Hi all. Can any one please help me? I have access to 17 computers, unfortunately they don’t have internet access. I have internet access at home is there any way that I can download 5 days worth of work and put it on each of these computers? And then some way transfer it back via my home computer?

Hi all. Can any one please help me? I have access to 17 computers, unfortunately they don’t have internet access. I have internet access at home is there any way that I can download 5 days worth of work and put it on each of these computers? And then some way transfer it back via my home computer?

Hi Darin, are the all in a network (LAN)?
Maybe you can use a (USB) MODEM to UP- & DOWNLOAD, your W.U.'s ?
You can download the BOINC manager @ HOME, then copy it through a USB stick, on your other PC's .
But have to gain full access over these computers !
A bit difficult, though.. Or a CELL-PHONE to access the internet ?
A UMTS connction, CAN give trouble, though you can SKIP file verification on the BOINC manager, but don't know if this is WISE?

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Have got full access to these pc's. the pc's are all on a lan. They actualy do have internet access but i will not be alowed to use it to download updates. Bandwidth in South Africa is very expencive. We only get 3 gig of bandwidth a month. Dont want the seti program to eat into our very limited resources at work.

I however dont mind doing the downloads at home, if possible, and transporting them to work.,

Have got full access to these pc's. the pc's are all on a lan. They actualy do have internet access but i will not be alowed to use it to download updates. Bandwidth in South Africa is very expencive. We only get 3 gig of bandwidth a month. Dont want the seti program to eat into our very limited resources at work.

I however dont mind doing the downloads at home, if possible, and transporting them to work.,

The simplest way is also the most time consuming, and it can be difficult to manage since BOINC was never designed for such a setup.

I would manage a separate BOINC folder for each of the 17 machines on my local machine, C:\\BOINC1 through C:\\BOINC17. I would copy each folder in its entirety to a USB flash drive and copy each folder to its appropriate machine (Machine 1's C:\\Program Files\\BOINC; Machine 2's C:\\Program Files\\BOINC; etc. through Machine 17's C:\\Program Files\\BOINC). Once the crunching is done for each machine, copy each machine's BOINC folder back to the USB flash drive (being careful to put machine 1's BOINC folder in \\BOINC1, machine 2's BOINC folder in \\BOINC2 etc. through \\BOINC17.

Then I'd copy these BOINC folders onto my main machine and, one by one I would launch the BOINC Manager from each folder and do an 'update' to send all the finished results and download more (also be careful to suspend processing so that they don't get crunched while your waiting for your cache to download). Then when \\BOINC1 is finished sending and receiving, I'd move manually on to \\BOINC2's folder and repeat the process all the way until I'm finished with \\BOINC17.

Once the new cache of workunits are downloaded, move the files back to the flash drive and eventually back to each individual machine. Also, be sure to suspend internet access on each work machine so that they do not try to use up bandwidth at work. You'll have to un-suspend internet access once you bring the workunits back home.


Sound like a lot of management work? It is. This is about the easiest way to go about adding machines without internet access. As I said earlier, BOINC wasn't really intended for machines without internet access, so a lot of administrative work is required if you want to make it happen. Not really worth it to me, but it may be to others.

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I am starting to think it will be alot of work. Problem is that there is 17 machines just sitting there begging to be used.

I am starting to think it will be alot of work. Problem is that there is 17 machines just sitting there begging to be used.

Just wondering if you could do as suggested by Ozzfan, but put the USB stick on one of the machines and share it across the network and execute BOINC from the USB stick. No idea if this will work, but it should in theory shouldn't it?

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I am starting to think it will be alot of work. Problem is that there is 17 machines just sitting there begging to be used.

Just wondering if you could do as suggested by Ozzfan, but put the USB stick on one of the machines and share it across the network and execute BOINC from the USB stick. No idea if this will work, but it should in theory shouldn't it?

I don't think it would work. BOINC wasn't intended as a network application, so running multiple instances of the same application on separate machines would be asking for disaster to happen. I/O conflicts, execution conflicts, permission conflicts (since each machine would be trying to write to the \\BOINC\\client_state.xml file every minute, among other .XML files) would all prevent this idea from happening smoothly.

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I am starting to think it will be alot of work. Problem is that there is 17 machines just sitting there begging to be used.

Just wondering if you could do as suggested by Ozzfan, but put the USB stick on one of the machines and share it across the network and execute BOINC from the USB stick. No idea if this will work, but it should in theory shouldn't it?

I don't think it would work. BOINC wasn't intended as a network application, so running multiple instances of the same application on separate machines would be asking for disaster to happen. I/O conflicts, execution conflicts, permission conflicts (since each machine would be trying to write to the \\BOINC\\client_state.xml file every minute, among other .XML files) would all prevent this idea from happening smoothly.

