This is what Rom said in his email announcement:

Rom Walton to boinc_alpha, BOINC, boinc_projects
More options 5:28 am (2 minutes ago)

Howdy Folks,



I have just released an update to the 5.4 line. McAfee
released a new version of their security suite which introduces 'proxy'
server monitors all network communication which includes the
communication between the manager and the core client.



McAfee's proxy server was automatically returning a
successful connection to the core client even though it had not yet
attempted to establish a connection to the core client. This caused the
manager to believe that the core client was already running and so it
did not attempt to launch the core client.



We now attempt to retrieve the screensaver mode from the
core client upon a successful connection which forces the McAfee proxy
to actually attempt to connect and get the data and return back any
error codes that would have normally been returned via connect.



Please have anybody who is experiencing a BOINC Manager
connection failure to update to 5.4.11 as soon as possible. Who knows
how many other security suites will be introducing this kind of feature.
It is my guess they are looking for credit card numbers or social
security numbers to warn of possible identity theft.



Thanks in advance.

----- Rom
and it's hosted on the download page, so it looks official

Thanks Toni for the Info.

Mike

---

With each crime and every kindness we birth our future.

Release notes indicate to hold off until the NTLM proxy issue is fixed if you need proxy support... does anyone have any idea when issue be fixed in the 5.x series? This functionality was working fine in 4.45...

I've got a set of machines that I cant upgrade past 4.45 until this is fixed... and all of them are running McAfee products, so could very well be hit by the issue that caused the 5.4.11 release. Hate to find out that when I get back to work next week that half of my machine base is DOA....

Release notes indicate to hold off until the NTLM proxy issue is fixed if you need proxy support... does anyone have any idea when issue be fixed in the 5.x series? This functionality was working fine in 4.45...

I've got a set of machines that I cant upgrade past 4.45 until this is fixed... and all of them are running McAfee products, so could very well be hit by the issue that caused the 5.4.11 release. Hate to find out that when I get back to work next week that half of my machine base is DOA....

you should be fine, "recommended version" doesn't mean required minimum version. As far as I know they tried extracting curl from 5.5.10, and it caused problems, so they put it back in in 5.5.11. I know they are working on a fix for you. Boinc version 4.72 should also work for you and has the first edition DCF included, which means your estimates to completion should be closer to reality. boinc version 4.72 for windows

tony

Release notes indicate to hold off until the NTLM proxy issue is fixed if you need proxy support... does anyone have any idea when issue be fixed in the 5.x series? This functionality was working fine in 4.45...

I've got a set of machines that I cant upgrade past 4.45 until this is fixed... and all of them are running McAfee products, so could very well be hit by the issue that caused the 5.4.11 release. Hate to find out that when I get back to work next week that half of my machine base is DOA....

you should be fine, "recommended version" doesn't mean required minimum version. As far as I know they tried extracting curl from 5.5.10, and it caused problems, so they put it back in in 5.5.11. I know they are working on a fix for you. Boinc version 4.72 should also work for you and has the first edition DCF included, which means your estimates to completion should be closer to reality. boinc version 4.72 for windows

tony

Thanks for the pointer...

Question though... when I installed 5.4.11, I noticed that the port for remote access changed (well, I noticed that I couldnt connect to a machine across the room anymore - and a little digging on google confirmed it... the remote access port is now 31416.. heh... math humour.. someone at berkely must be laughing)

What I cant seem to find is what version of boinc first introduced the change...

Generally, I like to keep all my machines on the same version - easier to maintain them. But this port thingy throws a wrench into things. a 4.45 client cant talk to a 5.4.11 client now.

So I'm wondering if there's a way to force the remote control port that the clients use, or (possibly better) wether this 4.72 version was a 31416 port version....

Question though... when I installed 5.4.11, I noticed that the port for remote access changed (well, I noticed that I couldnt connect to a machine across the room anymore - and a little digging on google confirmed it... the remote access port is now 31416.. heh... math humour.. someone at berkely must be laughing)

What I cant seem to find is what version of boinc first introduced the change...

Generally, I like to keep all my machines on the same version - easier to maintain them. But this port thingy throws a wrench into things. a 4.45 client cant talk to a 5.4.11 client now.

So I'm wondering if there's a way to force the remote control port that the clients use, or (possibly better) wether this 4.72 version was a 31416 port version....

The primary port change took place between 5.3.17 to 5.3.31. If it's really important I might be able to find it. In this post on rosetta Q&A I give some info you might find interesting related to ports, TCP, Firewall permissions, etc. I don't know how to manually change the port. This might also be a good read How to control Boinc on remote computers. This link is to the boinc wiki.

Is this helping?

tony

PS 4.72 used 1043

The primary port change took place between 5.3.17 to 5.3.31. If it's really important I might be able to find it. In this post on rosetta Q&A I give some info you might find interesting related to ports, TCP, Firewall permissions, etc. I don't know how to manually change the port. This might also be a good read How to control Boinc on remote computers. This link is to the boinc wiki.

Is this helping?

tony

PS 4.72 used 1043

well, sorta... it gave me an idea at least :)

Link on Rosetta wasnt really that relevant - it's not a firewall issue or anything - another 4.45 machine is still able to connect - its got to be the change in port number thats the issue.

Based on that, I took a clue from the Wiki and tried to use HOST:1043 as the remote computer name in the "Select Computer" dialogue... but that didnt work either.

So, I did some more digging and installed Boincview from this website to see if that got me anything.

It sort of 3/4 gets me there. For the most part, it lets me keep my laptop as 4.45, so I wont run into problems connecting to the other machines at work. There's only been a couple of weird things I've noticed so far - worst was that it doesnt completely remove the "snooze" state if manually triggered on a client (had to re-enable the network manually)... but since my network runs 7x24 anyways, its rare to disable any machine unless I'm sitting in front of it so I'm not going to worry about that little gotcha.

So I guess I will leave my work machines as 4.45 (or maybe 4.72 - though that was never considered stable, was it?) and keep 5.4.11 running here on my home machines.

That's about as far as I can get you since I've never controlled mine remotely. I have heard of others around here who do, maybe they'll jump in here.

I'm a boinc alpha tester, meaning I've run every version, and I liked 4.72 better than 4.45. never much cared for 4.45. That was 63 versions back for me, so my memory about why I liked it is fuzzy. Can't hurt. Always stop boinc.exe (not just the manager), and uninstall boinc if going backwards in versions. uninstall doesn't remove work or attachments.

good luck.

let me know if there's something else

I'm running 5.4.9 are there any immediate advantages to ungrading to 5.4.11?

Or can the upgrade wait?

Are there any known update or running issues with 5.4.11 clashing with the various optomised versions out there (Chicken's, Cruncher's, Team USA's)?

---

D.

I'm running 5.4.9 are there any immediate advantages to ungrading to 5.4.11?

Or can the upgrade wait?

Are there any known update or running issues with 5.4.11 clashing with the various optomised versions out there (Chicken's, Cruncher's, Team USA's)?

If you have the latest Mcafee software(V8) it might be worth the upgrade. I don't know of other fixes other than that.