Does BoincView have a problem

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Message 229131 - Posted: 11 Jan 2006, 2:05:59 UTC

Recently I just noticed that Boincview has the CPDN unit listed as suspended for localhost. It was not suspended and was running. BoincManager has it running. I tried to resume using Boincview and it basically said it couldn't connect to host. The total information otherwise seems to be current.
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Message 229157 - Posted: 11 Jan 2006, 3:16:41 UTC

Where was boincview showing this?
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Message 229160 - Posted: 11 Jan 2006, 3:21:20 UTC - in response to Message 229157.  

Where was boincview showing this?

it was in work section. It appears to be working now. I just hate it when computers can't talk to themselves.
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Message 229178 - Posted: 11 Jan 2006, 4:09:50 UTC
Last modified: 11 Jan 2006, 4:11:49 UTC

My setup with seti only shows suspended as a status, under the work tab as well. Some times it will show active, then most other times suspended. But it has always run fine. What selection do you use to get the info from each computer?
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Message 229311 - Posted: 11 Jan 2006, 13:47:32 UTC

the most reliable method is GUI RPC mode with a 5-30 second refresh interval

if you're using a longer refresh interval, or using file mode then updates will take longer to appear
file mode can only be updated when the client_state.xml file is updated by the boinc client, which means it doesn't reflect the current state too accuratly
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Message 229876 - Posted: 12 Jan 2006, 0:58:26 UTC

Lee, you got any good instructions (step by step)on setting up with GUI RPC? I want to switch over, but don't fully understand the web site.
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Message 230048 - Posted: 12 Jan 2006, 7:06:55 UTC - in response to Message 229876.  
Last modified: 12 Jan 2006, 7:34:48 UTC

Lee, you got any good instructions (step by step)on setting up with GUI RPC? I want to switch over, but don't fully understand the web site.
Sure, i'll write it as a general guide rather than a specific responce, here goes...


first of all i'm assuming you've got BOINC installed and running/working on allthe computers you want it to be on

also, since i was able to manage all my hosts remotely with ease, i personally found it better to have boinc installed as a service, so that it runs regardless of who's logged in (or if nobody is logged in), but if you decide to do this, the please read the solution for enabling graphics with the service insall if you want to see the screensaver (but BOINC will work fine without the screensaver)

ok, first thing you'll need to do is make sure you've got BoincView downloaded and "installed"

now, here's the tricky stuff...

decide on which computer(s) you want to use BoincView, because you'll need to tell all your boinc clients to allow remote control from the computer(s) you'll be running BoincView on

this is done by creating a remote_hosts.cfg file in the boinc installation directory of every host you want to control remotely, that's the host you want to control, not the host that boincview is running on (but if you have a boinc client on the same host as boincview, you'll need to do the same for that host as well)

If you click the link you'll be taken to a guide in the Wiki about the file.
Basically you need either an IP address or a hostname, each on a seperate line, of any host you want to control boinc from (the computer(s) that will be allowed remote control, eg, the one(s) running boincview)
that's the host(s) boincview is running on, not the host(s) the boinc client(s) run on

it's best to use the "hostname" for a computer, but if this causes problems then the IP address will be fine. If you don't know what these terms mean i suggest you do some backgroud reading on networking, because you'll have to at least know about the basic stuff to be able to do this
but in short, to find the hostname of a particular computer, at that computer, click "start", then "run", enter "cmd" then click OK, at the command prompt, type "hostname" then press enter on the keyboard to see the hostname of that computer.

For the IP address, at the command prompt, type "ipconfig" followed by enter

as i said, hostnames are preferable (because IP addresses can change) but if you have tight security and various file-sharing features turned off (don't know why you'd want them disabled on an internal network, but anyway) then you may have trouble using hostnames, in which case you'll need to use IP addresses, but in order to do so you'll need to have static IPs on the hosts you wish to control remotely (again this is basic networking stuff)


assuming you're running BOINC v5.2.2 or later, you'll also need a gui_rpc_auth.cfg file (for the password) in the BOINC installation directory of each host (don't worry BoincView will save the password for each host)
i'd recommend having the same password for all your hosts just to make life easier

i'll give a word of caution here to save you some hastle later on...
if you have file extensions hidden then you may have trouble with creating these files, because windows hides the extension at the end, so you may end up with something like gui_rpc_auth.cfg.txt and/or remote_hosts.cfg.txt, which won't work, because BOINC is expecting .cfg files, and those are text files

to check, for each file in turn right click the file, and click "properties", on the "general" tab next to type it should say "Configuration File" by default, and the icon should include a yellow cog by default

