We are currently proofing a requirement with our Company 'Serco'. The requirement from Serco is to design a custom screen saver using VB6 and
be able to allow configure / mass installation of BOINC client through our screensaver . The proper questions to our requirements as follows

1) What is the best option of installing BOINC clients on about 4000 pc's accross a Company internet.
2) We would like a single logon which the clients uses to access a defined project which we control.Is this possible for many clients to use one account to a certain project ?
3) Do you have API'S for visual Basic 6 which we can use to configure the client, e.g cpu usage,memory usage and others.
4) We do not want Boinc interfering with our custom screensaver but only to activate on low pc usage.
5) Could we embed the BOINC client in our screensaver with out the need of a full client installation (e.g have only necessary components of BOINC and embed this on our screensaver code)

Many kind thanks

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The requirement from Serco is to design a custom screen saver using VB6 and
be able to allow configure / mass installation of BOINC client through our screensaver

3) Do you have API'S for visual Basic 6 which we can use to configure the client, e.g cpu usage,memory usage and others.
4) We do not want Boinc interfering with our custom screensaver but only to activate on low pc usage.

Would it be possible to design a custom screensaver that (amoung other things), could also display in a window of it, the data that the core-client screensaver could display (with the application data for the active project). This allows for something like a 'screensaver construction kit. A boinc-saver could be part if it as a buildingblock for some or all of the screenspace.

What is nessesary is some API that allows this part of the screen to be filled with data. The rest is up to the person that writes or customizes this company screensaver to displaycompany data or other news (or maybe as a dimm desktop background).

Would it be possible to design a custom screensaver that (amoung other things), could also display in a window of it, the data that the core-client screensaver could display (with the application data for the active project).

Do you mean this:

When running BOINC (I saw your service question and answered you how you get your graphics and screen saver back), open Boinc Manager, Tasks tab, select a running result, press Show graphics.

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2) We would like a single logon which the clients uses to access a defined project which we control.Is this possible for many clients to use one account to a certain project ?
...

Many kind thanks

There are at least 2 ways to address item 2.

A.

Create an account on a single computer that attaches to the desired project.

On that machine, inside the BOINC directory, look for a file whose name begins account_ and ends .xml

If you decided instead to attach to two projects, there will be two such files, and so on. Please note that BOINC recommends attaching to two or more projects in order that the machine does not run out of work when one project is offline - if you strongly prefer one project to the other then the suggestion is to allocate a very small resource share to the 'backup' project. That is for you to decide - and if you want just a single project then that is fine.

When you roll out the software to all the other machines, copy that file (those files) into the new BOINC directory either immediately before or immediately after the install program runs, and before boinc starts for the first time.

The client will then know it is attached to that project (those projects) under the defined log in details.

B

On a single machine, install BOINC on a single machine, and then create an account on a boinc account manager site.

Find the file that defines the account manager (sorry I don't know the file name) and copy that across. Each new client will attach itself to that account manager.

Comparing A and B

A is ideal if you are sure you will not change your choice of project(s) in the future. It is slightly easier to set up, and in my opinion easier to understand. Each client knows where it is going, and goes straight there. But, if you want to change the choice later on, you need to distribute the new account_ file to 4000 machines.

B allows you to make changes after installation to the choice of project. Because it is the account manager that has been defined at install, all the clients go to that account manager from time to time to find out what they should be doing. On the account manager site you can connect to a new project, disconnect, change project shares, and so on. Once you do this, over the next few hours or days all the 4000 clients will follow.

Both A and B will allow anyone with enough knowledge and with read access to the BOINC files on their machine to find out how to log into the project site - they could for example post messages on the forums or change resource levels without you knowing. It would be a good idea to prevent your users, if possible, from reading these files and in particular the account_*.xml file in the BOINC folder.

In addition B would allow the skilled user with read access to log in to the account manager site and hijack all the machines to another project. In contrast A does not have this risk - to change all the machines the cracker would have to visit them all in turn over the network or in person.

If it is a friendly project, another security point would be to ask the project admins to disable the posting of messages from the account. For example, Rosetta did this for an initiative to distribute the software on CD preset to a demo account. With 4000 machines, many projects would regard such a request favourably.

Hope that is useful.

River~~

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