Having a difficult time finding the root of the problem on this. Brand new server, and on first install boinctui was running great, then I'm not sure what I did but I started to have problems when a project showed my server twice in the computers list on the project site. I also could not run boinccmd anymore and was getting the following:

Operation failed: authentication error

or

Authentication error: -155

FYI, I'm running as root.

After some research, I found that this happens sometimes when data doesn't sync correctly between client and project server, so I used the "merge computers" function which solved the problem on the project's server end and my end as far as BOINC is concerned. But boinctui still shows "unauthorized!" in a red banner at the top.

I'd like to understand the root cause of this problem as well so that I can set up future BOINC servers on ubuntu without issue.

Any ideas??

Sounds like you have a password in the gui_rpc_auth.cfg and therefore boinctui needs to supply it. A work around assuming you don't mind who accesses your BOINC client, is to have an empty gui_rpc_auth file. I'm not sure if BOINCtui has a --password argument like BOINC manager uses.

I usually manage my Linux machines from a Windows box unning BOINCtasks, no need to ssh into the machines to find out what they're up to. I believe it will also run under wine if you don't have a Windows box.

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MarkJ

How exactly did you install boinc and boinctui (only once from repo?).

You don't say if the GUI manager is running properly.

i would suggest restarting boinc and posting the output from the log files

if you have set a a password boincctui needs it set in File / Config

Host 127.0.0.1
Port 31416
pwd <password value>

This is how I install BOINC from the Ubuntu Software Center, set the permissions, and also set up Boinctasks to manage the Ubuntu machine over the LAN from my Windows machine (where BoincTasks is installed).

Be sure to disable firewall on the remote PC (or create an exception for it).

BOINC: Search for BOINC in Ubuntu Software and install
• Join the root group: sudo adduser "USER" root
• Join the BOINC group: sudo adduser "USER" boinc
• Allow group to read, write and execute in /etc/boinc-client folder:
sudo chmod -R g+rwx /etc/boinc-client
• Allow group to read, write and execute in /var/lib/boinc-client:
sudo chmod -R g+rwx /var/lib/boinc-client
• Reboot
• Copy “gui_rpc_auth.cfg” to /etc/boinc-client folder
• Copy “remote_hosts.cfg” to /etc/boinc-client folder
• Copy “cc_config.xml” (if needed, I set half-life to 1 day) to /etc/boinc-client folder
• Copy "gui_rpc_auth.cfg" to the home directory and reboot
• Copy the "app_config.xml" files (if needed) to the project folders in /var/lib/boinc/

Then,
Restart the remote PC for BoincTasks to take effect.

Leave the password field empty on the localhost (on the Windows machine), then exit and restart BoincTasks for it to take effect.

https://lhcathome.cern.ch/lhcathome/forum_thread.php?id=4276&postid=30369#30369

Thank you everyone for replying, you've all been very helpful.

I somehow missed the part where you're supposed to match a password in boinctui to what is in the gui_rpc_auth.cfg file. I guess I felt that because I'm running headless with no GPU, that it didn't matter what was in that file. It appears this file is mandatory if you're running an interface of either kind. It's good to know if I want to build a customized interface later.

The following worked for me:

Step 1 - stop boinc client
Step 2 - remove (or replace) password in gui_rpc_auth.cfg
Step 3 - start boinc client
Step 4 - open boinctui and edit password via File > Config

Voila! BOINCing ensues :)

As multiple people said here, I confirmed that this works whether you set a password or not, so long as the contents of gui_rpc_auth.cfg match the host configuration in boinctui at File > Configure hosts. (so if no password in file then no password in boinctui config)

Now I have a new problem: boinctui shows all my tasks but all say WaitR or Wait except for one. However, when I look at the tasks through htop there are 32 running. Looking into it now, but if anyone knows why that would be helpful.

Thanks again!

Looks like it was just the project I'm working on that runs only one task at a time, as other projects run multiple tasks at once.