Am I launching this program correctly?

Cole Rob Green
Cole Rob Green
Joined: 31 Mar 20
Posts: 6
Credit: 507297
RAC: 0
Topic 221554

I have this BOINC program running on a couple raspberry pi's and an old laptop. They're headless and I use them through SSH. I'm starting BOINC by adding this command into the rc.local of the pi's and also to a cron job to start at boot on the laptop. Is this OK or will it cause problems?

boinc --gui_rpc_port 3333 --attach_project https://einsteinathome.org <my key>

I'm using port 3333 because my ISP or modem/router refused to open port 31416.

Mike Hewson
Mike Hewson
Moderator
Joined: 1 Dec 05
Posts: 6534
Credit: 284730859
RAC: 105773

I think you will also need to

I think you will also need to enable RPCs via the command line option --allow_remote_gui_rpc, that is :

boinc --allow_remote_gui_rpc --gui_rpc_port 3333 --attach_project https://einsteinathome.org <my key>

{ IIRC the default behaviour is to not accept RPCs. }

Cheers, Mike.

( edit ) FWIW I've just noticed that 31416 is the digits of PI rounded to five significant ..... :=)

I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter ...

... and my other CPU is a Ryzen 5950X :-) Blaise Pascal

floyd
floyd
Joined: 12 Sep 11
Posts: 133
Credit: 186610495
RAC: 0

I'm not familiar with pis so

I'm not familiar with pis so I can't say anything definitive on that but I have some thoughts to consider.

--attach_project:
You need to attach only once. Usually you'll use boinccmd for further control but a remote BOINC Manager would be more convenient. Currently your account shows four devices attached, running Debian or Raspbian.

rc.local/cron:
Doesn't your system autostart boinc? At least a standard Debian installation should. I suspect you could have two instances of boinc running, sharing the data directory. That's asking for trouble.

modem/router:
That can't matter here. When you ssh to your dedicated cruncher you're already past the router.

--allow_remote_gui_rpc:
Not necessary for remote control from configured addresses and as it is you're not controlling boinc remotely anyway.

 

Cole Rob Green
Cole Rob Green
Joined: 31 Mar 20
Posts: 6
Credit: 507297
RAC: 0

I took the command out of the

I took the command out of the cron tab on the debian computer and rebooted it. I noticed at least 2 PIDs for boinc in htop after reboot but they disappeared/ended. Running just the command "boinc" in terminal gives me an error about the GUI RPC port not being open.

Edit:

After generally fooling around, I've now broken it so that the same command I originally put in the crontab does not work. I think it's safe to say I'm doing something wrong. I get "Authorization Error: -155" or very similar when I try to see the project status now. I am confused.

Edit:

Using that command after boot in the terminal seems to launch the program just fine though and it starts doing stuffs. I do notice there is a PID from user boinc with command /usr/bin/boinc but it doesn't seem to be doing anything. The debian computer is listed on this site twice for some reason. Probably due to my tom-foolery in some way or another

It seems to be working the way I had it set up originally but without the GUI RPC now, but that didn't matter. I'm not sure what's going on exactly. It seems it's not saving any sort of configuration, though. Maybe that's why the boinc program seems to start on boot then do nothing?

floyd
floyd
Joined: 12 Sep 11
Posts: 133
Credit: 186610495
RAC: 0

Cole Rob Green schrieb:I took

Cole Rob Green wrote:
I took the command out of the cron tab on the debian computer and rebooted it. I noticed at least 2 PIDs for boinc in htop after reboot but they disappeared/ended.

So something was started automatically. The client should still be running. It may not be obvious in (h)top as the client does little by itself, systemctl could tell more:

$ systemctl status boinc-client.service
● boinc-client.service - Berkeley Open Infrastructure Network Computing Client
Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/boinc-client.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)
Active: active (running) since Sat 2020-03-28 14:29:51 CET; 5 days ago
Docs: man:boinc(1)
Main PID: 1034 (boinc)
Tasks: 36 (limit: 4915)
Memory: 11.0G
CGroup: /system.slice/boinc-client.service
├─ 1034 /usr/bin/boinc
├─ 2202 ../../projects/www.worldcommunitygrid.org/wcgrid_mcm1_map_7.43_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu

(This output is truncated where the actual science applications start.)

