Hi,

Short version: if I've got a WU which has gone into high priority, then finishes during a period when I've told BOINC not to transfer files, what happens? And does it cause extra stress to project servers throttling transfers to something very low like 50 - 100 K/sec?

Long version: My network isn't that fast, and sometimes I want to watch streamed films or something. I don't want to unnecessarily strain BOINC project servers by throttling to something ridiculously low (presumably they have a limited number of concurrent connections, so up / downloading a big WU from climateprediction.net at 50 K/sec seems like taking the Mickey, though maybe I'm wrong and they really don't care?)

An obvious answer would be to limit file transfers to hours when I'm sleeping. But I'm wondering whether that'll mean that WUs miss their deadlines, and are unnecessarily replicated. Some previous threads seem to indicate that notifying the project that the WU has completed and uploading it are separate tasks. Does limiting file transfer times affect the former?

I wonder whether there is extra justification for separating upload / download limits for this reason, and there's some previous discussion here: https://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=10994 . Another alternative might be to have a checkbox on the network schedule page saying something like 'ignore for overdue tasks', though I realise that ideas are great and all but they don't magically implement themselves.

Thanks for any insight anyone can provide - and thanks generally to BOINC!

boinc --version
7.6.33 x86_64-pc-linux-gnu

50 K/sec for a climate zip upload?
Lucky you!

On a good day I can get 35 K/sec, on a bad, around 15-18 K/sec.

Just as long as it gets there.

If you've set network times in your preferences and you've told BOINC to use the prefs then it will sit and wait until such time as it can use the network. You can set network to Never, Always or Prefs.

The uploading and reporting are two parts. In the case of CPDN the trickles are done as part of a report. BOINC will try and report no later than 1 hour after an upload depending on your cache and network settings. You can force a report by using the Update button on the Projects tab and it will allow a temporary override for 5 mins of network traffic.

---

MarkJ

Les: Ha! Yes, I'm in the UK, and I think climateprediction is in Oxford, so I guess that's why I can get relatively good throughput there. Slow is relative, no doubt, and that plus rtorrent is enough to interfere with Netflix with two people in the flat. Didn't mean to seem ungrateful ;)

Mark: It's a headless virtual server, so 'interactive' stuff is out unfortunately. I guess what I'll have to do is limit it to 100 K/sec or something, then tell it to run from midnight ish to dinner time ish. Can't imagine I'll miss too many deadlines like that.

I still think it'd be good to either have separate up / down schedules, or have the option to override schedules automatically for late tasks, but I'm sure this'll work.

Thanks both for the replies.

Mark: It's a headless virtual server, so 'interactive' stuff is out unfortunately. I guess what I'll have to do is limit it to 100 K/sec or something, then tell it to run from midnight ish to dinner time ish. Can't imagine I'll miss too many deadlines like that.

I still think it'd be good to either have separate up / down schedules, or have the option to override schedules automatically for late tasks, but I'm sure this'll work.

While it would be nice to have separate schedules unfortunately there is no funding. Its open source so other people can develop things for it if they wish.

For the headless machine you have a few options:
1. You can control the BOINC client from another PC/host computer by running the Manager and connecting to the headless/virtual machine.

2. You can use BOINCtasks to connect to the headless/virtual one. Its like BOINC manager except can handle one or many computers at once and has more features than the standard manager. I use it on a laptop to control a whole farm.

3. If you're SSHing into the headless/virtual one you can run BOINCtui which is a CLI app for Linux.

4. Run scripts and use the BOINCcmd tool to toggle network availability, force updates, etc on the headless/virtual machine.

---

MarkJ