Blip (Sep 16 2009)

Message boards : Technical News : Blip (Sep 16 2009)

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Author	Message
Matt Lebofsky Volunteer moderator Project administrator Project developer Project scientist Send message Joined: 1 Mar 99 Posts: 1375 Credit: 74,079 RAC: 0	Message 933842 - Posted: 16 Sep 2009, 20:53:41 UTC
	Hello again. Sorry about the lack of information lately. I was out sick a large chunk of last week. Anyway... it's been business as usual more or less. The raw data pipeline really shrunk down but fresh data finally arrived from Arecibo, so we were able to flood the queues again. But I see that we're in a period of about two weeks of zero observations, so we might tighten the belt again before too long. The new mysql setup (mork as master, jocelyn as replica) has been working quite well the past couple of weeks. We have another mork-like server (tentatively called mindy) but, like most of our equipment around here, was a donated system of unknown quality. Several hours of fighting with it yesterday makes me believe mindy may be a dud (processor errors during boot, etc.). There have been complaints lately about uploads. I don't see any immediate problems on my end. I see files appeared on the server at the normal rate. The traffic graphs don't show anything vastly awry. Eric's been messing with the apache/balance settings on that system so I defer all questions to him. Eric and Jeff are working on the first gross-level RFI removal infrastructure. Once that's in place the NTPCkr data will start making slightly more sense (the top candidates are all pretty much junk right now). Until then, I will only upload the top ten list by hand every so often. - 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
	ID: 933842 ·

ML1 Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 25 Nov 01 Posts: 7141 Credit: 3,687,310 RAC: 965	Message 933857 - Posted: 16 Sep 2009, 22:06:19 UTC - in response to Message 933842.
	Hello again. Welcome back. From some of the postings, looks like you were missed. Hope you're recharged! ... was a donated system of unknown quality. Several hours of fighting with it yesterday makes me believe mindy may be a dud (processor errors during boot, etc.). Donated kit is only as free as the time it takes to get it running and to keep it running... And also the cost of a system soak test! ... NTPCkr data will start making slightly more sense (the top candidates are all pretty much junk right now). Until then, I will only upload the top ten list by hand every so often. The examples so far have been a good test run. Here's hoping for the clean and automated updates... Happy crunchin', Martin ____________ Mandriva Linux A user friendly OS! See new freedom Mageia2 The Future is what We make IT (GPLv3)
	ID: 933857 ·

perryjay Send message Joined: 20 Aug 02 Posts: 3359 Credit: 9,680,165 RAC: 10,535	Message 933908 - Posted: 17 Sep 2009, 2:00:51 UTC - in response to Message 933842.
	Welcome back Matt, hope you are feeling better. ____________ PROUD MEMBER OF Team Starfire World BOINC
	ID: 933908 ·

LiliKrist Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 12 Aug 09 Posts: 333 Credit: 143,167 RAC: 0	Message 933940 - Posted: 17 Sep 2009, 3:22:43 UTC
	Pleased to hear from you again Matt
	ID: 933940 ·

Josef W. Segur Volunteer developer Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 30 Oct 99 Posts: 3932 Credit: 934,327 RAC: 15	Message 933956 - Posted: 17 Sep 2009, 4:39:31 UTC - in response to Message 933842.
	... But I see that we're in a period of about two weeks of zero observations, so we might tighten the belt again before too long. ... - Matt Hmm, the Fall 2009 observation schedule for the A2010 ALFALFA project notes: ALFA will be taken down from Sep 14 until about Nov 5, 2009 for servicing . The aoschedule pages seem to agree except it might get back into operation at the end of October. How's the software blanking coming along? Participants would be more comfortable if you could fill at least part of the gap with data recalled from NERSC HPSS. Joe
	ID: 933956 ·

