I'm running a laptop with Ubuntu 18.04.5 with the latest CostamagnaGianfranco version of BOINC. Its been working fine for a long time, but suddenly I haven't be able to see ANYTHING in BOINC manager. No tasks, no statistics, no disk usage. Its as if BOINC Manager is open, but no information is being displayed. The client is running, the laptop is warm.

When I load BOINC Manager, it says: "BOINC Manager - Connection Error - gui_rpc_auth.cfg exists but can't be read. Check the file permissions."

Additionally, when I try to quit out of boinc in the command window, I type 'boinccmd --quit', but I get back "Authorization failure: -155", which my limited research points to a permission problem as well.

I'm a Linux noob, so any hand holding would be helpful. Thanks!

You are running the service version of BOINC. The BOINC client runs in the boinc group and belongs to that group as well as the video group if you use the gpu.
Your user needs to belong to those groups also.

You will also need to add yourself to the boinc group in order for the Manager to connect:

# usermod -a -G boinc $(whoami)

You can check the users in the boinc group with:

$ groups boinc
boinc : boinc video

Check your file permissions of the gui_rpc_auth.cfg file. It should have a 640 or 755 attribute. There should already be a softlink to the file in the /etc/boinc-client directory.
Make another softlink to the file in your home directory.

$ cd ~/
$ ln -s /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg gui_rpc_auth.cfg
# chmod 640 gui_rpc_auth.cfg

You can either null out the default hashed password or put in your own. Save the file and reboot and you should connect the Manager to the client.

You are running the service version of BOINC. The BOINC client runs in the boinc group and belongs to that group as well as the video group if you use the gpu.
Your user needs to belong to those groups also.

Got it. For the record, this laptop does not have any usable GPUs. Old Core 2 Duo.

You will also need to add yourself to the boinc group in order for the Manager to connect:

# usermod -a -G boinc $(whoami)

Sorry, I understand what you said, I don't know how to apply usermod here. I typed in the code line verabim at a command prompt, and nothing happened. I even tried it with my user name.

You can check the users in the boinc group with:

$ groups boinc
boinc : boinc video

This is correct, boinc and video are the users for this group. I assume my user name should be in this list as well?

Check your file permissions of the gui_rpc_auth.cfg file. It should have a 640 or 755 attribute. There should already be a softlink to the file in the /etc/boinc-client directory.
Make another softlink to the file in your home directory.

$ cd ~/
$ ln -s /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg gui_rpc_auth.cfg
# chmod 640 gui_rpc_auth.cfg

You can either null out the default hashed password or put in your own. Save the file and reboot and you should connect the Manager to the client.

I tried the commands you provided here, nothing happened, at least nothing I could observe.

Here's where I'm really confused. I found the gui_rpc_auth.cfg file in two locations. One is in the etc/boinc-client folder as you mentioned. This has rw permissions for root, read-only for boinc, and no access for others. The second is in Home, with rw for the owner, read-only for my group, and none for other. I'm not sure what to do with that.

Additionally, in the Home directory there are other boinc files, all_projects_list, client_state, coproc_info, etc. Shouldn't all those files be in a separate boinc directory, like in Windows? What I don't get is how this all happened. I don't touch this computer for anything, it just crunches all day. The only thing I literally do is check for Ubuntu and Boinc updates on occasion, and run those when available.

Sorry I expected to be conversing with someone familiar with Linux and assumed you would understand the command prompts.

The # on the command line indicates the superuser or root. So you need to run the usermod command as root.

sudo usermod -a -G boinc $(whoami)

Once you run this command the groups command will show your username as belonging to the boinc group.
That command starts with the $ symbol so indicates the user or home environment.
Yes it is normal for those files you mention to be in two places. BOINC installs itself into root level directories but makes dynamic links to the user facing files in the /home directory where you can make changes easily with user permissions. What you can't do in the base boinc directory which is protected as root.

You would have to install the old Seti BOINC user version to get all the BOINC files in the same directory. Why I like that kind of BOINC installation because all the files are in the same place in /home directory where you have direct user access. That kind of installation is available at the Lunatics website. You might find that version more amenable for your use. Not so confusing. You might try that one. All you have to do is unpack the file somewhere in your /home directory. The Desktop is a nice handy place or make a new folder in /home, like /home/BOINC and unpack it there. Then just double click the Manager file and the client will start and present you with the standard join projects dialog.

http://www.arkayn.us/lunatics/BOINC.7z

Thanks for dumbing it down, Keith. I tried the command line you provided, once with "$(whoami)", the other with my actual user name. I do understand that Linux is very finicky with case sensitivity, so I made sure capitalization was correct. However, regardless of what I type for the usermod command, there is no output, and when I check the groups command, it still only says "boinc" and "video". Am I doing something wrong?

