1BOINC(1) User Manuals BOINC(1)
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7 BOINC - Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing
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12 The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) is an
13 open-source software platform which supports distributed computing,
14 primarily in the form of "volunteer" computing and "desktop grid" com‐
15 puting. It is well suited for problems which are often described as
16 "trivially parallel" or "embarrassingly parallel". BOINC is the under‐
17 lying software used by projects such as SETI@home, Einstein@Home, Cli‐
18 matePrediciton.net, the World Community Grid, and many others. The
19 BOINC client software runs on Windows, MacOS X, and Unix, including
20 Linux.
21 By downloading and installing the BOINC client software your computer
24 can participate in any number of BOINC-based projects. For each
25 project you simply need to "attach" to the project, by providing the
26 URL of the project, your e-mail address, and a password which you
27 select. The BOINC core client, running on your computer, will then
28 connect to the servers for all of your attached projects and will auto‐
29 matically download and run applications obtained from the project
30 servers.
31 For more details on how BOINC works see http://boinc.berke‐
34 ley.edu/trac/wiki/IntroUser and the links therein.
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39 BOINC applications are the programs which actually do scientific com‐
40 puting. Most BOINC applications are capable of displaying graphics
41 when your computer would usually show a screensaver, though not all
42 BOINC applications include such graphics capability. (There are no
43 screensaver graphics available yet for Unix.) Several applications may
44 run at the same time on a computer with more than one CPU, and in any
45 case the core client will alternate between applications from different
46 projects to try to maintain a ratio of effort which you can control.
47 BOINC applications are generally written by the scientists who have set
50 up a particular BOINC project. To learn more about what a particular
51 BOINC application is doing on your computer you should visit the web
52 site for the BOINC project which uses that application.
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57 The latest version of the BOINC client software can be downloaded from
58 http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php
59 An rpm package suitable for installation on Red Hat Linux, Fedora
62 Linux, and any other Linux distribution which uses RPM packages, may be
63 downloaded from http://pirates.spy-hill.net/download/RPMS
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68 BOINC is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
69 the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the
70 Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at
71 your option) any later version.
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76 You should run BOINC only on computers which you own, or for which you
77 have obtained the owner's permission. Some companies and schools have
78 policies that prohibit using their computers for BOINC projects or sim‐
79 ilar uses.
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85 /usr/bin/boinc_client
86 The BOINC "core client", which is the heart of BOINC. This
87 program is run in the background as a daemon, and it then
88 controls which applications are run on your computer, along
89 with downloading "Workunits" and uploading the "Result" files
90 from completed tasks.
91 /usr/bin/boincmgr
94 The BOINC "Manager", which provides a graphical user inter‐
95 face (GUI) which allows the user to communicate with and con‐
96 trol the BOINC core client. See boincmgr(1), for details.
97 /usr/bin/boinc_cmd
100 A command line tool which can be used to give specific com‐
101 mands to the running core client. Although not as easy to
102 use as the graphical interface provided by the BOINC Manager,
103 boinc_cmd provides more options. See boinc_cmd(1), for
104 details.
105 /etc/init.d/boinc
108 A Unix init script to start boinc_client when the system is
109 booted and to stop boinc_client when the system is shut down.
110 Configuration settings may be put in the file /usr/syscon‐
111 fig/boinc.
112 /var/lib/boinc
115 The working directory, under which the client core does all
116 of its work. This is the home directory of a special 'boinc'
117 user. The BOINC core client does not have to run as 'root',
118 and indeed it should not be run as 'root' for better secu‐
119 rity. Different values for both the account name and working
120 directory can be set in /usr/sysconfig/boinc.
121 /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg
127 A file containing the password needed to connect to the run‐
128 ning core client from the BOINC Manager.
129 /var/lib/boinc/client_state.xml
132 A file containing the current state of the running core
133 client and the files which it has downloaded or intends to
134 upload.
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139 Keep in mind that BOINC is continuously being developed and refined, so
140 there may well be bugs in any version of the software.
141 Any problems with the BOINC software can be reported and discussed in
144 the BOINC forums at http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev, or in the forums
145 available on almost any BOINC-based project. Individual bugs or fea‐
146 ture requests may be submitted as a ticket in the "Trac" system at
147 http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac. Specific technical comments may be set
148 to the developers mailing list at boinc_dev@ssl.berkeley.edu, but they
149 do not provide technical support, and they are more interested in
150 receiving patches which fix bugs than they are in receiving complaints.
151 Any problems with the packaging of the BOINC software should be submit‐
154 ted to the person who packaged the software for distribution, not to
155 the BOINC developers.
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160 boinc_client(1), boincmgr(1), boinc_cmd(1), and http://boinc.berke‐
161 ley.edu/trac/wiki/UnixClient
162 For a list of some of the many BOINC based projects see
165 http://boinc.berkeley.edu/projects.php or http://boincprojectsta‐
166 tus.ath.cx/. These lists are provided for your information only, and
167 are not endorsed by BOINC or U.C. Berkeley. You can find other
168 projects which use BOINC via Google.
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173 Revision Number: 5.10.21-18
174 Release Date: 29 Dec 2007
175BOINC 5.10 18 December 2007 BOINC(1)