Andreas Send message Joined: 21 Jan 02 Posts: 16 Credit: 9,911,789 RAC: 20	Message 933972 - Posted: 17 Sep 2009, 6:45:26 UTC
	Hi Matt, nice to have you back. Here's a question I have asked several times, but never got an answer: In the seti preferences there is a switch for astropulse v5 units, but those are long gone. Will there be a switch for astropulse v505? To get v505 units you have to set the "get work from other applications" switch, but then I will be getting mb-units aswell. And I only want mb-units if no v505 are available. Thanks for you continuing effort to keep this all running, Andreas ____________
	ID: 933972 ·

Eric Korpela Volunteer moderator Project administrator Project developer Project scientist Send message Joined: 3 Apr 99 Posts: 953 Credit: 5,689,236 RAC: 6,084	Message 934085 - Posted: 17 Sep 2009, 20:50:12 UTC - in response to Message 933972.
	Sorry, I didn't realize that the switch hadn't been implemented. I'll figure out how to do so. Eric ____________
	ID: 934085 ·

Claggy Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 5 Jul 99 Posts: 3370 Credit: 25,962,705 RAC: 1,969	Message 938403 - Posted: 8 Oct 2009, 19:05:35 UTC - in response to Message 934085.
	Sorry, I didn't realize that the switch hadn't been implemented. I'll figure out how to do so. Eric Any Progress in getting the Astropulse_v505 switch implemented? Claggy
	ID: 938403 ·

Andreas Send message Joined: 21 Jan 02 Posts: 16 Credit: 9,911,789 RAC: 20	Message 939338 - Posted: 12 Oct 2009, 9:18:21 UTC - in response to Message 934085.
	Hello Eric, wouldn't it be easyer to implement a single Astropulse-switch, and not one for AP-pre-v5, one for APv5 and now one for APv505? There is only one switch for "Seti@home Enhanced" that doesn't care for what version of it. That leads me to the question of why is it different versions of the same app for MB, but different apps for AP? Andreas
	ID: 939338 ·

Josef W. Segur Volunteer developer Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 30 Oct 99 Posts: 3932 Credit: 934,327 RAC: 15	Message 939482 - Posted: 12 Oct 2009, 23:53:59 UTC - in response to Message 939338.
	Hello Eric, wouldn't it be easyer to implement a single Astropulse-switch, and not one for AP-pre-v5, one for APv5 and now one for APv505? There is only one switch for "Seti@home Enhanced" that doesn't care for what version of it. That leads me to the question of why is it different versions of the same app for MB, but different apps for AP? Andreas There have been fundamental changes in how the Astropulse application processes and reports results. Those make it impossible to validate the results between the newer and older apps. It's the same kind of difference as occurred between "setiathome" and "setiathome_enhanced". Joe
	ID: 939482 ·

KWSN THE Holy Hand Grenade! Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 20 Dec 05 Posts: 1596 Credit: 4,435,024 RAC: 4,029	Message 939866 - Posted: 14 Oct 2009, 16:20:25 UTC
	Question: Do we really need the "old AP" and the "AP V5" switches anymore, given that all the "old AP" and "AP v5" work has been processed? ____________ .
	ID: 939866 ·

Josef W. Segur Volunteer developer Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 30 Oct 99 Posts: 3932 Credit: 934,327 RAC: 15	Message 939971 - Posted: 14 Oct 2009, 22:17:28 UTC - in response to Message 939866.
	Question: Do we really need the "old AP" and the "AP V5" switches anymore, given that all the "old AP" and "AP v5" work has been processed? Astropulse v505 has been active for ~4 months. Although there are probably very few AP v5 tasks not yet resolved, given 1 month deadlines I'd be surprised if there are none. The obvious "fix" to the selection switches is to have them depend on which applications are not deprecated, like the Applications page. "Astropulse" was deprecated months ago so it disappeared from that page, and that also removed it from the applications for which the Feeder will pass tasks to the Scheduler. Similarly when "Astropulse v505" was added it appeared on that page and became eligible for work. Joe
	ID: 939971 ·

Norwich Gadfly Send message Joined: 29 Dec 08 Posts: 100 Credit: 488,414 RAC: 0	Message 940090 - Posted: 15 Oct 2009, 7:52:15 UTC - in response to Message 939971.
	I'm mystified why people are making this so complicated. My understanding is that volunteers want the choice of whether to run Enhanced only, Astropulse only, or both, because Astropulse take a lot longer to run than Enhanced. If I choose to run Astropulse, I receive AP work-units to process and BOINC chooses the correct software, whether it be v5.05, or v5, or something else. So why on earth should there be more than one Astropulse switch ? ____________
	ID: 940090 ·

Andreas Send message Joined: 21 Jan 02 Posts: 16 Credit: 9,911,789 RAC: 20	Message 940134 - Posted: 15 Oct 2009, 13:46:01 UTC - in response to Message 940090.
	I'm mystified why people are making this so complicated. My understanding is that volunteers want the choice of whether to run Enhanced only, Astropulse only, or both, because Astropulse take a lot longer to run than Enhanced. If I choose to run Astropulse, I receive AP work-units to process and BOINC chooses the correct software, whether it be v5.05, or v5, or something else. So why on earth should there be more than one Astropulse switch ? You are right, that it should be like you discribe it, but reality turned out to be different. If I get this right, Astropulse v5 and V505 are not different versions of Astropulse, but separate aplications, and therefor they need their own separate switch? If it is possible I'd go with Norwich Gadfly and prefer a single AP masterswitch. But maybe the lack of a v505-switch was on purpose, so you have to set the "use other applications"-switch to get AP-units. Set up like this you'll get MB-units when AP runs out of work, wether you have set the MB-switch or not. This would hinder people from building up a 10 day cache full of AP's and not process any MB's at all, and by that futher increase the AP-demand and slow down the MB-processing. (yes, this sounds a little like a cospiracy theory :-)) ____________
	ID: 940134 ·

1mp0£173 Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 3 Apr 99 Posts: 8423 Credit: 356,897 RAC: 0	Message 940236 - Posted: 15 Oct 2009, 22:43:57 UTC - in response to Message 940090.
	I'm mystified why people are making this so complicated. My understanding is that volunteers want the choice of whether to run Enhanced only, Astropulse only, or both, because Astropulse take a lot longer to run than Enhanced. If I choose to run Astropulse, I receive AP work-units to process and BOINC chooses the correct software, whether it be v5.05, or v5, or something else. So why on earth should there be more than one Astropulse switch ? Andreas has it right. The problem is that the work unit formats are different. BOINC needs to be able to tell the difference between 5.0 and 5.05 to send the right work, and to validate it properly. This was also quite important when Astropulse started because credits weren't all that constant, and some didn't like the crunch time. I'm not sure it is as important. ... and I think it's something that someone will do, but things like radar blanking (so we don't run completely out of work) are more important right now. ____________
	ID: 940236 ·

Norwich Gadfly Send message Joined: 29 Dec 08 Posts: 100 Credit: 488,414 RAC: 0	Message 940403 - Posted: 16 Oct 2009, 15:54:42 UTC - in response to Message 940236.
	Andreas has it right. The problem is that the work unit formats are different. BOINC needs to be able to tell the difference between 5.0 and 5.05 to send the right work, and to validate it properly. How will the user setting options to run 5.0 only, 5.05 only, or both, help BOINC decide which to run for a specific work unit ? Surely there must be an indicator in the work unit to specify which it is ? ____________
	ID: 940403 ·

