Imaging Computers

Mark E. Lehr
Mark E. Lehr
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Topic 190672

We are about to re-image a couple of computers. I noticed that when we re-image a computer with BOINC that it is reporting out incorrectly. For instance, here is the situation. Take 2 computers, initially one running BOINC, the other not. I ghost the image to the other machine and now I have 2 machines whith identical images. I look at my BOINC account and it still shows 1 computer. When the computer that has been imaged transfers the work it has done, then the BOINC account manager still shows 1 computer but now it shows the machines name has been changed to whichever machine was the last reported. Any help would be appreciated.

Bruce Allen
Bruce Allen
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Imaging Computers

Quote:
We are about to re-image a couple of computers. I noticed that when we re-image a computer with BOINC that it is reporting out incorrectly. For instance, here is the situation. Take 2 computers, initially one running BOINC, the other not. I ghost the image to the other machine and now I have 2 machines whith identical images. I look at my BOINC account and it still shows 1 computer. When the computer that has been imaged transfers the work it has done, then the BOINC account manager still shows 1 computer but now it shows the machines name has been changed to whichever machine was the last reported. Any help would be appreciated.

Mark, when you 'clone' a computer, you have two computers each with the same host id (a number). The BOINC scheduler keeps track (in the database) of how many times it has been contacted by each host. The host machine ALSO keeps a record. The FIRST host to contact the scheduler has a consistent number of contacts with the database. But the SECOND host has fewer contacts recorded than the scheduler. In such cases, the scheduler assigns a new identity (hostid) to the SECOND machine.

Does this help? I'm not sure I understand your question.

Bruce

Director, Einstein@Home

Mark E. Lehr
Mark E. Lehr
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Yes, I think that will answer

Yes, I think that will answer the question. In other words, when I clone a computer, the scheduler will eventually assign a new identity. Just wanted to make sure before we start cloning all the computers in all of our labs.

Thanks

Mark

Bruce Allen
Bruce Allen
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RE: Yes, I think that will

Message 24544 in response to message 24543

Quote:
Yes, I think that will answer the question. In other words, when I clone a computer, the scheduler will eventually assign a new identity. Just wanted to make sure before we start cloning all the computers in all of our labs.

You should be able to clone all the computers in your labs in this way. But please do keep an eye on them afterwards to be sure that they are behaving properly.

Cheers,
Bruce

Director, Einstein@Home

Bernd Machenschalk
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You can force a new hostid

You can force a new hostid assignment by deleting the line from the file client_state.xml. Note that this is similar to resetting the project, so if you want to keep things running as they were on the original machine, make a backup copy of the file first, then delete the line, ghost the image, and restore the original file on the one machine.

BM

BM

RiversideCityCampus
RiversideCityCampus
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RE: You can force a new

Message 24546 in response to message 24545

Quote:

You can force a new hostid assignment by deleting the line from the file client_state.xml. Note that this is similar to resetting the project, so if you want to keep things running as they were on the original machine, make a backup copy of the file first, then delete the line, ghost the image, and restore the original file on the one machine.

BM

I will try this fix on a group of about 30 machines we are about to image.

Currently, I have 108 computers that I cloned. Last night I had to merge about 5 results for each machine and noticed today that again new hostid's were assigned to each.

Is there anything else I can do with these machines so I don't have to keep merging their results without re-imaging.

Mark

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