Hi there everybody! I'm looking for some assistance in creating a custom installer for BOINC.

The idea is to create an MSI installer for domain-wide installation, along with the required remote control and account manager setup files. I've been fumbling my way through Orca, and I've added the requisite files to the correct table, so I'm pretty sure that's okay.

Right now, I'm trying to find the correct place to specify the sandbox group and usernames, such as BOINC_ADMINS_GROUPNAME. According to the custom installers article, there are version 6.x installer properties for these groups and usernames, and they can be domain accounts. This is what I'd like to do--set the groups and users to domain groups and user accounts that can then be managed by policy, rather than having these accoutns replicated uniquely to each machine.

However, I'm having trouble finding the place to set these properties, and I'm wondering if I'm missing some detail. Sadly, nobody has yet put together a comprehensive how-to for deploying BOINC version 6 across a domain!

Thanks for any help!

---

I'm not sure if it applies here, but Ageless wrote in Message 33078:

...
Not just the limited user accounts that the BOINC service requires, but more.
So please see http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/ClientSetupWinSix and http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/ClientSetupLogicWinSix for lots of information.

Also, if that Server 2008 system is a domain controller, you cannot use BOINC 6 on it. It won't allow the making of local accounts, only global ones. BOINC uses local accounts only.

(emphasis by me).

Gruß,
Gundolf

---

Computer sind nicht alles im Leben. (Kleiner Scherz)

I remember looking over this thread while I was originally fiddling with the MSI options. I'm not going to try installing BOINC on a DC, though now that I think about it, I probably could if and only if I could use a pre-created domain account in the MSI installer, as the custom installers article references.

If BOINC was going to create its own accounts, I could see the DC installation being an issue, since the devs apparently used the API for local accounts, which don't exist on a DC. But I don't want BOINc to have to create its accounts in the first place. I'd like to tell it "here's your accounts and groups, now install your files and set your permissions however you like."

The custom installers document says I can use a domain account for the sandbox accounts. The ClientSetupLogicWinSix document even includes provision for installing BOINC to a DC. It is common knowledge, however, that BOINC does not install on DCs, and Ageless seems to have confirmed this. That's okay, because I don't plan on installing BOINC to any DCs or even any servers. I just want to get this setup so I can assign it via Group Policy to the workstations, and I'd rather have the necessary accounts and groups set up in the domain, rather than having a seperate batch of accounts and groups created on every single workstation. So...which of these documents is no longer correct, or am I missing something mind-bogglingly simple?

---

When I reminded myself of the DC problem at Einstein recently (a side-effect is that the only recognised way to run BOINC on a small business server is to stick at v5.10.xx, which doesn't recognise the plan_class approach to optimised apps), I was referred to http://boinc.thesonntags.com/collatz/forum_thread.php?id=455&nowrap=true#7137.

That seems to suggest that there is no actual problem with running BOINC v6 on a DC (though I don't recommend that anyone else adopt Crunch3r's cavalier approach to security), but that all the problems reside in the Berkeley BOINC installer.