Posts by MarkJ

81) Message boards : Questions and problems : Exempt Project from "Compute only between" Setting (Message 86524)
Posted 11 Jun 2018 by MarkJ
Post:
The preferences are across all projects. You are best off suspending the other projects via your scheduled task to suspend and later resume them.
82) Message boards : Questions and problems : Are there any current issues with BOINC and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS release? (Message 86285)
Posted 23 May 2018 by MarkJ
Post:
The only comment I can make is from Debian. With the Nvidia drivers I install nvidia-kernel-dkms but to get OpenCL one has to install nvidia-opencl-icd as well. Given you are using a ppa version its going to be different (and probably more up to date drivers) which might have their own set of problems.
83) Message boards : Questions and problems : Ubuntu -- After recent update, BOINC Manager is blank and tasks aren't running. (Message 86284)
Posted 23 May 2018 by MarkJ
Post:
The Linux boinc client is started as a systemd script (depending on your Linux flavour). It runs under the boinc users account. The manager cannot start it. You can however stop it via the manager if you tick the terminate option on the exit dialogue. Once its terminated you'll have to start the service to get it going again.

As Bob has said the client has to be running before the manager can connect to it. Under normal circumstances it would be started when the system boots up.

Typical commands:
sudo service boinc-client stop - Stop the service
sudo service boinc-client start - Starts the service
sudo service boinc-client status - Query its status
84) Message boards : Questions and problems : Are there any current issues with BOINC and Ubuntu 18.04 LTS release? (Message 86189)
Posted 12 May 2018 by MarkJ
Post:
Well I upgraded one cruncher from 7.8.2 to 7.10.2 without issue. This was on Debian, not Ubuntu though. The BOINC data directory is now in /var/lib/boinc but there’s a symlink so the old one still works. Running kernel 4.16 that came down a couple of days ago (was 4.15 before that). I let apt update it, didn’t detach but did finish off cached work first.

Also there have been reports from one user on Einstein about mouse jerkiness - he was using Ubuntu 18 so the OS or drivers might not be that stable.
85) Message boards : Questions and problems : One email address can be used to register two or more accounts on different projects, bug or feature? (Message 86182)
Posted 10 May 2018 by MarkJ
Post:
Its the email address. All my projects have different passwords.

Now if you use an account manager they usually use one email/password for all projects but that's just to make life easier for the AM.
86) Message boards : Questions and problems : Authorization failure: -155 (Message 86126)
Posted 8 May 2018 by MarkJ
Post:
Just tried it on a Debian Stretch machine and a Pi3. In both cases it worked.

Rpi
uname -a
Linux *** 4.14.34-v7+ #1110 SMP Mon Apr 16 15:18:51 BST 2018 armv7l GNU/Linux
boinccmd --version
boinccmd, built from BOINC 7.6.33

Stretch
uname -a
Linux *** 4.15.0-0.bpo.2-amd64 #1 SMP Debian 4.15.11-1~bpo9+1 (2018-04-07) x86_64 GNU/Linux
boinccmd --version
boinccmd, built from BOINC 7.9.2


I have values in remote_hosts.cfg and gui_rpc_auth.cfg

I have seen the issue in the past where it only works if you cd to /etc/boinc-client first and then do the command. I suspect the kernel because other things also didn't work and seem to have been fixed by a kernel update without doing anything to the boinc-client.
87) Message boards : BOINC Manager : Linux version seems to require a password for local host (Message 86012)
Posted 26 Apr 2018 by MarkJ
Post:
Debian has been doing that for ages. I add a desktop launcher and change its properties to include the password parameter. That allows it to talk to the BOINC client. In the properties it will have “boincmgr” so you change it to be “boincmgr —password xxx” where xxx is your password. Don’t include the quotes and that’s two hyphens.

You should use a firewall as well, rather than just relying on the BOINC password to keep the hackers out. See message 84967
88) Message boards : Questions and problems : BOINC downclocks my GPU's RAM by 500 MHz; doesn't happen with heavy gaming (Message 85937)
Posted 19 Apr 2018 by MarkJ
Post:
I would expect the drivers have been coded to do this for compute workloads.

OpenCL apps generally require a CPU thread but CUDA apps usually don’t. It will vary from each science app and what language was used to code it.
89) Message boards : Questions and problems : BOINC freezes Raspberry Pi (Message 85859)
Posted 13 Apr 2018 by MarkJ
Post:
To help the SD cards last longer it’s highly recommend to change the checkpoint interval from its default of 60 seconds to something higher. I have mine set to 600. The SD cards can only do so many writes. If you can reduce that number then they’ll last longer.

