How to tell BOINC to ignore VirtualBox

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HAL9000
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Message 56199 - Posted: 23 Sep 2014, 19:58:30 UTC

Is there currently a way to tell BOINC to not look for an installation of VirtualBox. Much in the way we can specify hardware resources for it to ignore?

One of the servers I am running BOINC on I also use VirtualBox to host VMs. If BOINC were to start an instance in a VirtualBox I imagine it would run at a higher priority level. I have the system setup to give higher priority to the VMs than BOINC. Which seems like it could an issue if I were to run a project that used VM apps. So I would rather just tell BOINC to ignore VirtualBox all together if possible.
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Profile Jord
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Message 56203 - Posted: 23 Sep 2014, 22:54:31 UTC - in response to Message 56199.  
Last modified: 23 Sep 2014, 22:55:37 UTC

BOINC will only use VirtualBox when you have added a project that uses it and allowed it to ask for and run work. Else it won't use VBox, only detect its presence.

When you run BOINC in a VM in VBox, it won't even detect VBox, unless the OS you run in the VM has a separate VBox installation. But here again, VBox is only used when you've added a project that uses VMs in VBox and that project is capable of asking for and running work.

As far as I know, all VMs run in VBox by projects run at Below Normal priority.
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HAL9000
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Message 56213 - Posted: 24 Sep 2014, 13:23:35 UTC

I had tried running BOINC in a VM, but I wasn't able to set it to yield priority to the other more important VMs correctly. So BOINC runs on the main OS, Windows Server, with VB set to run VMs Above Normal. For me this works as I like giving the VMs resources they need.

I was looking at some more projects to add & I didn't want to learn a project had switched to using VM apps without my knowledge. Then have my VMs running sluggish. Like they did when I had with BOINC running in a VM.

I guess an option is to compile my own version with the VirtualBox detection removed.
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Message 56215 - Posted: 24 Sep 2014, 14:18:43 UTC - in response to Message 56213.  

I'll forward it to the developers, though. Perhaps that they can add it as an option, there's probably others with in the same situation as well.
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Coleslaw
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Message 56216 - Posted: 24 Sep 2014, 14:36:51 UTC

Not all projects run VM apps continuously and some don't give you the option to de-select them from the project. You would have to manually create an app_config to tell your system to not accept work from those apps. GPUGrid is an example of where they are testing a VM app. If you are someone whom doesn't visit the forums often, you may not know that GPUGrid no longer just runs GPU apps. So, I could see this request to be a very valid one.
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Profile Jord
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Message 56239 - Posted: 25 Sep 2014, 9:21:33 UTC
Last modified: 25 Sep 2014, 9:22:24 UTC

You got it. :)
 <dont_use_vbox>0|1</dont_use_vbox>
if set, don't run VirtualBox jobs New in 7.5
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Client_configuration#Options
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HAL9000
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Message 56255 - Posted: 25 Sep 2014, 21:19:22 UTC - in response to Message 56239.  

You got it. :)
 <dont_use_vbox>0|1</dont_use_vbox>
if set, don't run VirtualBox jobs New in 7.5
http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Client_configuration#Options

Cool beans. I shall look forward to using it!
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Message boards : BOINC client : How to tell BOINC to ignore VirtualBox

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