I'm following the procedure in the Cluster manual, pp10-9, to configure a VAX satellite from an alpha boot node, and I'm getting a system crash. My question is whether I need to run this procedure with the Alpha in standalone mode, or whether this is a situation requiring a patch, or whether I can get away with something different. NCP commands should work fine when the system is running in normal multiuser mode. The worst that should happen from entering something incorrect is an error message or cutting yourself off if you happen to be logged on via decnet. If a system crash results from doing something in NCP, there is a software error and it is time to go looking for patches or upgrading to a newer version or downgrading to a stable version. Regards, Peter Coghlan.