Same wallet on 2 nodes online?

[pysiak]

Hi, is it ok to have 2 computers running bitcoin with the same wallet.dat ?

[pysiak]

Thanks! I imagine if I tried that it would make the network see transactions spending from the same hash.
My question was more around having the wallet at 2 locations: master and secondary. Secondary to be used when master has been nuked or simply lost power...

[spin]

It depends on the wallet.

If you are using the standard bitcoin client (bitcoin-qt) it's risky and not likely to work well.  Each client generates random keys (but not the same as the other client) when the wallet needs more.  This means that your two wallets will not stay in sync.  So both wallets will have keys the other wallets don't have.  If you delete one or lose one you will lose money.

Armory uses a deterministic wallet.  These wallets generate keys in a non-random way so that if you run to instances they will both generate the same additional keys and thus you could use it in this way.  If you edit labels / descriptions in one wallet they won't pop-up in the other though.