Quote:
Running just the command "boinc" in terminal gives me an error about the GUI RPC port not being open.

There comes my multiple instances theory again. Could it be you misinterpreted the message and the default port has already been taken?

Quote:
Using that command after boot in the terminal seems to launch the program just fine though and it starts doing stuffs.

The system's BOINC client runs under the boinc user account. When started from rc.local or cron the client runs under the root account and started from the command line it runs under your own account. Originally I assumed all those clients shared a data directory but now it seems they are independent, which is not as bad as I feared but not good either.

Quote:
I do notice there is a PID from user boinc with command /usr/bin/boinc but it doesn't seem to be doing anything.

That's the system client you want to use. The client is kind of a boss program, if properly configured it makes others do the work. You control it using the boinccmd tool. (Or by editing config files but that's not necessary for basic operation.) Do not run /usr/bin/boinc - or short boinc - yourself as that will (try to) start another client.

So my suggested course of action is: Reboot, configure the system client and don't start any other. This will leave any work already assigned to those clients undone but that's not much at this time.

If you can't get the system client working, plan B is to reinstall it. But make sure to purge it first, that will remove any remains of the existing installation.

 

Cole Rob Green
Cole Rob Green
Joined: 31 Mar 20
Posts: 6
Credit: 507297
RAC: 0

I reinstalled it. Any command

I reinstalled it. Any command I run with boinccmd just returns "Authorization failure: -155"

 

root@ShitMiner420:/home/cole# systemctl status boinc-client.service ● boinc-client.service - Berkeley Open Infrastructure Network Computing Client    Loaded: loaded (/lib/systemd/system/boinc-client.service; enabled; vendor preset: enabled)    Active: active (running) since Fri 2020-04-03 15:16:48 CDT; 9min ago      Docs: man:boinc(1)  Main PID: 485 (boinc)     Tasks: 2 (limit: 4587)    Memory: 11.8M    CGroup: /system.slice/boinc-client.service            └─485 /usr/bin/boinc

Apr 03 15:26:05 ShitMiner420 boinc[485]: No protocol specified
Apr 03 15:26:06 ShitMiner420 boinc[485]: No protocol specified
Apr 03 15:26:07 ShitMiner420 boinc[485]: No protocol specified
Apr 03 15:26:08 ShitMiner420 boinc[485]: No protocol specified
Apr 03 15:26:09 ShitMiner420 boinc[485]: No protocol specified
Apr 03 15:26:10 ShitMiner420 boinc[485]: No protocol specified
Apr 03 15:26:11 ShitMiner420 boinc[485]: No protocol specified
Apr 03 15:26:12 ShitMiner420 boinc[485]: No protocol specified
Apr 03 15:26:13 ShitMiner420 boinc[485]: No protocol specified
Apr 03 15:26:14 ShitMiner420 boinc[485]: No protocol specified
root@ShitMiner420:/home/cole#

 

 

floyd
floyd
Joined: 12 Sep 11
Posts: 133
Credit: 186610495
RAC: 0

Cole Rob Green schrieb:Any

Cole Rob Green wrote:
Any command I run with boinccmd just returns "Authorization failure: -155"

A misunderstanding. The argument to the --passwd option is the client's password and by default the client has no password set so whatever you provide there is incorrect.

Cole Rob Green
Cole Rob Green
Joined: 31 Mar 20
Posts: 6
Credit: 507297
RAC: 0

I uninstalled with autoremove

I uninstalled with autoremove and then cleared out a bunch of boinc files that were littered around in directories there shouldn't be on account of me not running the program correctly and running it under my user. I think. It appears to be working now that I've reinstalled and reattached it to the project.

Comment viewing options

Select your preferred way to display the comments and click "Save settings" to activate your changes.