if this isn't the case, and you have "text file" or "text document" or something else, you'll need to tell windows to show the true extensions so that you can correct them, there are many ways of doing this, but the most universal is in a windows explorer window (one that shows files, such as a "my computer" window) click "tools" at the top, then "folder options", on the "view" tab, about halfway down there should be an option similar to "hide extensions for known file types", make sure this is unticked, click "OK" and you should now see the full name of your configuration files for BOINC, they should be exactly named "remote_hosts.cfg" and "gui_rpc_auth.cfg", if they're not in any way then they won't have any effect on the boinc clients, because boinc looks for files with those specific names, and no other
if you see something like "gui_rpc_auth.cfg.txt" and/or "remote_hosts.cfg.txt" then, rename the file (right click on it, and click "rename") and just remove the .txt from the end so that the filename is correct, if windows asks you "are you sure you want to change the extension/file name" click "yes"
do this for both files, so that both end with ".cfg"

if you wish you can hide extensions again by going back to "tools" "folder options" "view" and ticking "hide extensions for known file types", and clicking "OK"



once you've created both these files correctly, copy them to the BOINC folder of each host you want to control remotely (copy over your network or using a floppy disk/USB memory stick, and walking to each computer).
As you do this on each host, after you copy the files, restart the boinc client so that boinc detects the changes, if you're running boinc as a service, open a command prompt (start, run, type "cmd", click "OK") and type "net stop boinc" to stop boinc, then "net start boinc" to restart it

just to make sure everything is working, as you're doing this to each host, after you restart boinc, open the boinc manager on each host (so you're using it locally, viewing the local boinc client on that host), and check for the line "Remote control allowed" in the messages tab to confirm that boinc is allowing remote control from the hosts listed in the remote_hosts.cfg file, if not, retrace your steps (or if you've done this a few time, post here with a complaint ;)

after restarting boinc, you may get a prompt asking you if the boinc client should be allowed to access "the internet" using port 1043, if you are prompted, allow or unblock the boinc client, don't worry, nobody on the internet can access boinc on your computer, and besides, they'd need the password anyway, this is just to allow network access to the boinc client so that it can be controlled from your boincview computer

if you're not prompted, you'll need to manaully check that boinc is allowed, and add an "exception" rule for boinc if there isn't one already

the way to do this is different for every firewall, so you'll need to look in the manual/help,
but for the windows firewall: open it up from control panel, go to the "exceptions" tab, click "add program", click "browse", navigate you the boinc installation directory on that host and select "boinc.exe" (or just "boinc" if you have file extensions hidden) and click "open", click "OK", then "OK" again
boinc is now added as an exception to the windows firewall, and boincview should be allowed to control it

you'll need to do this for every host that has a boinc client you want to control (all the hosts that you copied the .cfg files to)



now you'll need to configure BoincView to connect to each of your hosts.
to do this, go to the computer that will be running BoincView, and start it up.
click "Options" then "locations"

if you have existing hosts using file mode, select each host (which i assume has a meaningful name, such as the actual hostname of that computer), under "update method" choose "via network access (using GUI RPC)" and enter the corresponding hostname or IP address for that host

make sure you know which host is which and match them up properly otherwise things will get confusing, i personally name my hosts with meaningful names like WS-01 for my web server, and PC-01 for one of my PCs and just use the hostname as the "location" name in BoincView

If you want to start from scratch or rename/reorganise your hosts that's fine, just as long as you have a seperate "location" entry for each host you want to monitor with a meaningful name

...so enter the hostname for a host, and the password you chose for it as well, leave the port as it is, that's the correct number to use (it should be: 1043 )
next choose the update interval to determine how often boincview will check and update the info for that host (works the same as for file mode), after entering all the info, click "apply"
do this for each host you want to monitor, creating a new location with the "add" button
(now you see why using the same password is much easier ;) )



right, incase any of that didn't make sense, lets have an example...

i have a group of computers i want to monitor:
PC1
PC2
PC3
BVPC4

every host is running a boinc client, and the BVPC4 host is the one i'm going to be using boincview on

for each of PC1, PC2, PC3 and BVPC4 i'll need to make a remote_hosts.cfg file, and a gui_rpc_auth.cfg file

the remote_hosts.cfg file needs to contain at least the hostname or IP address of BVPC4 (the one running boincview) (each entry must be on a seperate line, see the link)
and the gui_rpc_auth.cfg file needs to contain a password of my choosing, i'm going to choose "password" as my password (to keep it simple for the example)

i'll need to copy both the gui_rpc_auth.cfg and remote_hosts.cfg to the BOINC installation folder (typically C:\\Program Files\\BOINC ) of each host (PC1 PC2 PC3 and BVPC4) and restart boinc on each host (making sure i see the "remote control allowed" message in the manager for each host to make sure it's working)

