Hello everybody, I am a student of the Technical University of Munich (Germany) and I'm working for the chair of IT in Mechanical Engineering. I am a German, so please try to be not too strict with my English.
My task is it, to change the source code of the BOINC-client-software so that it fits to our needs. Before I ask my actual question, I would like to know whether this is the right board to question you about the code of BOINC.

Thanks to everyone helping me.

Go ahead and ask the question. Depending on what it is, we can always decide upon where to put it, or leave it here.

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We would like to use the BOINC-server and -client software to provide work for our computer grid. Our computer grid is not used on a regular basis. Due to the fact that the BOINC-software is set to increase the time between two work requests upon each unsuccessful request it is likely to happen that the time swells up to several days. This might lead to long delays in case a project is coming up. Therefore we would like to limit the time between work-fetch-requests to about an hour. Where can this setting be found in the source code, so that we are able to change and compile it for our own purpose.

The new BOINC clients back-off asking for work to a maximum of 86400 seconds (1 day). These numbers are set through work_fetch.cpp

#define MIN_BACKOFF_INTERVAL    60
#define MAX_BACKOFF_INTERVAL    86400

Combine that with the <next_rpc_delay>x</next_rpc_delay> setting in config.xml (in the Project Options) and you should be able to figure it out.

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First of all thank you very much for your answer.

Do I understand the description for <next_rpc_delay> correctly? Does it force the client to try to fetch work at a specific time?

Finally I tried to build the client software with MS Visual Studio 2008 as it is written on Compile Client Software. Unfortunately the compiler reports some errors regarding a missing file called "glaux.h". Do you have an idea where I get the right file and why it is missing and not included in the subversion repository?

Again, thanks for your help.

Do I understand the description for <next_rpc_delay> correctly? Does it force the client to try to fetch work at a specific time?

It tells the client not to contact the scheduler again until that time has run out. If you try an update before that time, you usually get a message saying something alike "last scheduler contact so many seconds ago, still got this many to go" and will do so until that time. (There's a way around that though, by doing the "do network communications now" option under Advanced).

Finally I tried to build the client software with MS Visual Studio 2008 as it is written on Compile Client Software. Unfortunately the compiler reports some errors regarding a missing file called "glaux.h". Do you have an idea where I get the right file and why it is missing and not included in the subversion repository?

Which code are you building with? Trunk?
Did you download and install the Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2? Did you tell VS2008 to use it as an additional dependency? GLAux.h is part of this SDK.

You may want to use the Compile with wxWidgets instead of the original.

I have written that page, although I could never build the library files with VS 2008 express edition. They would build, but BOINC would only use libCurl and none of the others.

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Ok, I think I have to read the text passages more than ones. Now that you have explained <next_rpc_delay> to me I understand the original help on the homepage. Thanks.

To your questions: I downloaded the source code out of the tags/boinc_core_release_6_6_31/ folder. Was this a wrong idea? I thought it would do perfect if I took an official release which is downloadable for everyone.

I did not install the Microsoft Platform SDK for Windows Server 2003 R2, because it is written on the help site that it is only needed to be backward compatible to VS 2005 and when compiling the client for an older version of Windows than XP. Because everyone in our team uses VS 2008 and every PC has at least WINXP, I thought I could omit it.

I think you already figured it out that I am more an engineer than a programmer. So if I have to install the MS Platform SDK for Win Server 2k3 R2 how do I change the needed settings you talked about?

Because I do not feel very comfortable about working with larger projects I would rather still use VS 2008 (by the way: Professional Edition) instead of wxWidgets as a new compiler. But it has nothing to do with the fact, that it is open-source. Personally I normally would choose open-source but VS 2008 is free for me as long as I am student of the TUM.

Thanks for taking care of me and my problems.

Can you please contact me through email? That is a little quicker than through the forums, as I can imagine you're not always checking them here, nor am I.

I've put my email address in a PM to you.

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