Even better if you can move the root partition to an external disk then they could last for years as it only needs to read the boot partition with everything else on the hard disk. Another alternative is using an nfs share, but that’s getting a lot more complicated.
90) Message boards : Questions and problems : Unable to stop BOINC from running as a service upon system boot (Message 85435)
Posted 27 Mar 2018 by MarkJ
Post:
If you want to have BOINC wait after starting up edit the config file:
sudo nano /var/lib/boinc-client/cc_config.xml
and paste the following in:
<cc_config>
    <options>
        <start_delay>120</start_delay>
    </options>
</cc_config>

It will read it the next time it starts up. That says we want a 120 second delay before computations start.

There are various other preferences you can set via the manager (not to mention seeing what its actually doing) to control it. BOINC runs tasks at a low priority anyway (nice level of 19) so I don't think you'll find it interfering, but you can tell it via the option settings in the manager that you don't want it computing while the computer is being used and you could also tell it to only use a percentage of the CPU cores. I think you should try it first and see if you notice any impact while you use the machine and adjust if needed.
91) Message boards : Questions and problems : Unable to stop BOINC from running as a service upon system boot (Message 85423)
Posted 26 Mar 2018 by MarkJ
Post:
You don’t really get any control over the service running.

What you can do is have it not compute through the various settings, like when in use or certain times of the day. You can even give a start delay if you just want to get through the boot sequence. If you really want to micro manage you can even set it to no new tasks and suspend what’s running. The service itself doesn’t use much cpu or memory on its own.

What is your reason for not wanting it to run at start up?
92) Message boards : Questions and problems : boinccmd account manager operation don't work (Message 85386)
Posted 23 Mar 2018 by MarkJ
Post:
The manager usually requires the password option be passed to it. The BOINC client runs under user boinc, not the logged in user.

In Debian 9.4 I setup a desktop shortcut and then changed the properties to include —password xxx on the end, where xxx is the content of your gui_rpc_auth.cfg file. Mine all have something in there, not sure what it does if it’s blank. Yes that’s a double hyphen in front of the word password.
93) Message boards : Questions and problems : Controlling or Viewing Multiple Hosts (Message 85385)
Posted 23 Mar 2018 by MarkJ
Post:
I’m using BOINCtasks running on a Win7 laptop to control my hosts. Was originally a mix of Win7 and Linux. Now they’re all Linux. Even have Raspberry Pi’s in the mix. The problem with the Pis is you need to give them fixed IP addresses because they don’t seem to broadcast their name on the network like everything else does. In BT you put their IP address. You still need to put a gui_rpc_auth and remote_hosts file on each cruncher. If you have a firewall you also need to allow the BOINC port access.
94) Message boards : Questions and problems : Can't Connect Client and Disconnects Win 10 (Message 85109)
Posted 11 Mar 2018 by MarkJ
Post:
What do you mean by “disconnecting when its supposed to run”? Is the manager not connecting to the core client, or is not computing when in use or something else?

Your BOINC preferences have it set to not compute/not do network activity when in use and not compute when non-BOINC CPU use > 25%. You can change those through Options in advanced view. Given its a Pentium at 1.1GHz it probably uses more than 25% to do anything.
95) Message boards : Questions and problems : can't run boinc in azure: /user/slots directory does not exist (Message 84998)
Posted 3 Mar 2018 by MarkJ
Post:
BOINC from the repos uses /var/lib/boinc-client as its data directory so first thing would be to look in there.
96) Message boards : BOINC client : BOINC 7 development discussion thread. (Message 84994)
Posted 2 Mar 2018 by MarkJ
Post:
Given the memory limitations of 32 bit, why do we even have a 32 bit BOINC with VirtualBox? I would suggest that we should only offer it as a 64 bit build. By all means keep the 32 bit BOINC client but don't waste resources on a Vbox for it.
97) Message boards : BOINC client : BOINC 7 development discussion thread. (Message 84988)
Posted 1 Mar 2018 by MarkJ
Post:
Now here's the confusing thing. When I install the 32 bit client and check with boinc.exe --version from the command line what it answers, it says 7.9.2 windows_intelx86, while the 64 bit client will answer 7.9.2 windows_x86_64. So if the client answers that via the command line, why can't it do so via the event log?

When you look in task manager does it show a *32 next to it? That usually indicates windows thinks its a 32 bit app (at least under Win7, the Win10 version of task manager may not provide it).

It sounds like the first message "Starting BOINC client" is wrong but the Vbox message is correct.
98) Message boards : Questions and problems : BOINC freezes Raspberry Pi (Message 84968)
Posted 28 Feb 2018 by MarkJ
Post:
This adds an iptables based firewall that will be executed when Raspbian starts up. Its basically the same as the above one except in how its started.

