What the blazes is Synthetic Time?
Articles and Tips: qna
01 Sep 1996
Q.
Dear Ab-end: What the blazes is Synthetic Time? I see the message "Synthetic Time is being issued on partition <x<" on my NetWare 4.1 server console when the server time has been set backwards.
--Trapped in Time
A.
Dear Trapped: Remain calm. NDS uses the server time to "time stamp" objects. Synthetic time is issued to prevent objects from being time-stamped incorrectly. This message is simply informational and will disappear when the server time catches up with the partition time stamps.
To expedite this process, you can ensure that the server time is correct and then rebuild replicas. This is done in NetWare 4.1 by running DSREPAIR.NLM, choosing "Advanced Options menu," choosing "Replica and partition operations," choosing the partition that contains the bad time stamp, and then running the option "Repair Time Stamps and Declare a New Epoch." Be aware that rebuilding replicas will copy the Master replica over all other replicas, so be sure that you are not replacing a "good" copy of the partition with a "bad" copy.
* Originally published in Novell AppNotes
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