Restrict number of work units.

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Profile adrianxw
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Message 93771 - Posted: 18 Nov 2019, 16:28:44 UTC

I want to limit, at least until they work out their issues, the number of work units I get from QMC. I can see there are limits in config, but assume these would apply to all projects. I can obviously let it download a shed load of work, set no new tasks, and abort all but one, but I don't feel happy doing that.
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Profile Keith Myers
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Message 93772 - Posted: 18 Nov 2019, 17:09:53 UTC - in response to Message 93771.  

Create a app_config.xml file and put <project_max_concurrent>1</project_max_concurrent> statement in it for QMC project.
https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Client_configuration#Application_configuration
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Richard Haselgrove
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Message 93774 - Posted: 18 Nov 2019, 17:23:03 UTC - in response to Message 93772.  

That won't reduce the number of tasks issued by the project, but will reduce the impact on your system. Does the project in question have a very heavy download burden, impacting on your internet access? If you need to avoid the downloads too, we'll have to think again.
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robsmith
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Message 93779 - Posted: 18 Nov 2019, 18:42:50 UTC

One possible solution is to set the "resource share" for QMC to 1 or 0, this will mean it will be the bottom of the list when it comes to getting work.
However, given the comments from other user in your other thread about QMC (https://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev/forum_thread.php?id=13237#93758) it appears that the project is far too immature to actually be sending out any work (despite its very laudable ambitions), even for test purposes.
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Message 93781 - Posted: 18 Nov 2019, 19:00:30 UTC
Last modified: 18 Nov 2019, 19:07:21 UTC

I would prefer it if the project, after it gets the current load back, (7 work units), just sent me one task per machine. The way the project is going at the moment, is the tasks run, not quickly, but steadily until they reach the first checkpoint. This is typically some point after 70% complete is shown, takes a few days on here, (4GHz i7).. At that point, the percentage complete drops back to 1.000%, and an enormous figure, hundreds of days, gets put into the remaining column. the figure increases rapidly. BOINC freaks out and runs the tasks exclusively, stopping all the other projects from getting any CPU time, causing problems with them, espeacialy if they had already downloaded a pile of work units.

I am very happy to support their project, but the current setup is simply unworkable. Hence, I want one new work unit on each machine, it can then crunch away and play the fool with the remaing, without screwing anyone else up. It would be nice to talk about it on their site, but their forums don't work. Martin Korth has written elsewhere that he no longer works there.

Currently, I have 3 work units showing 2.000%, the other 4 are at 1.000%, after 5 to 7 CPU days.

<edit>
Sorry Rob, your comment was not visible when I started my post. I would tend to agree that the project is not really ready to go public yet. Certainly laudible aims, but they will not get many friends dumping a substantial number of dubiously ready jobs onto peoples machines. Looking at the server status, there are very few crunchers affected at present, but we have eliminated OS and CPU make. It just looks like sloppy programming.
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Les Bayliss
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Message 93783 - Posted: 18 Nov 2019, 19:17:37 UTC

Have you tried setting the percentage of processors on that project to a value that will be a bit above 1 core?
That should then get you only one task. After which, set the project to NNW.
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ProDigit

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Message 93794 - Posted: 19 Nov 2019, 8:39:14 UTC

Was it bam manager that allows you to set task priorities from 1 to 100%?

Online, I can lower the priority from projects I like to support less, and set the priority to 100%, from projects I want to run most.
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Message 93795 - Posted: 19 Nov 2019, 10:49:45 UTC
Last modified: 19 Nov 2019, 11:23:27 UTC

Les: I can try that, I want to run their work, but the way it is running at the moment is simply crazy.

ProDigit: You can set priority up or down from the project pages, you don't need to use a manager, I don't. The default resource share is 100, so if you leave it alone, all projects get the same amount of crunching time. Set it up, the project gets more, set it down, it gets less. I normally let a new project start at 100 which is the default, so it doesn't, theoretically at least - see my current thread - load up, but after I have seen it running and I am happy to keep it, I up its quota to 200, so it runs at the same priority as the others. If I need to give a project a boost for some reason, I up its quota to 300 or 400 for a period. It is easy to manage. Similarly, to lower a projects available times, set the value down. If that is not what you mean, try asking again with a little more info.
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ProDigit

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Message 93808 - Posted: 19 Nov 2019, 20:58:25 UTC - in response to Message 93795.  

Thanks! I thought the numbers only went from 1-100.
I lower the values for the projects i want to support less. Setting projects to lower values often results in only one of x amount of GPUs, or few of x-amount of threads being dedicated to this project.
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Message boards : Questions and problems : Restrict number of work units.

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