1) Set up a sharded cluster, with one mongos, two mongods, and two config servers on a machine, and another config server in a VM. Ensure that the VM's clock is synced to the host machine, preferably using NTP. Run: mongos> sh.addShard( "192.168.56.102:27021" ) { "shardAdded" : "shard0000", "ok" : 1 } mongos> sh.addShard( "192.168.56.102:27022" ) { "shardAdded" : "shard0001", "ok" : 1 } mongos> sh.enableSharding("database") { "ok" : 1 } mongos> sh.shardCollection("database.col", {data: 1} ) { "collectionsharded" : "database.col", "ok" : 1 } mongos> use database switched to db database mongos> for (var i = 0; i < 25000; i++) { db.col.insert( {data: i, payload: "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"} )} WriteResult( { "nInserted" : 1 } ) 2) Set the VM's clock to the distant future $ sudo date 012204052020 Wed Jan 22 4:05:00 EST 2020 3) Split the collection, expecting a failure due to clock skew mongos> sh.splitFind( "database.col", { "data": "27544" } ) { "ok" : 1 }