Josef W. Segur Volunteer developer Volunteer tester Send message Joined: 30 Oct 99 Posts: 3932 Credit: 934,327 RAC: 15	Message 940959 - Posted: 18 Oct 2009, 0:31:38 UTC - in response to Message 940403.
	Andreas has it right. The problem is that the work unit formats are different. BOINC needs to be able to tell the difference between 5.0 and 5.05 to send the right work, and to validate it properly. How will the user setting options to run 5.0 only, 5.05 only, or both, help BOINC decide which to run for a specific work unit ? Surely there must be an indicator in the work unit to specify which it is ? The indication of which application to use is in the sched_reply_setiathome.berkeley.edu.xml file, there's no difference in the WUs for AP v5 and AP v505 but there are multiple differences in what the two different applications do. What was reported as positive DM changed to negative and vice versa, the builtin noise removal code was revised so it causes fewer false positives, the peak bin for repetitive pulses is reported differently, and some critical parameters were changed from single floats to double floats. If a task was originally sent to hosts running Astropulse v5 then any reissue must also be processed by Astropulse v5 to allow validation. All newly split work is assigned to be done by Astropulse v505. The preference settings allow users to choose the kind of work they get. For the transition from Astropulse to Astropulse v5 some users chose to concentrate on helping clean up the old work, some chose the newer, most chose to take whatever came. An edit of the boinc\html\user\project_specific_prefs.inc file is needed to provide similar choice for the current situation. Joe
	ID: 940959 ·

Norwich Gadfly Send message Joined: 29 Dec 08 Posts: 100 Credit: 488,414 RAC: 0	Message 941027 - Posted: 18 Oct 2009, 6:15:37 UTC - in response to Message 940959.
	The indication of which application to use is in the sched_reply_setiathome.berkeley.edu.xml file, there's no difference in the WUs for AP v5 and AP v505 but there are multiple differences in what the two different applications do. What was reported as positive DM changed to negative and vice versa, the builtin noise removal code was revised so it causes fewer false positives, the peak bin for repetitive pulses is reported differently, and some critical parameters were changed from single floats to double floats. If a task was originally sent to hosts running Astropulse v5 then any reissue must also be processed by Astropulse v5 to allow validation. All newly split work is assigned to be done by Astropulse v505. The preference settings allow users to choose the kind of work they get. For the transition from Astropulse to Astropulse v5 some users chose to concentrate on helping clean up the old work, some chose the newer, most chose to take whatever came. An edit of the boinc\html\user\project_specific_prefs.inc file is needed to provide similar choice for the current situation. Joe My preferences are SETI@home Enhanced: yes Astropulse: yes Astropulse v5: yes So, what software version will process Astropulse units I receive ? ____________
	ID: 941027 ·

Gundolf Jahn Send message Joined: 19 Sep 00 Posts: 3077 Credit: 341,914 RAC: 96	Message 941042 - Posted: 18 Oct 2009, 8:27:12 UTC - in response to Message 941027. Last modified: 18 Oct 2009, 8:29:54 UTC
	My preferences are SETI@home Enhanced: yes Astropulse: yes Astropulse v5: yes So, what software version will process Astropulse units I receive ? If you have set "If no work for selected applications is available, accept work from other applications?" to "no," you won't get any. Gruß, Gundolf [edit]If you wanna know why, ask in the "Questions and answers" forum or in "Number crunching."[/edit]
	ID: 941042 ·

Norwich Gadfly Send message Joined: 29 Dec 08 Posts: 100 Credit: 488,414 RAC: 0	Message 941048 - Posted: 18 Oct 2009, 8:41:56 UTC - in response to Message 941042.
	My preferences are SETI@home Enhanced: yes Astropulse: yes Astropulse v5: yes So, what software version will process Astropulse units I receive ? If you have set "If no work for selected applications is available, accept work from other applications?" to "no," you won't get any. Gruß, Gundolf [edit]If you wanna know why, ask in the "Questions and answers" forum or in "Number crunching."[/edit] My apologies for not posting all the options. They are Run only the selected applications SETI@home Enhanced: yes Astropulse: yes Astropulse v5: yes If no work for selected applications is available, accept work from other applications? yes ____________
	ID: 941048 ·

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Message boards : Technical News : Blip (Sep 16 2009)