i'll also need to make sure boinc is allowed network access

now i need to go to BVPC4 to configure boincview,
i open the "locations" settings and click the "add" button (down the bottom) to create a new entry, i'm going to use the hostname for the location name, so i'll enter "PC1" as the name, and choose "GUI RPC" as the access mode
next i'll enter PC1 as the hostname, i'll enter my password of "password"
i'll set the update interval to 15 secondsm then i'll click the "apply" button

i'll do the same for each of my other hosts: PC2, PC3 and BVPC4, creating a seperate entry for each, and making sure i click the apply button after i enter the info so that BoincView saves it

when i'm done, i'll click "close"

if everything is working, all the host information will appear in BoincView, and i can now issues commands such as "update" and "suspend"

if it's not working, or you're having trouble using BoincView then post back with your problem and i'll walk through the troubleshooting steps with you



tips: to make things easier, only run boincview on one computer, to enable it to reliably monitor from different ones, you can't use "localhost" as the name or "127.0.0.1" as the IP address (the loopback address that localhost points to), because "localhost" will be different depending on which computer you're at, as in, localhost on BVPC4 will be BVPC4, but localhost on PC1 will be PC1, this makes things confusing and can mess up your result log (feature of boincview) the best thing to do is the the true hostname, or IP of each host to avoid these issues, and don't use location names in boincview such as "this computer" or "boincview computer" because that won't be true either.

if you want BoincView to log all your results (after you enable result logging) stay logged in on the computer boincview is on, leaving BoincView running in the system tray on the taskbar. It'll work in the background catching all your results from all monitored hosts as they finish

use the same password for each host, and use something easy to remember as well, it'll make life easier

if you have boinc running as a service on a remote host, and need to restart boinc, then in the "run" box (used before with "cmd" to get a command prompt) enter "services.msc", right click "Services (Local)" at the top left, and click "connect to another computer ..."
enter the hostname or IP of the computer you wish to restart boinc on (or use "browse")
after entering the name click "OK"
after it connects to the other computer, you'l be viewing the services on the other host, to restart boinc, click "BOINC" int eh list, then right-click and choose "restart"
the service will be restarted on the remote host
check that it starts up again (in that window, and with boincview), then you can close the services.msc window

another handy suggestion for hosts running boinc as a service, is to use a shutdown script to make sure boinc stops properly on a system restart/shutdown.
I wrote a step by step guide on the CPDN forums for how to do it, but if it's not easy to follow i can write it up with more detail

this will instruct windows to issue a "net stop boinc" command after you tell windows to restart/shutdown, just before windows actually begins to shutdown, windows will wait untill boinc has stopped (and all the science apps) before continuing to shutdown
this will ensure that there aren't any problems with windows closing boinc while a science app is still running when it shutsdown, it's just a safety precaution i use because CPDN models are fragile to things like bad shutdowns, and a lot of work goes into a CPDN run, so i try to ensure it's not wasted
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Message 230756 - Posted: 13 Jan 2006, 20:35:07 UTC

Thanks Lee. I'll keep this somewhere safe to hold on to just incase someone else out there has questions on Boincview as well. Now if I could just find the time to do all this myself.....
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Message 230942 - Posted: 14 Jan 2006, 6:15:35 UTC - in response to Message 230756.  

Thanks Lee. I'll keep this somewhere safe to hold on to just incase someone else out there has questions on Boincview as well.

i've emailed paul incase he wanted to add it to the wiki, i'm also posting a link on the boincview boards so that this doens't just go un-noticed

i'm also thinking about offering to write up a manual for boincview (it's on Seb's list of things to do, so thought i'd give it a shot)
and i'll probably include a better thought out version of this one :)

but please, spread the word, GUI RPC is in my opinion so much better than file mode ;)
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Message 231027 - Posted: 14 Jan 2006, 12:22:19 UTC

I wanted to add it, and in fact did add it, but it needs a lot of work to bring it up to "standard" ... not that it is wrong or not a good start ... so, you can find it now in the "How-To" Guides and hopefully I can get enough time/energy to revise it to a better standard ...
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Message 231037 - Posted: 14 Jan 2006, 12:54:17 UTC - in response to Message 231027.  

I wanted to add it, and in fact did add it, but it needs a lot of work to bring it up to "standard" ... not that it is wrong or not a good start ... so, you can find it now in the "How-To" Guides and hopefully I can get enough time/energy to revise it to a better standard ...

:)

i've posted a link to this thread over at the boincview fora as well
so when it's done i'm sure they'd appreciate a note to say so too
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Message 233747 - Posted: 19 Jan 2006, 21:18:39 UTC

Lee, got a chance to set things up. Had only two out of three XP machines that I can't get to communicate with BV. All my other machines with w2k and a single 98 machine work fine. Is there something special that you got to look for with XP?
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Message 235401 - Posted: 22 Jan 2006, 1:52:16 UTC - in response to Message 233747.  

