Will using a pc with a flat cmos battery and errant system clock influence server management

[adamjedgar]

Hi guys,
I am using a hp laptop for most of my web administration, however, its old (2012) era. Now that may seem to some like an archaic device, however, with the advent of SSD drives, and its I7 720 processor, 8GB RAM, and windows 10, its actually a really fast old machine for both web development and administering my business VPS for shared hosting.

Of late, due to its age, the HP battery pack has gradually failed to the point where i had to remove it and just run the laptop straight from mains power until i get a new battery or a new laptop. I also use a wireless mouse and keyboard because the laptop’s own keyboard is no longer working (also need to replace obviously).

Now some of you might be starting to think…wtf are you doing Adam…your a tech guy using a beat up old bomb…get yourself a new system. Well i will do that one day, however, my focus has been on ensuring my 5 kids have laptops for school, my wife has a decent pc for her work as a teacher. and we finsih spending our home building work, and so long as the laptop is easily coping with the performance workload placed upon it, i am happy to put up with the battery and keyboard issues for now.

So enough of the background, now onto the question…

recently i have noticed that my windows10 system clock is not maintaning any kind of time. It is set to auto sync with online time servers, however even whilst it is switched on connected to mains power the clock is not maintaining time. I dont recall whether laptops use cmos batteries or rely on their battery power packs to keep cmos memory?

When adminstering a webhosting server (or any system remotely), would a failing system clock on your local desktop pc or laptop cause issues with the remote system in the event of using the web browser or ssh to run updates and various administration tasks?

I am thinking for example about whether or not a flat cmos battery and incorrect time on local pc can affect the remote installation of SSL certificates and email management in an extremely negative way.

[calport]

@adamjedgar

I dont recall whether laptops use cmos batteries or rely on their battery power packs to keep cmos memory?

It does. Same as a desktop PC.

@adamjedgar

When adminstering a webhosting server (or any system remotely), would a failing system clock on your local desktop pc or laptop cause issues with the remote system in the event of using the web browser or ssh to run updates and various administration tasks?

Yes, your browsers SSL connection might not work / generate an error if the date and time on the PC is incorrect.

@adamjedgar

I am thinking for example about whether or not a flat cmos battery and incorrect time on local pc can affect the remote installation of SSL certificates and email management in an extremely negative way.

If you are able to bypass the errors / warnings at the time of connecting / logging in for the first time, all your remote operations and administrative actions on the server should work normally, IMO.

All the best.

P.S.: SSD’s do give a new lease of life to old hardware. If the PC can do everything you want it to, the vintage does not matter.

[adamjedgar]

thanks for that.
The reason I ask this is because after the recent webmin update out of the blue my remote VPS server suddenly went haywire with SSL cert errors.

I wondered if it was at all possible that this particular update may not have actually been entirely at fault and that my laptop pc contributed to the VPS web and email server issue with an errant system clock due to the cmos battery being flat and that this may have had some influence on SSL certificates? ( I know its a bit of a long shot but I thought I should at least post the question)

I have since replaced the cmos battery btw.