OK, thought maybe it was an ambitious plan!

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Re my promise in the previous Post:

I have now completed step 1 of my test, and it seems to work, :) at least so far.

I have one Athlon 3000+ machine. Computer ID# 4222649. I Installed BOINC, attached to SETI and got 13 tasks.

Then I suspended network useage and computation and transferred the complete BOINC-dir to an USB Key.

Crunching machine is an Athlon64 X2 5600+.

I installed a new BOINC on Drive C, but I did not attach to any project.
(Now the registration database is loaded with the key for BOINC)

Next I Deleted the entire BOINC Dir, and replaced it with the BOINC-dir from the USB Key and started BOINC-Manager. I even installed an optimized SSE2 client which will surely not run on the old Athlon 3000+.

I ran a new CPU Benchmark. This way the optimized client claims the correct amount of credits.

5 hours later it had completed 4 WU's and was one third into the next 2 tasks.

Time for the first test:

I suspended operation, shut BOINC-Manager down, and moved the whole BOINC-dir back to the USB Key. (Remark: The USB key must be cleared before moving the BOINC-dir, no copying!!)

Back to the old 3000+ and booted windows anew. After having deleted the original BOINC-dir on that machine I 'transplanted' from the USB-Stick and started BOINC Manager.

Task Screen looked OK, so I went on and enabled network useage. The 4 completed results were sent to Berkeley, and I ran an Update. The 4 completed tasks were deleted from the Task list, but it seemed that the cache was not low enough on work, so I could not persuade it to fetch further tasks.

Back to disabling Network useage and shut down the BOINC Manager.

Cleared the USB Stick and moved the lot back to my athlon64. After the move I restarted BOINC Manager and re-enabled computation.

The dual core machine is now crunching away on the remaining 9 tasks and should be there in approximately 7 hours.

If I can't get my butt up here in 7 hours it will be down to running on one core only, crunching the last WU.

I will then attemt to upload the remaining work and, I hope, get some new work assigned.

As mentioned earlier I made the dual core machine run an additional CPU Test before starting crunching, and checking the finished tasks it seems to have claimed the correct amount of credits. :)

No Wingmen is getting cheated here :)

Want to check the returned tasks? Here is the result page:

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/results.php?hostid=4222649

More info in the morning.

ChrisD

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Re my promise in the previous Post:

...

I ran a new CPU Benchmark. This way the optimized client claims the correct amount of credits.

...

As mentioned earlier I made the dual core machine run an additional CPU Test before starting crunching, and checking the finished tasks it seems to have claimed the correct amount of credits. :)

No Wingmen is getting cheated here :)

...

Glad you have the patience to go through this rigmarole (even as a test).

BTW, the credits are not dependent on the benchmark - that is used only for estimating time to completion and when to download additional WU's.

Nice test.

F.

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New readers, please read previous 2 posts from me, and You will know what I am up to here :)

Next info:

At !**! o'clock this morning I was back and the dual had finished 6 tasks, so I made the attempt.

'Teleport BOINC' from Dual to stick to old 3000+.

Data upload and reporting was OK, but I could not make it request new work just Yet, so I figured that the queue maybe had to be even shorter.

Returned the lot to the dual and waited for another 40 minutes before the dual went down to one 'cylinder' only, crunching the one remaining task.

Once more the lot was moved to the 3000+ and up went the last 2 tasks, but I could still not persuade it to request more work.
It seems that processing must be enabled before a request for new work will succceed.

Ouch! This old 3000+ does not 'understand' SSE2 code so it trashed the last WU and the first new task downloaded before I got the mouse in place and suspended processing.. (Sorry Berkeley, but You'll have to reassign these two.)

I had the shortcommings of the 3000+ in mind and I had removed the app_info.xml file (the file that tells BOINC Manager to use the optimized SETI client in place of the plain vanilla 3.27).

I restarted the BOINC Manager before requesting new work, but Windows seems to cache the files because the optimized client was started anyway.
Next time I will remove all 3 files, to make sure it does not trash any more tasks.

So, Darin, it can be done :) At least using one machine to exchange data with Berkeley and port the lot to be crunched on another host without Internet access.

Next experiment is to getting the trusty old 3000+ to create one more SETI host with its own HOST ID so I can port 2 lots to two different crunchers.

If that can be done, the instruction manual is almost laid down. :)

A few loose ends is still there, however.
This time I got 40 tasks which will keep my dual happy for another day or two. Time will tell wether I can persuade SETI to assign this old 3000+ enough tasks to ensure a decent time interval between 'teleporting data'. (1 CPU can get at max 100 tasks, as far as I know.)
If You use a dual to request work, You may run out of reporting time using a slower cruncher, so this should be noted before You port the tasks to the crunchers.

Best of luck to You Darin.

ChrisD

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