Hi to all,

I have noticed that the BOINC Manager on my (Kali) Linux box sometimes reacts badly to the machine being rebooted.

Once a reboot has occurred, clicking the BOINC Manager icon does nothing. It won't start the client and the manager doesn't appear. I can manually start the client from terminal, though.

Is there some sort of lock file that might be set to prevent multiple instances being created? Might this file be handled badly if a shutdown occurs unexpectedly?

The only solution I've come across is to use apt-get to remove the manager then to reinstall it. I'm sure this is an overly extreme option and it doesn't always produce a solution.

Any pointers would be welcomed.

Thanks in advance,

Steve.

Hi to all,

I have noticed that the BOINC Manager on my (Kali) Linux box sometimes reacts badly to the machine being rebooted.

Once a reboot has occurred, clicking the BOINC Manager icon does nothing. It won't start the client and the manager doesn't appear. I can manually start the client from terminal, though.

Is there some sort of lock file that might be set to prevent multiple instances being created? Might this file be handled badly if a shutdown occurs unexpectedly?

The only solution I've come across is to use apt-get to remove the manager then to reinstall it. I'm sure this is an overly extreme option and it doesn't always produce a solution.

Any pointers would be welcomed.

Thanks in advance,

Steve.

Can you in terminal type boinc-manager?
That should open the manager or will spit out the errors that has occurred

No. I get "bash: boinc-manager: command not found" Should I be in a specific folder, or use a particular path?

I can start boinc-client using "/etc/init.d/boinc-client restart" as it is a service but the manager isn't.

Steve.

---

I have found a script at "/usr/share/doc/boinc-manager/examples/" which is called run-boincmgr. It has the following in it:

#!/bin/sh

# Source the configuration file for the boinc-client init script.
if [ -e /etc/default/boinc-client ]; then
    . /etc/default/boinc-client
fi

# If $BOINC_DIR is empty or if it isn't a directory, set it to the default
# BOINC data directory.
if [ -z "$BOINC_DIR" -o ! -d "$BOINC_DIR" ]; then
    BOINC_DIR=/var/lib/boinc-client
fi

cd $BOINC_DIR && exec boincmgr "$@"

Running this doesn't open the manager and nor does it throw any errors. I tried diverting output to a text file with "./run-boincmgr >> errors.txt" but nothing was output.

Steve.

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Can you try boincmgr just to see if its that?
EDIT: I am downloading ubuntu as we soeak, since I think it has the same packaging system, it should work

Can you try boincmgr just to see if its that?
EDIT: I am downloading ubuntu as we soeak, since I think it has the same packaging system, it should work

Yes, I have tried that. It is the right command but I get the same - it is accepted in the console, produces no error output (even when diverted to a file with >>) and doesn't open the manager.

I think Kali is based on Debian. It uses aptitude for package management, rather than dnf or yum. I think Ubuntu is similar enough, though.

Steve.

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I"m running Debian. I added the boincmgr to the desktop. In its properties I specified the password to the core client. That is the same password thats in /var/lib/boinc-client/gui_rpc_auth.cfg unless its blank.

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BOINC blog

I tried command line options. The process boincmgr has many:

Usage: boincmgr [-h] [--verbose] [-a] [-e <str>] [-d <str>] [-n <str>] [-g <str>] [-p <str>] [-b <str>] [-i] [-c] [-m]
  -h, --help              	show this help message
  --verbose               	generate verbose log messages
  -a, --autostart         	BOINC Manager was started by the operating system automatically
  -e, --clientdir=<str>   	Directory containing the BOINC Client executable
  -d, --datadir=<str>     	BOINC data directory
  -n, --namehost=<str>    	Host name or IP address
  -g, --gui_rpc_port=<str>	GUI RPC port number
  -p, --password=<str>    	Password
  -b, --boincargs=<str>   	Startup BOINC with these optional arguments
  -i, --insecure          	disable BOINC security users and permissions
  -c, --checkskins        	set skin debugging mode to enable skin manager error messages
  -m, --multiple          	multiple instances of BOINC Manager allowed

Using --verbose didn't give me anything. But trying the 'multiple' option, -m, gave me a 'second' GUI saying that "Another instance of BOINC manager is already running".

So we need to figure out how to make that instance visible! I'm going to try killing it after finding it with "ps aux | grep boinc" and killing its process ID.

Steve.

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I'm going to try killing it after finding it with "ps aux | grep boinc" and killing its process ID.

It isn't running as 'boincmgr' in the "ps aux" output ... I think there's a parent process managing it.

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I'm going to try killing it after finding it with "ps aux | grep boinc" and killing its process ID.

It isn't running as 'boincmgr' in the "ps aux" output ... I think there's a parent process managing it.

It is running as boincmgr, that is what my instance is saying...

It is running as boincmgr, that is what my instance is saying...

