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Installing the BOINC-client on Debian GNU/Linux

Last updated: Tue, 25 Dec 2007 12:45

Introduction
Installation
Configuration
Attaching to a project
Getting statistics
Related documents and links

Introduction

BOINC is a client for distributed computing. With the help of distributed computing many computers work on one task together. So, it is possible to calculate things a lot faster.
There are many different projects for the BOINC client software available. Just check out the BOINC project list.
As I wanted to install BOINC on my server (no X-Window-System) I had some difficulties to cope with. I was nearly giving up on BOINC, that is why I now write this howto.

Installation

To get the BOINC-client running you need to become root and install it with apt-get:

su
apt-get update
apt-get install boinc-client

Configuration

After the installation BOINC does not do anything, you need to configure it first. To do this, you need to give BOINC a password. Type

vi /etc/boinc-client/gui_rpc_auth.cfg

and type in your password. It is probably a good idea to change the file permissions, so it is not readable to anyone anymore:

chmod 440 /etc/boinc-client/gui_rpc_auth.cfg

Now you need to restart the boinc-client for the changes to come into effect:

/etc/init.d/boinc-client restart

Now you can access BOINC's configuration via boinc_cmd. The scheme is:

boinc_cmd --host localhost --passwd YOUR_PASSWORD_FROM_ABOVE --COMMAND

Let's try it out with

boinc_cmd --host localhost --passwd YOUR_PASSWORD --get_state

Now we change just two more things:

boinc_cmd --host localhost --passwd YOUR_PASSWORD --set_run_mode always
boinc_cmd --host localhost --passwd YOUR_PASSWORD --set_network_mode always
/etc/init.d/boinc-client restart

Attaching to a project

boinc_cmd --host localhost --passwd YOUR_PASSWORD --project_attach http://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/ ---

Getting statistics

It's much more fun to donate your CPU power when you can show off with it, so you need statistics. I especially liked the following two statistic sites:

boinc.mundayweb.com

On this site you can get dynamically generated graphics, showing your stats:

boinc.netsoft-online.com

http://boinc.netsoft-online.com/get_user.php?cpid=a67b6e5cd2dd44e28be7c3be839c3a0b&html=1