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Thursday Thunder (Jun 26 2008)
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Author | Message |
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Matt Lebofsky Send message Joined: 1 Mar 99 Posts: 1444 Credit: 957,058 RAC: 0 |
The new scheduler continues to be handling its new duties just fine. Slowly but surely people are moving their connections over to this new server, but I'm not convinced the change rate is fast enough to do a whole sale cutover by next week. We shall see. Funny aside: while getting new-ish donated server "clarke" up yesterday I was annoyed to find that Fedora Core 9 was booting to run level 5 (where it loads the X windowing environment). We don't need X on these servers, so we typically set our servers to boot to run level 3 via a change in /etc/inittab. In doing so, I'd comment out the old line with a "#" and enter in a new line with the adjusted run level. It was still booting up in X. Why? Turns out the latest inittab parser (new with FC9, I guess) ignores "#" comments in inittab, and just looks for lines containing the string "initdefault" and parses the first one it finds. Since I left the old line in there commented out (or so I thought) it was superseding the line I wanted. So much for standards (and clear documentation stating when/how standards change). Nitpicker weirdness: While finally getting around to testing the few optimizations I made to Jeff's code I found that multiple runs of the nitpicker on the same pixel were producing slightly different results each time. We believe this is due to the order which the database pulls out rows - unless requested otherwise databases generally pull things out in random order, i.e. the order which requires the least I/O at that exact point in time (mostly due to page caching or where the many drive arms are currently located in our RAID set). Sorting query output adds significant (and usually unnecessary) overhead. But there are a lot of "fuzzy compares" in the nitpicker (due to floating point computations on different chips you can't expect decimal values to be "exactly exact"). When two items are close enough to be called "duplicates" you only need one, but which one you pick may cause different results down the road. So Jeff is elbow deep in this problem right now. Apropos of nothing, the entire northern half of state of California is on fire. The smoke ending up here in the Bay Area is intense. I feel like I'm smoking a couple packs a day just walking around outside. I can smell it sitting here at my desk. - Matt -- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person -- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude |
Dr. C.E.T.I. Send message Joined: 29 Feb 00 Posts: 16019 Credit: 794,685 RAC: 0 |
. . . was wonderin' IF that smoke was effectin' you @ Berkeley - that's too bad Sir! Thanks for Posting Matt - we'll all keep our fingers 'crossed' for y'all BOINC Wiki . . . Science Status Page . . . |
Gary Charpentier Send message Joined: 25 Dec 00 Posts: 30651 Credit: 53,134,872 RAC: 32 |
The new scheduler continues to be handling its new duties just fine. Slowly but surely people are moving their connections over to this new server, but I'm not convinced the change rate is fast enough to do a whole sale cutover by next week. We shall see. Hey, in all seriousness if you can smell it, it can be doing damage. Just got over a bout of eating a bit too much smoke from a brush fire down in the southern part of the state a couple months ago. Worst part is if you are down wind and it burns through poison oak. Oh and it looks like a lot of the smoke from up there has blown down here! As for that fuzzy logic lesson, just remember it all in Astropulse. I suspect it will be the very same problem. Oh, thanks for the update. |
SMW Send message Joined: 16 May 99 Posts: 22 Credit: 29,285,238 RAC: 16 |
Anyone else having issues with the server responding back as: [error] No start tag in scheduler reply I have been getting this all day, even after a reboot and a restart of the program:( BOINC then sets it up to try again in a bit, with each but getting longer and longer between trys. "It is better to be hated for what you are then to be loved for what you are not" - Andre Gide (1869-1951) |
Speedy Send message Joined: 26 Jun 04 Posts: 1643 Credit: 12,921,799 RAC: 89 |
Anyone else having issues with the server responding back as: Have you read Wednesday Words (Jun 25 2008)? Trying resetting the project to change the download servers. Cheers Speedy |
speedimic Send message Joined: 28 Sep 02 Posts: 362 Credit: 16,590,653 RAC: 0 |
