SYSGEN parameter TIMEPROMTWAIT
   set to prompt for the time during bootstrap, as it is conceivable
   that some software running on the system might `object' to having
   a large `delta' in the system time as a result of a operator
   SET TIME=years-ahead command executed "live"...

   I'd also recommend making a backup of any disks accessed by
   the system(s) with the test-time, and restoring these backups
   before returning to the current-time.  This prevents errors that
   may result from files and data `created in the future', and it
   reduces the chances of introducing corruptions or odd behaviours
   in applications.  (These corruptions and odd behaviours are due
   to the *change* in the system time value, not the (potential)
   errors around the year 2000.)

   As a specific example of errors that will occur as a result of
   skewed time: CMS doesn't like to see a time spread of more than
   a minute or so in a library, much less years...