I've installed BOINC client on an Ubuntu machine with the hope of running several others like it, ive been going through steps and trying to attach a project yet i have gotten nowhere,
By supplying the command:
boinccmd --attach_project http://setiathome.berkeley.edu [my auth]
I get an error, Authorization Failure -155
I cant login as user Boinc, and both of my gui_rpc_auth.cfg's are empty, and contain no password,
I apologize if the answer to this can be found elsewhere, that would be helpful too.

--attach_project is the boinc binary command.
--project_attach is the boinccmd command.

https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Client_configuration#Command-line_options

--attach_project URL account_key

https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Boinccmd_tool

--project_attach URL account_key

So please double check that you're using the right command in the correct place.
Also check that you have the whole authenticator key. Error -155 means that the authenticator you provided isn't the same as the one the project has in the database.

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I have the same issue. I'm issuing this command:

boinccmd --project_attach http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/ my_account_key

and getting the same message:

Authorization failure: -155

I triple checked the account key and tried both weak account key and regular account key.

I'm not sure we're looking in the right place.

Isn't "Authorization failure: -155" more concerned with whether boinccmd is authorized to issue commands to the local client, rather than whether the user account is recognised by the project? I need to think about and research that.

Edit - confirmed:

I get messages like this

C:\BOINC>C:\BOINC\boinccmd.exe --project_attach http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/ my_account_key
26-Jul-2018 12:56:12: GUI RPC error: Already attached to project
Operation failed: already attached to project

C:\BOINC>C:\BOINC\boinccmd.exe --project_attach http://www.enigmaathome.net/ my_account_key

with, in the second case, an event log message

26/07/2018 12:58:27 | Enigma@Home | Invalid or missing account key.  To fix, remove and add this project .

The auth failure -155 means you need to pass the --passwd on the boinccmd command line - see Boinccmd tool:

"Otherwise you need to supply (as password) the string stored in the file gui_rpc_auth.cfg in the client's data directory. If you run boinccmd remotely you also need to configure the client to accept remote control."

Further evidence:

C:\BOINC>C:\BOINC\boinccmd.exe --passwd rubbish --project_attach http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/ my_account_key
Authorization failure: -155

I'm using Windows, where registry data is used to manage boinccmd <--> client authentication 99.9% of the time. I deliberately broke that, and triggered the failure message. I suspect the other users in this thread are running Linux, where identifying the data folder and hence reading gui_rpc_auth.cfg may be more problematic.

/var/lib/boinc-client/ being the default location on my Ubuntu box.

I run the following command:

boinccmd --acct_mgr attach https://bam.boincstats.com myuser mypass

And constantly get:

Authorization failure: -155

The reply is immediate, so I guess it is a setting related problem, because there is no way i manages to make a round-trip to the account manager server and back..

What is the problem? How to make it work?

P.S Also, should I open any ports on my AWS VM instance?

As already discussed in this thread, this is NOT an authorisation failure with the account manager.

Instead, it is a failure between boinccmd and boinc (the BOINC client), both running locally on your own machine.

Find the gui_rpg_auth.cfg password for your local BOINC client, and pass it with --passwd on the command line for boinccmd.

When using boinccmd on Linux it is important from where you execute the command. So without your working directory at the time you execute the command we can't help you. What boinccmd does is look in the current directory for a file called "gui_rpc_auth.cfg" to read the password from.

See: https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Boinccmd_tool

If you run boinccmd in the same directory as the BOINC client, you don't need to supply either a host name or a password.

Otherwise you need to supply (as password) the string stored in the file gui_rpc_auth.cfg in the client's data directory.

has anyone found a definitive solution to this issue?
I'm facing the same problem here.... any command I'll send to boinccmd will return this "-155 error".
Thanks for your help, guys!

I've installed BOINC client on an Ubuntu machine with the hope of running several others like it, ive been going through steps and trying to attach a project yet i have gotten nowhere,
By supplying the command:
boinccmd --attach_project http://setiathome.berkeley.edu [my auth]
I get an error, Authorization Failure -155
I cant login as user Boinc, and both of my gui_rpc_auth.cfg's are empty, and contain no password,
I apologize if the answer to this can be found elsewhere, that would be helpful too.

I suggest you put a password into gui_rpc_auth.cfg (why do you have two of them, btw?). Anything will do - mine has eight letters, 'password'.

Then, give that password to boinccmd via --passwd password, along with everything else.