If you don't need it why install it? Funny aside: while getting new-ish donated server "clarke" up yesterday I was annoyed to find that Fedora Core 9 was booting to run level 5 (where it loads the X windowing environment). We don't need X on these servers, so we typically set our servers to boot to run level 3 via a change in /etc/inittab. In doing so, I'd comment out the old line with a "#" and enter in a new line with the adjusted run level. It was still booting up in X. Why? Turns out the latest inittab parser (new with FC9, I guess) ignores "#" comments in inittab, and just looks for lines containing the string "initdefault" and parses the first one it finds. Since I left the old line in there commented out (or so I thought) it was superseding the line I wanted. So much for standards (and clear documentation stating when/how standards change). mic. |
RandyC Send message Joined: 20 Oct 99 Posts: 714 Credit: 1,704,345 RAC: 0 |
Apparently it is a default part of the install package. Matt was trying to deactivate it but they changed standards on him and gotta gotcha! If you don't need it why install it? |
ML1 Send message Joined: 25 Nov 01 Posts: 20291 Credit: 7,508,002 RAC: 20 |
Apparently it is a default part of the install package. Matt was trying to deactivate it but they changed standards on him and gotta gotcha! Also, much easier to leave it in place for keeping dependencies happy and for if you ever might want to play on a graphical display. Setting the init level is simply easy and minimum maintenance. In Linux, there are always many ways to do things. You can take your choice. Happy crunchin', Martin See new freedom: Mageia Linux Take a look for yourself: Linux Format The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3) |
speedimic Send message Joined: 28 Sep 02 Posts: 362 Credit: 16,590,653 RAC: 0 |
Also, much easier to leave it in place for keeping dependencies happy and for if you ever might want to play on a graphical display. Nothing you need for a server is depending on any of the stuff you get installing a graphical desktop. ...and you never wanna "play" on a "hot" server - there are testing systems for that. Setting the init level is simply easy and minimum maintenance. Yea, 500 more packages to be updated.... mic. |
Matt Lebofsky Send message Joined: 1 Mar 99 Posts: 1444 Credit: 957,058 RAC: 0 |
Why install X if we don't end up booting the system in run level 5? It does sound silly, but there are a couple reasons: First - we have a policy to install everything possible - on a 100 Mbit network it's no big deal to yum update a few hundred packages at a time. Second - we have many servers which do run in level 5, and we like to keep all the packages on all the servers for general sanity. Third - after installing the OS, doing all the initial SETI-specific configuration is far easier in X (cutting and pasting text, having several windows/browsers open, etc) and then we turn it off. - Matt -- BOINC/SETI@home network/web/science/development person -- "Any idiot can have a good idea. What is hard is to do it." - Jeanne-Claude |
Dr. C.E.T.I. Send message Joined: 29 Feb 00 Posts: 16019 Credit: 794,685 RAC: 0 |
. . . Thanks for All your work @ Berkeley Matt - iT's much appreciated Sir! and the Thanks goes out to each of You @ the Berkeley Labs also . . . BOINC Wiki . . . Science Status Page . . . |
ML1 Send message Joined: 25 Nov 01 Posts: 20291 Credit: 7,508,002 RAC: 20 |
Nothing you need for a server is depending on any of the stuff you get installing a graphical desktop. For a hardened and locked down dedicated 'production' server serving stable standard functions, that is very true. Expected even. I agree. Then again... If the server functions are more fluid, or experimental even, then a few extra bits o' fluff likely won't hurt. OK, I'll admit that a cluster of servers serving hundreds of thousands of users isn't normally 'experimental'!... But then, s@h is a long way from 'normal'. Also, BOINC is designed to gracefully accept downtime of the main servers. Hence the WU caches on the clients. Yea, 500 more packages to be updated.... I mainly work on the command-line, but in a terminal window (or few) on a nice Xorg served display! There's even pretty (convenient) GUI config tools for some things also. A few other bits of GUI 'fluff' such as music, email, and the web are good also... :-) Then again, this thing I'm on might be called a 'test' and development server... OK, that's my spin! Happy crunchin', Martin (Note: I'm nothing to do with s@h other than merely being one of the millions of participants.) See new freedom: Mageia Linux Take a look for yourself: Linux Format The Future is what We all make IT (GPLv3) |
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