Android support on hiatus (official BOINC app only)

Team Scaley Boyz
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I have been working on

I have been working on building an android BOINC client based on the 7.4.53 codebase that includes an updated version of OpenSSL and the updated ca-bundle.crt. 

I'm making decent progress, although it is slow going, as I'm not an Android expert, and the documentation/code is quite old at this point. Importing a project created for Android Development Tools on Eclipse into Android Studio is non-trivial. 

If I ever succeed, I'll be happy to share the APK. It'll need to be sideloaded, there's no chance of getting it on the Play Store. 

Oliver Behnke
Oliver Behnke
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BOINC is planning to that

BOINC is planning to that just that and release it on the Play Store (and as normal APK download) soon. I'll post an update as soon as I have one.

Oliver

Einstein@Home Project

Michael Goetz
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Why is it that Einstein alone

Why is it that Einstein alone doesn't work anymore?   Every other project (seemingly) still works with 7.4.53.  This isn't a complaint;  I'm wondering if they're doing something that you too could be doing.

EDIT:  A week or three ago there was a big discussion about how the root cert in the clients had expired and everyone (or a large subset) would need to update either the client or the cert chain.  Several projects became unreachable, briefly.  And then those projects did something, and they were working again.  (Not 100% sure, but I think they switched their certificates to Let's Encrypt.)  Is this something that can be fixed on your end?

Want to find one of the largest known primes? Try PrimeGrid. Or help cure disease at WCG.

Team Scaley Boyz
Team Scaley Boyz
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I'm happy to say that my

I'm happy to say that my custom build of the 7.4.53 codebase with updated OpenSSL and ca-bundle.crt is connecting and returning work units successfully! There are some minor issues with the UI (it's dark, and hard to read in spots) that are due to building an app from 2014 with tools from 2020 and all the compatibility issues therein. I will make the APK available to anyone who's interested.

Oliver Behnke
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Michael Goetz wrote: Why is

Michael Goetz wrote:

Why is it that Einstein alone doesn't work anymore?   Every other project (seemingly) still works with 7.4.53.  This isn't a complaint;  I'm wondering if they're doing something that you too could be doing.

I think I explained the "why" in the opening post (and the ones it references). The root cause of the issue lies with BOINC and its extremely outdated official/stable BOINC app release on the Play Store. As soon as the root cause of the issue got fixed, our project will be available again. I also pointed out already that BOINC is aware of the problem and that they intend to rebuild and release a 7.4-based app with its certificate bundle updated. That should be "around the corner" and thus released in a matter of days - hopefully.

Oliver

Einstein@Home Project

Michael Goetz
Joined: 11 Feb 05
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Oliver Behnke wrote: Michael

Oliver Behnke wrote:

Michael Goetz wrote:

Why is it that Einstein alone doesn't work anymore?   Every other project (seemingly) still works with 7.4.53.  This isn't a complaint;  I'm wondering if they're doing something that you too could be doing.

I think I explained the "why" in the opening post (and the ones it references). The root cause of the issue lies with BOINC and its extremely outdated official/stable BOINC app release on the Play Store. As soon as the root cause of the issue got fixed, our project will be available again. I also pointed out already that BOINC is aware of the problem and that they intend to rebuild and release a 7.4-based app with its certificate bundle updated. That should be "around the corner" and thus released in a matter of days - hopefully.

Oliver

The important word in my question was "alone".  Why is only Einstein affected?   Every other project, including World Community Grid, still works.

 

 

Want to find one of the largest known primes? Try PrimeGrid. Or help cure disease at WCG.

Oliver Behnke
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Simple, it's up to project to

Simple, it's up to project to choose a specific SSL/TLS certificate vendor (CA). WCG uses a different CA than we do. They were simply lucky enough that their CA is still supported by the very old CA bundle provided by the BOINC 7.4 client branch. Our's was cross-certified until the end of May. We warned about that back in November, for a reason. AFAIK NumberFields and Rosetta use the same CA, which is exactly the reason why BOINC has scrambled to get their CA bundle fixed (as it was already too late). So it's not only us...

Oliver

Einstein@Home Project

Michael Goetz
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Oliver Behnke wrote: Simple,

Oliver Behnke wrote:

Simple, it's up to project to choose a specific SSL/TLS certificate vendor (CA). WCG uses a different CA than we do. They were simply lucky enough that their CA is still supported by the very old CA bundle provided by the BOINC 7.4 client branch. Our's was cross-certified until the end of May. We warned about that back in November, for a reason. AFAIK NumberFields and Rosetta use the same CA, which is exactly the reason why BOINC has scrambled to get their CA bundle fixed (as it was already too late). So it's not only us...

Oliver

Thanks.  

Interestingly, Rosetta still works.  It's probably using http instead of https.

Want to find one of the largest known primes? Try PrimeGrid. Or help cure disease at WCG.

Oliver Behnke
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Do you mean Rosetta on

Do you mean Rosetta on Android? And if so, yes, http requests wouldn't be affected, but their scheduler URL uses https by default and their scheduler host uses the identical CA we use for that purpose.

Oliver

Einstein@Home Project

Oliver Behnke
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Good news everyone! Our

Good news everyone!

Our Android support is - after just 6 weeks - out of hiatus again! We are again supporting BOINC's current stable Android release (7.4.53) you can find on the Play Store.

Happy crunching!

Oliver

Einstein@Home Project

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