Trying to run headless ...

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SleepySam

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Joined: 5 Mar 12
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Message 42868 - Posted: 5 Mar 2012, 3:30:16 UTC

So I can imagine that trying to run boinc on a headless linux server puts me in the minority of folks running boinc. I'm setting up a couple of headless servers at home to polish up my linux skills and provide some cheap network storage.

Issue is that while I would really like to have some projects cranking while these are sitting idle (most of the time) I cannot find any suitable examples of how to get things running. I've got the boinc client loaded and its running - I can issue boinccmds and get responses.

I can find many sites with lists of boinccmds etc. ... all of these assume the user knows the which commands to enter first (to setup this) and then run this command next (which sets up that) then this command ..... plus some helpful examples of command syntax.

I've got an account at SETI and even went as far as installing boinc on my XP machine (a brain-less install) just so I could confirm all is well which it is ------------- any help is appreciated -- I have no more time to spend on this quest
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SleepySam

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Message 42869 - Posted: 5 Mar 2012, 3:36:50 UTC - in response to Message 42868.  

Forgot - running Ubuntu Server 10.04 32bit --- I do have an X11 environment loaded if that would help.
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Claggy

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Message 42875 - Posted: 5 Mar 2012, 11:27:18 UTC - in response to Message 42868.  
Last modified: 5 Mar 2012, 11:40:32 UTC

The Boinc Wiki supplies anything you should need to know about boinccmd:

Boinccmd tool

To attach to Seti do: boinccmd --project_attach http://setiathome.berkeley.edu account_key

I you haven't got the account key handy get it by: boinccmd --lookup_account http://setiathome.berkeley.edu email_address password

To attach to a new project do: boinccmd --create_account URL email password name

Claggy
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SleepySam

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Message 42882 - Posted: 6 Mar 2012, 6:00:46 UTC - in response to Message 42875.  

Thanks for your help on this - I've done those commands (prior to posting) and I'm not working on any projects - here is some status output - obviously I'm missing a step


moot@wotan:~$ boinccmd --project_attach http://setiathome.berkeley.edu my-long-ass-key
Error -130: already attached to project

----------------------------------------------------------------------
moot@wotan:~$ boinccmd --get_state
======== Projects ========
1) -----------
name: SETI@home
master URL: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/
user_name:
team_name:
resource share: 100.000000
user_total_credit: 0.000000
user_expavg_credit: 0.000000
host_total_credit: 0.000000
host_expavg_credit: 0.000000
nrpc_failures: 0
master_fetch_failures: 0
master fetch pending: no
scheduler RPC pending: no
attached via Account Manager: no
ended: no
suspended via GUI: no
don't request more work: no
disk usage: 0.000000
last RPC: 1330992875.920462
project files downloaded: 0.000000

======== Applications ========

======== Application versions ========

======== Workunits ========

======== Results ========
moot@wotan:~$
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MarkJ
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Message 42904 - Posted: 6 Mar 2012, 10:23:50 UTC

Couldn't you setup BOINCtasks on the XP box and get it to manage the headless boxes? Using BT then you can attached the various headless machines to projects and see what they are up to.

It will run under Wine apparently if you really want to run it on one of the linux machines, but you'll need a screen and keyboard
MarkJ
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Profile Trog Dog
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Message 42906 - Posted: 6 Mar 2012, 10:46:13 UTC

Presumably this is your box, and since it's running version 6.10.58 I'm guessing you installed boinc from the ubuntu repositories and it's running as a service/daemon.

You haven't yet downloaded any applications from seti (which has notoriously flakey servers that are regularly down) so you may be on exponential backoff. Also presumably if you are running a firewall you have configured it to allow boinc to communicate.

First off stop boinc from running, ssh into your box and issue something like
sudo /etc/init.d/boinc_client stop
(The closest thing I have to ubuntu is debian so my commands may be slightly off)

run boinc directly from your terminal - which will show you some client output.
sudo boinc --dir /var/lib/boinc-client/


Example of output

06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] Starting BOINC client version 6.10.58 for i686-pc-linux-gnu
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] Config: GUI RPC allowed from:
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] Config:   Dell
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] Config:   Inspiron
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] Config:   Vostro
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] Config:   cgim433
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] Libraries: libcurl/7.21.0 OpenSSL/0.9.8o zlib/1.2.3.4 libidn/1.15 libssh2/1.2.6
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] Data directory: /var/lib/boinc-client
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] Processor: 1 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.00GHz [Family 15 Model 2 Stepping 7]
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] Processor: 512.00 KB cache
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe up pebs bts cid
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] OS: Linux: 2.6.32-5-686
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] Memory: 754.55 MB physical, 831.99 MB virtual
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] Disk: 17.30 GB total, 12.82 GB free
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] Local time is UTC +8 hours
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] No usable GPUs found
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [FreeHAL@home] URL http://www.freehal.net/freehal_at_home/; Computer ID 73844; resource share 100
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [WUProp@Home] URL http://wuprop.boinc-af.org/; Computer ID 31558; resource share 1
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] General prefs: from http://bam.boincstats.com/ (last modified 05-Mar-2012 10:22:16)
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] Computer location: school
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] General prefs: no separate prefs for school; using your defaults
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] Reading preferences override file
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] Preferences:
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---]    max memory usage when active: 747.01MB
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---]    max memory usage when idle: 747.01MB
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---]    max disk usage: 12.74GB
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---]    (to change preferences, visit the web site of an attached project, or select Preferences in the Manager)
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [---] Not using a proxy
Initialization completed
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [FreeHAL@home] Restarting task fh_nci_0_53673192_20_0 using newFreeHAL version 193
06-Mar-2012 18:35:14 [WUProp@Home] Restarting task wu_v3_1329461254_614132_0 using data_collect_v3 version 327
^C06-Mar-2012 18:35:22 [---] Received signal 2
06-Mar-2012 18:35:22 [---] Exit requested by user


You need to post your output here - wait till you see a reference to seti@home or something that indicates communications after the Initialization complete line then press ctrl C and post all the output.
CIC1=CC=C(C2=N[C@@H](CC(OC(C)(C)C)=O)C3=NN=C(C)N3C4=C2C(C)=C(C)S4)C=C1
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SleepySam

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Message 42922 - Posted: 7 Mar 2012, 0:04:36 UTC

So I actually cheated and loaded boincmgr - I can do this as did load the X11 services onto the server. My Mac has a X11 app built in so I remote into the server and run limited graphics via X11. Its not a pure server setup but this is just home stuff. I've got jobs from SETI and Rosetta running - Rosetta is already marking tasks done - SETI jobs are there but not sure if they are processing.

I'll give a week or 2 and see how the results are

Thanks
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Profile Trog Dog
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Message 42925 - Posted: 7 Mar 2012, 10:02:13 UTC

do yourself a favour and install boinctasks on your windows box, additionally sign up for BAM! from the boincstats website - it will make managing your "headless" box that much easier.
CIC1=CC=C(C2=N[C@@H](CC(OC(C)(C)C)=O)C3=NN=C(C)N3C4=C2C(C)=C(C)S4)C=C1
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Message boards : Questions and problems : Trying to run headless ...

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