Controlling multiple machines (BoincView?)
15 Jun 2009 23:42:36 UTC
Topic 194396
(moderation:
OK, now I'm starting to get addicted to this, so I'm installing BOINC on a few machines at home (holding off doing my wife's even though it's the fastest because...). Anyway, a bit of sniffing pointed to a Windows app called BoincView for managing multiple machines, but it looks like it may be going away? Any suggestions for how to simply manage a pool of 3 or so Windoze boxes and/or laptops sitting around home in various rooms?
Thanks!
"Better is the enemy of the good." - Voltaire (should be memorized by every requirements lead)
Controlling multiple machines (BoincView?)
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I've used BoincView for much the same circumstances to run my little farm at home.
The main issue I found setting up was firewalls. In the mode I employ, it uses a UDP port 31413 or somesuch I think, so you have to generally create firewall exception rules for that.
BoincView quizzes the Boinc on each machine according to some schedule ( once per minute say ), and accordingly needs a security key ( generated for this purpose by Boinc on a per machine basis and kept in a file called 'gui_rpc_auth.cfg' on the local machine ) so that BoincView can verify itself to the local BOINC manager. You put that key into BoincView when you set up each machine in the network. Each Boinc on each machine also needs a list that it will respond to - by name or IP address ( that is kept in a file called 'remote_hosts.cfg' on the local machine ) - so your machine that will be carrying BoincView will appear there.
To simplify, actually:
[remote_hosts.cfg]
YOUR_BOINCVIEW_HOST_IP_ADDRESS
[/remote_hosts.cfg]
and put that in every Boinc host machine directory ( yes, even the one which has BoincView ). I use the IP address to get around name resolution issues .....
[gui_rpc_auth.cfg]
SOME_RATHER_LONG_CHARACTER_STRING
[/gui_rpc_auth.cfg]
just use the key from one of the machines and copy that around the network if you like. Enter that for every machine in BoincView's purview.
Generally it's a terrific product. Not just for monitoring, but you can hit a button and all machines will report in to the project for instance.
Cheers, Mike.
( edit ) Oh, and there are support groups for your addiction. But you have to reach a minimum RAC to qualify. You will be contacted by secret courier ( via a dead drop into the third red rubbish bin ) if we deem you as eligible ...... :-)
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
RE: OK, now I'm starting to
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I use it too. It does have its limitations, but will still quite happily talk to the latest BOINC (6.6.36 and older versions). I suspect the author may have passed away and unfortunately he didn't release the source code.
There are a couple of guys over on Seti who have knocked up a .NET version. Its still a work in progress but has the basic functionality. They have said they will release the source when they are happier with it. You can download the executable. I haven't tried it myself. Here is a link to the message thread on Seti if you are interested.
BOINC blog
RE: There are a couple of
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This is a Beta version with only basic functionality...
The good news is that it will start to reflect some of the advances since BV was last updated.
Thanks for the help; I got it
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Thanks for the help; I got it running once I figured out the magic incantations (I think it was the Windows firewall) to get my "secondary" computer to respond to remote mode requests (both from the BOINC Manager and BoincView). BoincView is cool, though I miss the statistics graphs (I switch over to the BOINC Manager for those).
I am curious about one thing...the Wiki seems to say I should see a message "remote mode enabled" if it detects the remote_hosts.cfg file. I don't see that message (BOINC 6.6.28) though it does work.
"Better is the enemy of the good." - Voltaire (should be memorized by every requirements lead)
RE: ...the Wiki seems to
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I've never seen that message, the Wiki's probably not aligned/coherent with the product.
Cheers, Mike.
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
I've been a delighted user of
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I've been a delighted user of BoincView (BV) for a few years. There is some overhead from it, but to me, at least, the convenience is well worth it. Especially useful is the "flag" on LAN computers whose instance of BOINC is not responsive! The other high-value service is the ability to get WU's "reported" around the time of my "end of day" status recording.
During the last E@h outage, I accumulated about 700 completed WU's. Some were ready to upload and others waiting to report. As the pile grew, the responsiveness of BV dropped off noticably... several second delays in changing views.
BoincView has been running without interruption on this stock Intel Q 6600 machine for several weeks. A peek at the Windows Task Manager (Win Xp Pro) shows 49 hours of CPU time accumulated by BV... enough for half dozen WU's or so. The utilization at this time (normal E@h operation) shows BV using about 12% of one CPU (3% overall) so I suspect that a large percentage of those 49 hours were expended during the E@h outage. A probable contributor is that I display a lot of detail about each job, so the BV has lots of columns to display.
Display responsiveness now that E@h is working well again is good, even with a cache of 1000 (undisplayed) WU's waiting to start.
Stan
RE: I've been a delighted
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I see you have ~ a dozen machines, BV certainly is very helpful. Depending on how realtime you want to be you can fiddle with the refresh interval. I had a packet sniffer running on my home network ( for other reasons ) and was surprised by how much went on due to BV exchanges.
Cheers, Mike.
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
RE: RE: I've been a
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Yes, indeed! I cut the intervals back quite a bit early on (10 sec). (Much more and earlier versions of BOINC would dispose results before BV got 'em logged. With recent changes to reduce the frequency of "report", I suspect that lengthening the intervals would not cause the log loss ... and I might get BV to NOT saturate my Gb LAN.)
Even so, the network is nice to manage, and Bride appreciates me not commandeering "her keyboard" to "mess with Einstein!" (I really do miss the remote login that was a staple on my UNIX work stations at CAT, though.)
Stan
Stan
RE: RE: RE: I've been a
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hey stan, long time no see :) (from classic) by remote log in do you mean shell access? i believe you can do that in windows with putty. or you can use vnc , i use tightvnc myself.
seeing without seeing is something the blind learn to do, and seeing beyond vision can be a gift.
RE: RE: ... Even so, the
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Cool! I'll check into it.
Yes, I remember you, Paul, and Per W (pwm, a really good guy who bailed me out when a Windows Update to my P-4 erected a security wall that locked out even me, and again when a SETI change prevented me from getting at SETI info for my "Projections" page), Joe (tceti3, with limrics), Dennis (Bikerman, who seems to haunt these E@h grounds, too), Great Aunt Millie (RIP), and a few other names that you should remember (most are captured somewhere in this page about Great Aunt Millie).
Stan
Stan