Installing and configuring Boinc for the World Community Grid on CentOS 7.7
The past few months I've really enjoyed contributing spare CPU cycles to the World Community Grid. Visit their website here.
1. Install epel-release:
yum -y install epel-release
2. Install the boinc-client and the boinc-manager:
yum -y install boinc-client boinc-manager
3. Enable the boinc-client so that it starts on boot/after a reboot:
systemctl enable boinc-client
4. Set a blank password file:
touch /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg
5. Start the boinc-client so that it can initialize itself, run system benchmarks for the first time etc:
systemctl start boinc-client
6. Optional: If you don't know what your account number for World Community Grid is, you can lookup your account ID - make sure to replace your username and password to the ones you use to login to World Community Grid:
boinccmd --lookup_account http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org email@domain.com replace_with_your_password_no_quotes_needed
If this works correctly you should see output like this:
status: Success
poll status: operation in progress
poll status: operation in progress
poll status: operation in progress
account key: <your_account_id>
7. Attach to the World Community Grid project - once again replace your account ID with yours - this step doesn't require a username or a password:
boinccmd --host localhost \
--passwd "" \
--project_attach \
http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org \
replace_with_your_account_id_no_quotes_needed \
--task resume
8. Boinc will now connect to the World Community Grid for the first time, run a benchmark for the local system and then start pulling jobs. This process should take a couple of minutes. To confirm that you're connected, use the --get_project_status switch like this:
boinccmd --host localhost --passwd "" --get_project_status
This is what it looks like for me when it's connected:
======== Projects ========
1) -----------
name: World Community Grid
master URL: http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/
user_name: <redacted>
team_name:
resource share: 100.000000
user_total_credit: 1241723.812680
user_expavg_credit: 13550.756580
host_total_credit: 0.000000
host_expavg_credit: 0.000000
nrpc_failures: 0
master_fetch_failures: 0
master fetch pending: no
scheduler RPC pending: no
trickle upload pending: no
attached via Account Manager: no
ended: no
suspended via GUI: no
don't request more work: no
disk usage: 0.000000
last RPC: Thu Oct 24 00:49:11 2019
project files downloaded: 1571892574.543879
GUI URL:
name: Research Overview
description: Learn about the projects hosted at World Community Grid
URL: https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/research/viewAllProjects.do
GUI URL:
name: News and Updates
description: The latest information about World Community Grid and its research projects
URL: https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/about_us/displayNews.do
GUI URL:
name: My Contribution
description: Your statistics and settings
URL: https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ms/viewMyMemberPage.do
GUI URL:
name: Results Status
description: View the status of your assigned work
URL: https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ms/viewBoincResults.do
GUI URL:
name: Device Profiles
description: Update your device settings
URL: https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/ms/device/viewProfiles.do
GUI URL:
name: Forums
description: Visit the World Community Grid forums
URL: https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forumLogin.do
GUI URL:
name: Help
description: Search for help in our help system
URL: https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/help/viewHelp.do
jobs succeeded: 0
jobs failed: 0
elapsed time: 0.000000
cross-project ID: <redacted>
Set CPU usage to 100:
Optional: On a host that's dedicated to running boinc-client you can set the CPU usage to 100%. Since the configuration files are XML, we can use the xq tool to edit them:
1. Install python3-pip, jq and moreutils so that we can get the sponge command:
yum -y install python3-pip moreutils jq
2. Install yq (you get xq with it):
pip3 install yq
3. Edit the preferences file so that we can use 100% of CPU:
cd /var/lib/boinc
xq --xml-output .global_preferences.cpu_usage_limit="100.0" global_prefs.xml | sudo sponge global_prefs.xml
4. Make sure the permissions are good:
chown boinc:boinc global_prefs.xml
5. Restart the boinc-client so that the configuration is applied:
systemctl restart boinc-client
Other stuff that's good to know:
1. To get the project status:
boinccmd --host localhost --passwd "" --get_project_status
2. To remove (detach) a project:
boinccmd --host localhost --passwd "" --project http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org detach