PS - I feel like BOINC needs a forum group for "I'm using Linux for BOINC only, please help with my novice questions" forum. ;)

You shouldn't have to type anything. Just open a Terminal and copy and paste the exact command line I provided. That way you don't make any typos.

And there won't be any output from the command, it will just return to the Terminal prompt. You need to issue the

~$ groups boinc

command to see some output. It should return:

~$ boinc : {your_username} boinc video

Try just this command:

~$ groups
keith adm cdrom sudo dip plugdev lpadmin lxd sambashare

It should return your username and all the groups you belong to.

The only projects I know of that have specific Linux user forums is at Milkyway and TN-Grid.

https://milkyway.cs.rpi.edu/milkyway/forum_forum.php?id=5
https://gene.disi.unitn.it/test/forum_forum.php?id=38

But you can always search for the specific Linux terms and problems you are having issues with and it should pull up something. Google is always helpful too. Lots of Linux help available at Linux focused forums and help sites.

OK, here is another way of using the client and Manager. Open a Terminal and copy and paste this:

cd /usr/bin

You should be at:

/usr/bin $

Then issue:

$ sudo boinc

You should see the client start up and the standard output of the client startup in the Terminal like you see in the Event Log output. Then open another Terminal in /usr/bin and issue this command:

$ sudo boincmgr

You should see the Manager window open up and you should see the: Connected to localhost (and the version number of BOINC you are using) in the bottom of the Manager window.

This proves the Manager can connect to the client since you are running both as root in which both applications belong to the root user group and thus have the proper and adequate permissions. I just realized you should check both applications for the execute bits to be set also since if the either apps don't have that, neither will run and you won't connect to anything.

Still in the Terminal in the /usr/bin directory issue these commands:

:/usr/bin $

ls -ail boinc
3053 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 759328 Apr  1  2019 boinc

and :/usr/bin $

ls -ail boincmgr
3380 -rwxr-xr-x 1 root root 1803284 Apr  1  2019 boincmgr

This is just a sanity check that the permission and group memberships are still correct. You should have same read/write values I show. Or use the stat command to see the octal values.

:/usr/bin $ stat boinc
  File: boinc
  Size: 759328    	Blocks: 1488       IO Block: 4096   regular file
Device: b302h/45826d	Inode: 3053        Links: 1
Access: (0755/-rwxr-xr-x)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)
Access: 2019-10-16 18:52:29.000000000 -0700
Modify: 2019-04-01 04:29:33.000000000 -0700
Change: 2019-10-16 18:52:33.407610647 -0700
 Birth: -

:/usr/bin $ stat boincmgr
  File: boincmgr
  Size: 1803284   	Blocks: 3528       IO Block: 4096   regular file
Device: b302h/45826d	Inode: 3380        Links: 1
Access: (0755/-rwxr-xr-x)  Uid: (    0/    root)   Gid: (    0/    root)
Access: 2019-10-16 18:52:29.000000000 -0700
Modify: 2019-04-01 04:29:33.000000000 -0700
Change: 2019-10-16 18:52:39.977610644 -0700
 Birth: -

Both boinc and boincmgr should have the 755 octal read/write permission values.

If you can get both the client and the Manager to correctly launch, you know there is nothing wrong with the programs. The only issue is that the Manager is not handshaking to the client through the standard user environment. So back to checking the rpc_gui_auth.cfg file and its password.

Have you ever received any help from Jord on this issue? I would hazard a guess it is the one problem he gets asked about the most in the BOINC forums.

I think that, when I hit this same snag on my first Linux machine, the group membership listing didn't update immediately. But it was correct after the next restart.

And did you ever download the Lunatics version of the BOINC applications? They are not service mode applications. They just are normal userland application so no permission issues. They install the BOINC files and directory structure in your /home directory. So they are not hidden away out of sight like the standard repository versions of BOINC.

Or just use the 7.16.6 version of BOINC at the BOINC download website. That should still be a userland installation of BOINC I think. I haven't tried it since since the old 7.4.22 version though. I use the Lunatics package for ease of use.

I think that, when I hit this same snag on my first Linux machine, the group membership listing didn't update immediately. But it was correct after the next restart.

Hi Richard, thanks for chiming in. You may be correct. You probably should logoff and log back in to pick up the changes to the user environment.

Can you answer my question about the BOINC download versions? Are they still user mode applications or are they service mode now?