This is a default Azure resource, Ubuntu server.

Any ideas? "/home/wally" is write/read by all.

The only commands I've run:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo apt install boinc-client
chmod 777 /home/wally

Should I try Windows or a different distro?

wally@wallys:~$ boinc
03-Mar-2018 10:09:04 [---] cc_config.xml not found - using defaults
03-Mar-2018 10:09:04 [---] Starting BOINC client version 7.6.31 for x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
03-Mar-2018 10:09:04 [---] log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
03-Mar-2018 10:09:04 [---] Libraries: libcurl/7.47.0 OpenSSL/1.0.2g zlib/1.2.8 libidn/1.32 librtmp/2.3
03-Mar-2018 10:09:04 [---] Data directory: /home/wally
execv: No such file or directory
03-Mar-2018 10:09:04 [---] GPU detection failed. error code 512
03-Mar-2018 10:09:04 [---] No usable GPUs found
03-Mar-2018 10:09:04 [---] Host name: wallys
03-Mar-2018 10:09:04 [---] Processor: 4 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Xeon(R) CPU E5-2673 v3 @ 2.40GHz [Family 6 Model 63 Stepping 2]
03-Mar-2018 10:09:04 [---] Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc rep_good nopl xtopology cpuid pni pclmulqdq vmx ssse3 fma cx16 sse4_1 sse4_2 movbe popcnt aes xsave avx f16c rdrand hypervisor lahf_lm abm pti retpoline tpr_shadow vnmi ept vpid fsgsbase bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms xsaveopt
03-Mar-2018 10:09:04 [---] OS: Linux: 4.13.0-1011-azure
03-Mar-2018 10:09:04 [---] Memory: 15.64 GB physical, 0 bytes virtual
03-Mar-2018 10:09:04 [---] Disk: 29.02 GB total, 27.68 GB free
03-Mar-2018 10:09:04 [---] Local time is UTC +0 hours
03-Mar-2018 10:09:05 [---] No general preferences found - using defaults
03-Mar-2018 10:09:05 [---] Preferences:
03-Mar-2018 10:09:05 [---]    max memory usage when active: 8009.78MB
03-Mar-2018 10:09:05 [---]    max memory usage when idle: 14417.60MB
03-Mar-2018 10:09:05 [---]    max disk usage: 26.12GB
03-Mar-2018 10:09:05 [---]    don't use GPU while active
03-Mar-2018 10:09:05 [---]    suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 25%
03-Mar-2018 10:09:05 [---]    (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
dir_open: Could not open directory 'slots' from '/home/wally'.
03-Mar-2018 10:09:34 [---] GUI RPC bind to port 31416 failed: 98
03-Mar-2018 10:09:35 gstate.init() failed
Error Code: -180

BOINC from the repos uses /var/lib/boinc-client as its data directory so first thing would be to look in there.

---

MarkJ

Are you opening the client via cmd line with the --dir option to point the data directory to a non-default location? As mentioned the default location is in /var/lib/boinc-client but it's looking for /home/wally.

03-Mar-2018 10:09:04 [---] Data directory: /home/wally
execv: No such file or directory
dir_open: Could not open directory 'slots' from '/home/wally'.

Maybe try making the slots folder at /home/wally/slots yourself since it seems to be be looking there.

Perhaps he's using the BOINC version still available from Berkeley, which puts everything in the home folder?

---

03-Mar-2018 10:09:34 [---] GUI RPC bind to port 31416 failed: 98
03-Mar-2018 10:09:35 gstate.init() failed
Error Code: -180

You installed BOINC client from Ubuntu repository which install the client as service. That is, it's already running.

In which case, you'll need to ensure that the secure sandbox account that BOINC is running under has write access to /home/wally

Or, you need to find where the sandboxed account is using for its data folder (and storing the *real* event log messages): grant yourself read access to that folder.