Brodo posted these questions on the S@H Forums, but due to technical issues I can't respond to them there.

Here are my responses.

Has there been any explanation anywhere (here or on the Beta forum) as to why 6.2.14 has been made so darn complex ???

Basically it SUX !! I would like some answers to the following questions...

1) Why does it have some secret squirrel data directory separate from the main BOINC directory ?

It is generally a bad idea to have your data and binaries lumped together in the same directory. Microsoft has been trying to get application developers to separate the two things for over ten years.

Starting with Windows Vista they force the issue by creating a hidden virtual file system for any program that attempts to write or modify files in the C:\Program Files\ directory structure.

2) Why does it need to create new user groups and accounts without asking ? Previous versions of the client did not find this neccessary ?

During the course of a brain storming session at the BOINC Workshop in 2006 we came to the conclusion we had a significant problem.

What would happen if some hacker group created a project that promised that they could find the cure for cancer in 18 months? There is a significant portion of the BOINC community that signs up to whatever the new project is. All they would have to do is create some fancy graphics, and most people wouldn't know that the worker application was sending out spam or searching the hard drive for Microsoft Money or Quickbooks files.

The BOINC development team does not and cannot stop anybody from setting up a project like that.

The only way to prevent some bad stuff like that from happening was to separate the execution of BOINC from the users data files.

Both boinc_master and boinc_project actually have fewer permissions on your computer then if you were to go create a new user in the control panel. They don't belong to either the users group or the administrators group.

When BOINC launches a worker application, that application is run with whatever permissions are assigned to boinc_project. Access to any files in your documents directory are automatically denied.

When I installed this client on XP32 it would only run when I was logged in with Admin priviledges. I could not get it to run under my user account despite adding it to the Boinc users group etc. This the reason why it only lasted 20 minutes on my computer before I went back to 5.10

I think you might have stumbled onto a bug somewhere, I'll look into it.

3) Why do the Devs treat the users like S***t ? We only get told the reasons for changes AFTER they have been implemented if at all !!! These are OUR computers and WE are doing the BOINC projects a favour by letting them use our machines to crunch their data at our own expense. They should recognize this and treat us with the respect we deserve. The BOINC client should NOT stuff around with the internal workings of our boxes without our consent, it should be operate like other programs (Gspot, HJsplit and others) which operate without needing to enter or alter registry settings, creating new user groups AND they stay in their own directory.

The current design was originally discussed during last years BOINC workshop, but was later followed up in Sep 07.

The design document can be found here

The implementation document can be found here

Email was sent out to boinc_dev@ssl.berkeley.edu requesting feedback on our idea and direction. The email list is open enrollment, anybody can sign up.

Announcement here

We began testing this new version of the client in March of this year. Updates to it were regularly posted to the download page beginning in April.

Earlier posts cast doubt on the security of 6.2.14 and Ozzfan said that it was unlikely it would be hacked because of the relatively small number of clients on the net. However it only needs one hacker who crunches to take a look at the client and they will know that there are 200,000 potential victims out there and crack it "just because they can". It appears the only way to run this version securely is to sandbox it in a virtual machine

The attack surface for the 6.x clients isn't any greater than the 5.x clients.

Both new user accounts have been denied incoming network connections and interactive sessions. Anybody attempting to map drives, attach to printers, use remote desktop, use remote assistance using either of those accounts are automatically denied.

Neither account shows up in the account list for logging in on boot up or via fast user switching.

Both account's passwords are randomly generated at install time and only Windows remembers what the password for the boinc_master is.

In order to attempt to logon to the system as one of those users, hackers would have to already crack another account on the system.

I for one will continue to use 5.10 until it becomes totally obsolete. When this happens, I will then reconsider my commitment to the cause.

That is of course your choice, but given that S@H still accepts requests from clients running the 4.x version of the software, I don't think you'll have anything to worry about.

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----- Rom
BOINC Development Team, U.C. Berkeley
My Blog

Answers to it back at Seti in this thread.

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the ideas are noble but the plan sucks...you tend to find it when the lumber jack is srtolling through the forest and cant see the wood for the trees...if you understand what I mean...

I thought the idea of summat like seti at home was they send a chunk of data, our computers runs an analysis program on that data, then sends the results back home..

basic number crunching, i signed up to the original seti@home and did just that, and it was simple and fine...no problems, my humble computer at that time crunched tons of data..then I moved on in life mostley no computing, but a short while I returned and sought out the seti project, down loaded this unbelievable amout of program STUFF that was totally irrelevant...unbelievable, irrelevant knobs and whistles..why???

the darn thing took over my computer almost, files here there and everywhere, it has become a nuisance, i crunched a bit of data but then took it off, thats how clever you've been..losing client computers.

take it back to what it was, a simple number cruncher running unobtrusivley in the background..

crusader

take it back to what it was, a simple number cruncher running unobtrusivley in the background..

