CERNVM/Vboxwrapper Test Project

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Profile Jord
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Message 41777 - Posted: 25 Dec 2011, 7:23:16 UTC
Last modified: 25 Jan 2012, 2:18:02 UTC

Temporarily in the air is the CERNVM/Vboxwrapper Test Project at http://boinc.berkeley.edu/vbox/.

This is a rapid ALPHA project run by the BOINC developers and is geared towards finding and squelching as many bugs in the present BOINC + Virtual Box + VBox wrapper software as possible, on Linux, Windows and Mac OS X. This project is to be burned when it has run its course, we're in it for the bug fixes rather than the credits. Credits export is not on, isn't going to be enabled either.

Think you want to give us a hand in helping out? You're more than welcome.
Requirements though:

-- BOINC 7.0.11 available from http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download_all.php.
-- Virtual Box 4.1.8 installed on your system from https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads.

Be careful for the initial download. What though was 1.61GB is now 260MB (compressed). But still, if you think that's too much or too taxing for your bandwidth, then please don't try.
Post about any and all bugs you come across on the project's forums, or on the BOINC Alpha email list.
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Profile Jord
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Message 42236 - Posted: 25 Jan 2012, 16:17:06 UTC - in response to Message 41777.  

Present bugs, new fixes and things still to look out for.

Fixes being tested:
-. With vboxwrapper 1.25 tests are underway to stop BOINC strangling your system, making it run at slow-mo speed. This is done by dropping the priority of the VBoxHeadless process from Normal to Below Normal. Without this, when running work in the VM plus have BOINC run work on any left-over CPU core plus run work on one or more GPUs, the system would slowly creep to a halt.

-. Run the vboxwrapper at fractional CPU usage, meaning it can use one core plus part of another. No longer needed to fully reserve 2 cores at all times.

Present Bugs:
-. Under Windows, a BOINC service installation (protected application execution) is still not working with the Virtual Box process. A fix seems to be needed from Oracle.

-. Virtualization use in the BIOS is still flaky. But at least the wrapper (at this project) will detect whether or not your Intel or AMD CPU is capable of VT-x or AMD-v. It's impossible to ask of the user to go check whether or not these are enabled in their BIOS -- we'll be looked at quite weirdly.

New things:
-. We'll go test run functions for the Charity Engine project (make them BOINC 7 proof), the Chinese CAS project and the Mathematica project. For the latter a whole new VM will be made, which will be run in tandem with the CERNVM.
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Message boards : Projects : CERNVM/Vboxwrapper Test Project

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