Lee, got a chance to set things up. Had only two out of three XP machines that I can't get to communicate with BV. All my other machines with w2k and a single 98 machine work fine. Is there something special that you got to look for with XP?

XP should be the easiest in my opinion, all my hosts are XP pro and they're all working just fine

if you've gone over the steps a few times, but still are unable to connect using boincview
try using the standard manager from the Boincview computer, then you'll know if it's a manager or a client problem

also if possible, could you describe the problem in more detail
i'm assuming you're able to establish a basic network connection between the 2 machines, and it's a boinc only problem, in which case i'd suggest checking the contents (and format) of the remote_hosts.cfg file (so that it lists your BV host in the correct format, preferably using a hostname) and check that you have a rpc_gui_auth.cfg file with your desired password
after you've made sure the correct files are in place, restart the client on that host, and enter the same info into boincview

it should then connect, you might want to make sure that nothing else is using port 1043 on the affected hosts, you can do this by running
netstat -a -o

from a command prompt, this will show you the process ID (PID) of the app which is using each port, look for port 1043 (the usualy notation is either an IP address followed by the port, seperated by a colon (127.0.0.1:1043) or a dns name in place of the IP address (localhost:1043))
use the "processes" tab in the windows task manager (you'll need to change the options to display the PID column) to see which process has port 1043, it should be boinc.exe, if not, find out which app is using the port (it shouldn't be, becuase port 1043 is allocated to boinc)
if it's a file name you don't regognise, enter the filename into your favourite search engine and it should return some results describing what the process does, and what app/suite it's part of

for a short term fix, close the offending app
you may be able to have both open by making sure boinc loads first (more specifically that it claims the port first) then try loading the other app (i believe there is a problem with MS outlook, but not sure on the details of this, there are a few threads about on the boards here about the issue(s))


after trying all that, if you still don't have any luck, post back with any feedback you can give, and i'll have a think about what might be the problem
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Message 235408 - Posted: 22 Jan 2006, 2:00:45 UTC - in response to Message 233747.  

Is there something special that you got to look for with XP?


Probably the built in WinXP firewall. Set up an exception to allow the local network access to port 1043. That fixed it for me.

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Message 235524 - Posted: 22 Jan 2006, 5:35:33 UTC - in response to Message 235408.  

Is there something special that you got to look for with XP?


Probably the built in WinXP firewall. Set up an exception to allow the local network access to port 1043. That fixed it for me.


You are right about the built in Xp firewall. But the exception did not allow access like I thought it would. Only until I turned off the firewall did it allow access and work fine. Is there something about the exception that I missed? I thought all you had to do was to put Boinc's exe file into the list, or is there more to it?
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Message 235673 - Posted: 22 Jan 2006, 14:12:27 UTC

Just to add my bit to the mix:

I installed BV v1.0.1 on my XP box back in late November '05. It connects to BOINC on both XP and my FreeBSD v5.4 boxes. After a day or so, I saw a freakish event going on, don't remember what it was anymore. I shut down BV and rebooted both boxes. I noticed that the BV icon was in the tray and thought nothing more of it. Things have been just fine since. It's running all the time and doing what it's supposed to do. I right clicked the icon and clicked "Show", lastnight, and it's keeping track of BOINC's progress on both boxes. I also did as was suggested here by checking port 1043, all is in order.

Other than the above mentioned event and my "fix", I have no suggestions, just thought I would add this.... (-:<

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Message 236991 - Posted: 24 Jan 2006, 18:56:24 UTC

@ Siran t' T'Khasi; What did you have to do to get the freebsd box's to let the XP box see them?

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Message 237039 - Posted: 24 Jan 2006, 20:36:18 UTC - in response to Message 236991.  

@ Siran t' T'Khasi; What did you have to do to get the freebsd box's to let the XP box see them?

the GUI RPC method is OS independant, so should work to/from any OS to any other OS
it just uses simple network messages that any OS can handle
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Message 237183 - Posted: 25 Jan 2006, 2:13:50 UTC - in response to Message 236991.  

@ Siran t' T'Khasi; What did you have to do to get the freebsd box's to let the XP box see them?

Offhand, I don't remember. Let me check into it and see what I can find for you.

What I can say right now is that I have the 2 PCs connected to a 4 port router which has assigned each PC it's own unique IP address. I have limited file access from FreeBSD to XP and as far as I know, only BoincView to FreeBSD. Haven't tried any other file access to FreeBSD from XP. Be right back....

Ok, maybe this screenshot will be of help. Where I "Xed" out the IP address, enter the IP for your machine. Hope this helps, good luck.... (-:<

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Message 239236 - Posted: 29 Jan 2006, 9:02:26 UTC
Last modified: 29 Jan 2006, 9:03:34 UTC

nevermind
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Message boards : Number crunching : Does BoincView have a problem


 
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