You are thinking that BOINC == Seti. It isn't and it doesn't. BOINC is a whole lot more. It now houses well over 100 projects that you can attach to and run on one computer. You want all those projects to go away as well, just because you don't like BOINC and would like to crunch Seti only, unobtrusively?

Perhaps that you can ask for help on how to set up your BOINC in a reasonable way. Seti Classic is dead, it won't come back. It died because of lack of funds and without BOINC you wouldn't even have the chance to still crunch it. Added to that, Seti has changed a lot. It searches way deeper into the data files than it ever could through Seti Classic. It can use multiple CPUs, soon even GPUs and will be able to run multiple CPUs on one data file (task). You didn't stand still and are still using a 486 DX66, so why should Seti have done that then?

Seti Classic was the way toward BOINC, we thank it very much for putting distributed computing on the map. But it won't come back. Its hardware has been dismantled and recycled into servers for the new Seti and BOINC.

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Hi

I am running CPDN/Einstein/LHC/Rosetta/Seti/WCG using 6.2.19 with resource shares of 280/40/80/60/80/100 repectively on a dual-core machine. I have 2 CPDN WUs left, both with over 2000 hours remaining and one of which I have suspended, requiring only 12% & 13% of the allotted CPDN tme. Also 1 Seti Astropulse showing 53 hours remaining but I expect that to take about 90 instead needing 44% of Seti allotted time and 1 WCG(HPF) with only 13 mins left needing 0.2% of WCG allotted time.

My cache is set for 10 days but I can't get any more units. LHC is out of work and Boinc is vainly trying to get 99,000 secs of work for that, I have set CPDN not to get any more WUs, but the other 4 projects seem to be a problem. I have tried doing a manual update on all 4 but the message each time says 'Requesting 0 seconds of work'.

Why won't BOINC Manager let me ask for work, please? Is it a bug?

Thanks, Dagorath

I would have thought that BOINC Manager should be able to request a single WU per project where LTD is excessive and that project has no work. That way we would be able to continue crunching something until the owed project produced work. at which point BOINC Manager would then be able to restrict the others until either the LTD was cleared or the project ran out of work again.

It should be a simple matter to enable just 1 WU to be downloaded when a project has run out of work. An automatic request for, say, 5 seconds of work should do the trick.

The other amendment that is needed is for the Project page to show LTD data so that we can see if there is a problem building up.

Cheers

Dagorath

I tried BoincDv but found that the client_state files hadn't been updated since last November when I was only crunching 3 projects (CPDN, Seti & WCG). As it did not include LHC, I thought I had better not proceed with that.

I then went onto the Projects page of Boinc Manager and Reset Project on LHC as I had no WUs on it. This resulted in several WUs downloading from WCG only. Still nothing on Einstein & Rosetta or Seti (but I wasn't worried about Seti as I still had an Astropulse WU).

Doing Reset Project on Einstein & Rosetta still didn't result in any downloads.

Help!

I tried BoincDv but found that the client_state files hadn't been updated since last November when I was only crunching 3 projects (CPDN, Seti & WCG). As it did not include LHC, I thought I had better not proceed with that.

Make sure you check for the client_state.xml file in your BOINC Data directory. By default this one can be found at:

Windows 2000/XP: C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\BOINC\
Windows Vista: C:\ProgramData\BOINC\ (*)

(*) It may be hidden, so make sure you changed Windows Explorer to show hidden files and directories.

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Jord

Thanks. It seems that the current files were hidden . I must have found an early version which was not hidden. However, when I clear all debts on the current files and restart Boinc Manager, I still can't get Einstein & Rosetta WUs and then when I check BoincDv I find that all the debts have been restored.

What can I be doing wrong, please?

Mike

Jord

Thanks. It seems that the current files were hidden . I must have found an early version which was not hidden. However, when I clear all debts on the current files and restart Boinc Manager, I still can't get Einstein & Rosetta WUs and then when I check BoincDv I find that all the debts have been restored.

What can I be doing wrong, please?

Mike

Make sure BOINC is stopped, not just the manager is shut down.

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Kathryn :o)

Thanks,Kathryn

I had just closed down Boinc Manager when BoincDv told me to.

Everything worked perfectly when I closed Boinc down, then made breakfast and then ran BoincDv.

I still reckon Boinc Manager should allow 1 WU per project even when the debts are high.

Cheers

I just installed BOINC on XP Pro SP 3 a couple of days ago. When I tried to open BOINC manager from my non-privileged account, I got a pop-up that said to have the administrator add me to the boinc_users group. I did that, to no avail. After uninstalling and reinstallin four times, I tried adding myself to the boinc_admin group. Success!