i own a lab and was using BOINC to generate some CPU workload on multiple machines, so I've been repeatedly setting up CentOS 7.4, and installing the boinc client, and attaching it.

every time I just install via yum install -y boinc-client which installs 7.14.2

*every* time after I enable and start the service i am unable to attach the client with my credentials (authentication error) until i stop the service, delete the file gui_rpc_auth.cfg, restart the service.

Now, this isn't working on one machine. it's re-creating that file every time I start the service. it's driving me a little bonkers because this should be pretty straight forward. What am I missing? I'm using CLI only here. no gui on these headless nodes. What is creating that file? i don't want it until i attach do i?

I think that the boinccmd tool uses the same RPC as the BOINC Manager (GUI) does, as it still has to talk to the client to command it.
Have you set the RPC port (tcp 31416) in your firewall?

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OK. I figured out my process problem.

I was not cd /var/lib/boinc first.

run outside that directory (fail)
run inside that directory (success)

seems where you execute that command is important.

seems where you execute that command is important.

I seem to remember that if starting the manager from a terminal,it needs to be done from the directory where the client resides.

Hello, I am the BOINC comaintainer on Fedora / CentOS / RHEL.
Instead of erasing /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg, just run as root

echo > /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg

And it will be fine