For my output of anything mentioning the word 'boinc' using "ps aux | grep boinc", I get:

boinc     1531  0.0  0.0   4292   788 ?        SNs  14:22   0:00 /bin/sh -c /usr/bin/boinc --dir /var/lib/boinc-client >/var/log/boinc.log 2>/var/log/boincerr.log
boinc     1542  0.0  0.2 135144 16200 ?        SNl  14:22   0:01 /usr/bin/boinc --dir /var/lib/boinc-client
boinc     2208 95.8  0.6 101140 51704 ?        RNl  14:22  31:53 ../../projects/setiathome.berkeley.edu/setiathome_8.00_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
boinc     2209 94.9  0.6  84756 51780 ?        RNl  14:22  31:35 ../../projects/setiathome.berkeley.edu/setiathome_8.00_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
boinc     2210 95.5  0.6  93372 55412 ?        RNl  14:22  31:46 ../../projects/setiathome.berkeley.edu/setiathome_8.00_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
boinc     2211 95.8  0.6  89272 55420 ?        RNl  14:22  31:54 ../../projects/setiathome.berkeley.edu/setiathome_8.00_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
root      3176  0.0  0.0  12724   936 pts/0    R+   14:55   0:00 grep boinc

The last of those entries is the 'ps aux' process itself. So, if I run "ps aux | grep boincmgr", I only get the grep process like this:

root@KALI:~# ps aux | grep boincmgr
root      3245  0.0  0.0  12724   952 pts/0    S+   14:59   0:00 grep boincmgr

That says there's nothing running as 'boincmgr' even though the manager itself says it is running!

Confused much ...

[EDIT]Here's a screenshot to show the Manager message I get with using the -m option.



Steve.

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[EDIT]Here's a screenshot to show the Manager message I get with using the -m option.

Try localhost it might accept it and not crash

Try localhost it might accept it and not crash

That closed the modal pop-up and let me into the Manager but it remained disconnected and most options were greyed out. No connection to the project.

I've rebooted a couple of times. It seems that 'boincmgr' is starting on startup and not connecting to the project/client.

Where would I remove the option to start the manager at startup. That's probably where the issue is?

Steve.

---

Try localhost it might accept it and not crash

That closed the modal pop-up and let me into the Manager but it remained disconnected and most options were greyed out. No connection to the project.

I've rebooted a couple of times. It seems that 'boincmgr' is starting on startup and not connecting to the project/client.

Where would I remove the option to start the manager at startup. That's probably where the issue is?

Steve.

I would try to locate the password for the instance first, that is found in /var/lib/boinc-client/gui_rpc_auth.cfg so less that file and copy the entire string
I am assuming that when you entered localhost, the password field was blank

I am assuming that when you entered localhost, the password field was blank

That file is blank!

A file of that name occurs in two other places:

/etc/boinc-client/gui_rpc_auth.cfg
/root/gui_rpc_auth.cfg

The first is also empty; the second has a big long string in it.

In the 'second' instance of BOINC Manager, the password field auto-populates when entering 'localhost'; I assume with this password. Either way, pasting the string into the password field has the same result. The Manager remains disconnected.



Steve.

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Can you less the file /var/log/boinc.log and paste the first 30 lines here?

/root/gui_rpc_auth.cfg

I can tell you this file should NOT exist
Can you less that file and tell me the output, is there anything?

Can you try B I G A in ps?
ps -A|grep boinc

---

To overcome Heisenbergs:
"You can't always get what you want / but if you try sometimes you just might find / you get what you need." -- Rolling Stones

Can you less the file /var/log/boinc.log and paste the first 30 lines here?

/root/gui_rpc_auth.cfg

I can tell you this file should NOT exist
Can you less that file and tell me the output, is there anything?

less of boinc.log - nothing untoward in there, i don't think:

10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 [---] Processor: 4 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-7400 CPU @ 3.00GHz [Family 6 Model 158 Stepping 9]
10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 [---] Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm
pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc aperfmperf eagerfpu pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_c
pl vmx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch epb intel_pt tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid mpx rdseed adx smap clflushopt xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves dtherm ida arat pln pts hwp hwp_notify hwp_act_window hwp_epp
10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 [---] OS: Linux: 4.9.0-kali4-amd64
10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 [---] Memory: 7.71 GB physical, 15.75 GB virtual
10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 [---] Disk: 264.80 GB total, 241.12 GB free
10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 [---] Local time is UTC +0 hours
10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 [---] Config: GUI RPCs allowed from:
10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 [SETI@home] URL http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/; Computer ID 8276812; resource share 60
10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 [SETI@home] General prefs: from SETI@home (last modified 17-Feb-2008 10:26:32)
10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 [SETI@home] Computer location: home
10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 [SETI@home] General prefs: no separate prefs for home; using your defaults
10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 [---] Reading preferences override file
10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 [---] Preferences:
10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 [---] max memory usage when active: 5922.27MB
10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 [---] max memory usage when idle: 7501.54MB
10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 [---] max disk usage: 100.00GB
10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 [---] suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 40%
10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 [---] (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 [---] gui_rpc_auth.cfg is empty - no GUI RPC password protection
10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 Initialization completed
10-Jun-2017 15:13:56 [---] Suspending network activity - time of day

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Can you try B I G A in ps?
ps -A|grep boinc

Sure - that gives me the one process; the 'grep' one:

root@KALI:/var/lib/boinc-client# ps -A | grep boinc
2243 ? 00:00:01 boinc

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I can see GUI rpc password is empty from the log. So in the multiple client selection, when you type localhost, it will autofill it. Override that by clearing the password field, and it should connect
Like this: