= Deploying a BOINC server on the Amazon Elastic Computing Cloud =

=== Why use a Cloud? === #why

Hosting a BOINC server on a cloud is useful for the following reasons:
 * It's cheaper for small to medium projects to rent time on a cloud versus paying for hardware, bandwidth, and electric power on one's own.
 * It's easier and faster to use an existing OS image with the BOINC server already installed than to compile and configure it on one's own.

=== Quick Start === #start

This assumes that you already have an account with Amazon's EC2 and S3.  If not, here are some [http://paulstamatiou.com/2008/04/05/how-to-getting-started-with-amazon-ec2 instructions].  It also assumes you have Amazon's AMI tools installed.  If not, here are [http://developer.amazonwebservices.com/connect/entry.jspa?externalID=368 instructions].

1. Download the server bundle.

2. Assuming you've extracted the archive to /tmp, upload the bundle to Amazon's S3:

{{{ec2-upload-bundle -b boinc-debian-etch -m /tmp/boinc-debian-etch.manifest.xml -a $ACCESS_KEY -s $SECRET_KEY}}}

where $ACCESS_KEY and $SECRET_KEY are your environment variables set to the corresponding keys.

3. Register the uploaded image:

{{{ec2-register boinc-debian-etch/boinc-debian-etch.manifest.xml}}}

This should output an Amazon instance id (ami-XXX).

4. Start an instance of the boinc server:

{{{ec2-run-instances ami-XXX}}} 

 
And voila, assuming you've opened port 80, you should now have a running BOINC server.