Computing with BOINC

Overview documents (read these first)

• Volunteer computing and grid computing
• BOINC in a nutshell
• Why use BOINC?
• Tutorial #1: Quick start
• Basic concepts
• Adapting applications
• Jobs and data
• Validation
• Security issues
• Tutorial #2: Project creation cookbook

Distributed computation with BOINC

• Computing model
  • Platforms
  • Applications and versions
  • Jobs
  • Redundancy and errors
  • Work distribution
  • Locality scheduling
  • Trickle messages
• Data management
  • Files and file references
  • File compression
  • Physical file management

Developing BOINC applications

• Overview
  • The BOINC wrapper
  • Example applications
• Basic APIs
  • API for main apps
  • API for graphics apps
• Specialized APIs
  • Runtime system options
  • Startup and status data
  • Diagnostics
  • Trickle messages
  • Intermediate upload
  • Apps that do network communication
• Customized scheduling
  • Application planning
  • Job-level scheduler customization
• Special types of applications
  • Multicore applications
  • Applications that use GPUs
    • CUDA applications
    • OpenCL applications
  • Non-CPU-intensive applications
  • Apps that run in VirtualBox virtual machines
  • MPI applications
• Languages other than C/C++
  • FORTRAN
  • Java
  • Python
  • PyMW: Python master/worker system
• Application development
  • Building BOINC applications on various platforms
  • Building BOINC applications with CUDA and OpenCL
  • Application development tips
  • Application debugging
  • Application debugging on Windows
  • Dynamic library issues

Creating a BOINC project

• What is a project?
  • Directory structure
• Setting up a BOINC server
  • The make_project script
• The project configuration file
  • Project options
  • Daemons
  • Periodic tasks
• Adding applications/platforms
• Adding application versions
• Project control
• Project security
  • Encryption utility program
  • Code signing
• Launching your project
• Internals
  • The BOINC database
  • Other job-processing daemons
  • Server-side file deletion
  • Database purging utility

Submitting and handling jobs

• Introduction
• Submitting jobs (incl. Input and Output templates)
• Work generators
• Validating results
  • Custom validators
  • Homogeneous redundancy
  • Adaptive replication
• Handling completed jobs
• Canceling jobs
• APIs for job-processing programs
• Assigned jobs
• The status of completed jobs
• Single job submission

Maintaining a BOINC project

• Debugging server components
• Upgrading a project's server software
  • Server software change log
• Increasing server capacity
• Administrative web interface
• Log rotation
• Watchdogs
• Stripcharts

Project web site

• Customize web site content
• Customize web site appearance with CSS
• Protection from spam
• Creating and managing message boards
• Project news
• Web site translation
• Server status page
• Profile screening
• Caching
• Adding a wiki
• Integration with WordPress

Communicating with volunteers

• Recruiting and retaining volunteers
• GUI URLs
• Notices
• Requiring that volunteers accept Terms of Use
• Creating a 'project skin'

Multi-user projects (portals)

• Multi-user project features
• Remote job submission
• Remote app and app version submission?

Miscellaneous

• Importing BOINC-wide teams
• Export credit data as XML
• Integrating BOINC projects with Grids
• Configuring MySQL for BOINC
• Controlling account creation
• Project-specific preferences
• Work filtering by application
• Beta-test applications
• Campus-level BOINC projects
• Accepting donations through PayPal
• Blacklisting hosts
• Code signing using X509 certificates
• Volunteer storage
• Alternative ways to grant credit
• Including opaque data in scheduler request messages

Unsupported software

• Boinc remote job submission
• Leiden remote job submission