Note:
xxx is defined in /etc/hosts and is the name of a machine we allow to remote in to this Rpi via SSH and to connect to the BOINC client. It is recommended that the xxx machine has a static IP address otherwise this won't work. If you don't want to allow any remote access then comment out (by putting a # symbol in front) the last 2 lines of the firewall_example.sh script.

Nano is a text editor. To save your file press Ctrl-O and when prompted for the filename just press the Enter key. To exit press Ctrl-X


Raspbian iptables firewall
1. Type sudo nano /etc/rc.local and paste the following in:

#!/bin/sh -e
#
# rc.local
#
# This script is executed at the end of each multiuser runlevel.
# Make sure that the script will "exit 0" on success or any other
# value on error.
set –e

# Launch my netfilter rules
if [ -e '/etc/firewall_example.sh' ]
then
/bin/sh '/etc/firewall_example.sh'
fi
exit 0


2. sudo nano /etc/firewall_example.sh and paste the following in:

#!/bin/sh
# A very basic IPtables / Netfilter script
PATH='/sbin'

# Flush the tables to apply changes
iptables -F
ip6tables -F

# Default policy is to drop everything but our output to the internet
iptables -P FORWARD DROP
iptables -P INPUT DROP
iptables -P OUTPUT ACCEPT

ip6tables -P FORWARD DROP
ip6tables -P INPUT DROP
ip6tables -P OUTPUT ACCEPT

# Allow established connections (the responses to our outgoing traffic)
iptables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
ip6tables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT

# Allow local programs that use loopback (Unix sockets)
iptables -A INPUT -s 127.0.0.0/8 -d 127.0.0.0/8 -i lo -j ACCEPT
ip6tables -A INPUT -s ::1/128 -d ::1/128 -i lo -j ACCEPT

# Allow xxx to SSH into this machine and to RPC to BOINC
iptables -A INPUT -s xxx -p tcp --dport 22 -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -s xxx -p tcp --dport 31416 -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT


3. Reboot the Pi (sudo reboot)
99) Message boards : Questions and problems : BOINC freezes Raspberry Pi (Message 84967)
Posted 28 Feb 2018 by MarkJ
Post:
This adds an iptables based firewall that will be executed when Debian starts up.

Note:
xxx is defined in /etc/hosts and is the name of a machine we allow to remote in to this machine via SSH and to connect to the BOINC client. It is recommended that the xxx machine has a static IP address otherwise this won't work. If you don't want to allow any remote access then comment out (by putting a # symbol in front) the last 2 lines of the firewall_example.sh script.

Nano is a text editor. To save your file press Ctrl-O and when prompted for the filename just press the Enter key. To exit press Ctrl-X

Debian iptables firewall
1. sudo nano /etc/systemd/system/firewall.service and paste the following in:

[Unit]
Description=Add Firewall Rules to iptables

[Service]
Type=oneshot
ExecStart=/etc/firewall_example.sh

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target


2. sudo nano /etc/firewall_example.sh and paste the following in:

#!/bin/sh
# A very basic IPtables / Netfilter script
PATH='/sbin'

# Flush the tables to apply changes
iptables -F
ip6tables -F

# Default policy is to drop everything but our output to the internet
iptables -P FORWARD DROP
iptables -P INPUT DROP
iptables -P OUTPUT ACCEPT

ip6tables -P FORWARD DROP
ip6tables -P INPUT DROP
ip6tables -P OUTPUT ACCEPT

# Allow established connections (the responses to our outgoing traffic)
iptables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT
ip6tables -A INPUT -m state --state ESTABLISHED,RELATED -j ACCEPT

# Allow local programs that use loopback (Unix sockets)
iptables -A INPUT -s 127.0.0.0/8 -d 127.0.0.0/8 -i lo -j ACCEPT
ip6tables -A INPUT -s ::1/128 -d ::1/128 -i lo -j ACCEPT

# Allow xxx to SSH into this machine and to RPC to BOINC
iptables -A INPUT -s xxx -p tcp --dport 22 -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -s xxx -p tcp --dport 31416 -m state --state NEW -j ACCEPT


3. Enable the service by typing: sudo systemctl enable firewall.service

4. Set execute permissions:

sudo chmod +x /etc/firewall_example.sh
sudo chmod +x /etc/systemd/system/firewall.service

5. Reboot the machine (sudo reboot)
100) Message boards : Questions and problems : BOINC freezes Raspberry Pi (Message 84966)
Posted 28 Feb 2018 by MarkJ
Post:
Got any advice for the firewall, Mark? My Pi might want one as well once I resurrect it. Or does a NAT router suffice?

I’ll dig out my install notes. Basically there was an iptables one described on the Debian wiki and I took that and added a few things. Will post it later. I use almost the same script on the Raspberry Pi’s as the Debian PC’s.

See Debianfirewall


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