DC Vault 2

Gilthanis said:
If we keep our DIMES production at this pace, we should jump 4 spots within the next month and a half. I plan on adding a few more soon.
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I'll have one more quad on it by next weekend, have been thinking about trying it on my wife's old Pentium M 1.5Ghz Toshiba laptop. Sounds like it's just its speed... Also dug up an old older dual core 2+ Ghz centrino laptop with a shorted out monitor that I think can do BOINC just fine if I just hook up an external monitor to get it started. Set up remote access, and never have to touch it again... If I set up a few VM's, that should help a bit, too...
 
Sounds like a plan to me. DIMES uses next to no resource, so it should run on pretty much anything no matter the specs as long as it has a net connection.
 
I have DIMES running on a couple old P3 laptops. One is a 1GHz w/ 256MB ram and the other is 1.2GHz with 1GB ram. They hardly notice it.
 
CaptainUnlikely said:
Thanks for the info Razor, very helpful indeed. From reading their forums I had started to gather that it might be fairly CPU intensive too, I think my skim reading of their web page at first gave me the impression it was mainly network based but I understand it a little better now.
I have a 60 down/3 up connection, will be using an Intel NIC, and will be getting a decent router at some point, so I should be fine running MJ12, right?
Sounds like it won't be worth running it on my laptop, though.

I would be very interested in a guide if you have time to put one together, it sounds like an interesting project and one that I will definitely get involved in when I have my PC built.
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Sorry for not getting right back to you on this - got the news that my father died and its been as you can imagine a little crazy with everything. Just been trying to keep my head screwed on straight to help the rest of the family who doesn't (my fraken sister!).

I have some drives to move around in my BDC server in prep for a new 4 pack hot swap removable unit that I'm adding in the next few days so I can swap drives back and forth between the two main servers.
I'll sure try to get a guide put together in the next 24 and get it up for you.
The 3mbit up will be your choke point, the web sites we crawl for MJ-12 come in 10k url "buckets" and after crawling the bucket then it is compressed with lzh and sent back to MJ's servers.
With all the requests going out to fill your bandwidth coming in there will be no available free bandwidth to send buckets back out to the server(they will go out but your crawling will suffer and may cause errors during that time) - so best case is 2-3 nodes with 250-300 workers each node (should use ~10-15mbit bandwidth each) & set max buckets at 50 and the settings for your line's bandwidth just put in 102400mbit in each up/down for max bandwidth and slide the sliders to 100% (no need to configure them beyond just opening it wide open.)
If you run 3 nodes (1 on host OS and 2 in virtual) on 1 cpu I would would allow 4 free physical cores (3 cores would be the absolute miniumum) and see how that fills your line after letting it run 4-6 hours and adjust from there.
Most of the time the rule is to allow a full core for the compression and will need part of another core during that time for crawling, of course not all nodes will be doing compression all the time so nodes can share cores to some degree.

Can't run internet monitoring antivirus while crawling but local files are ok but exclude the working MJ-12 folder.
Firewalls must allow ports 80,443(http,https) and 53(dns) - pretty basic.
If hardware firewall/router locks up then decrease crawlers by 25 at a time to find routers max capability. (lots of router/firewalls cant do much more than 200-300 crawlers total simutanously - heavy crawling over 10mbit usually requires very specific high end physical firewall/router (check MJ's forums), beyond that most of us run a Linux firewall - pfSense). If pfSense is what you will be using I can defiantly help with hardware/or virtual specs and configuration.

I'll get something more comprehensive and easier to follow and get it up for us.
 
Very sorry to hear your sad news Razor, my condolences.

Again, thanks for the detailed info, I know my upload speed will be the choke point. Should be getting a free upgrade to 6mb up in the next few months - still not great, but better than I have currently. I may also be going to 120/6 which will become 120/12 after the upgrade too, which would be nice.
I've been looking at routers and was considering pfSense but that means dedicating a box to it which I don't really want to do. My current plan is to get one of these which looks pretty capable, but if that won't work too well I'll reconsider pfSense.
 
Razor_FX_II, Sorry to here the bad news. Your family is in our prayers.

WCG'ers, it seems that the ARM BETA's have run dry. I think I pulled around 100 hours to put towards getting my Sapphire badge. I am also interested to see what the good news they referenced for today is going to be. As you can see from this post https://secure.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewthread_thread,35246 Sekerob is guessing it is an official Android client launch. But, we will have to wait and see.

DIMES seems to be fixed again. We are doing well with our progress.
 
When you up too 100mbit+ the MikroTik router may not have enough memory for the state table.
@100mbit my state table is `100,000 states.
100,000 states x 1KB = 100MB memory.
If you can run virtual and with 2+ good NICs (preferably Intel GT / CT or better) and dedicate 1-2MB ram and 2 virtual CPU cores I can make a custom install pfSense CD that will runs as good or better than a dedicated hardware pfSense router.
The 2 virtual CPU cores run with less than 10% usage under heavy load.

If virtual OS clients that run MJ-12 are on the same machine as virtual pfSense then routing can be done through virtual switch which elevates local network traffic and reduces delay time.
1st NIC from virtual pfSense connects to local switch for local firewall and routing and the other 2nd NIC connected to ISP. pfSense runs in between these NICs and handles everything.

If the virtual option is not viable then it looks at first glance that the MikroTik router may do a pretty good job. I'll spend some time and do some research on it and let you know if I come up with any deal breakers. The price is very reasonable.
 
A VM on my main rig could be an option, MJ would be running on the same PC. I have 1 x Intel CT and could add another, what would you suggest as better than the CT? The Microtik was suggested by a friend because I need a better router anyway, and I was hoping it would kill two birds with one stone as well as eliminating the need for another VM or box. My main rig will have 8C/16T (possibly 12C/24T) and 24GB RAM so a VM would be an option.
If the main issue with the Microtik is lack of RAM for MJ at 100mb+, I could always crawl at a little less than that, plus the 120mb upgrade may not happen yet, I'd like to negotiate a deal for it. I'll have to have a think about it. Unsure if the Microtik OS supports swap space but might that be an option? I'll talk to the guy who recommended it, see what he says.

If it makes things clearer, here's my intended network layout:
11 x servers in one room crunching a mixture of projects
24 port switch connecting them all together
Connected via 500mb powerline adapters to the front room
Main rig in front room doing BOINC, MJ, or whatever takes my fancy
Modem in front room, can't be moved
Then either the Microtik or another decent router between my main rig and the modem, obviously the powerline adapter connecting the server room to the modem will be plugged into this, and it will support a laptop or two and some Android devices wirelessly
 
Yup. Android version of BOINC was released today. https://secure.worldcommunitygrid.org/about_us/viewNewsArticle.do?articleId=318

Though it looks pretty sleek, it still doesn't allow for the use of an account manager like BAM. Or at least I haven't seen a way to do it. I find entering my email and password to each project to be very irritating when there are simpler ways. I may dabble with it a bit more on my older ARM v6 phones, but I think I will stick with nativeBOINC for now.
 
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I agree - I've had no issues with Native BOINC so far, and have no reason to switch...

On a related (android) note, I think the betas are drying up. I've snagged a few over the weekend, but now have a steady stream of only FAAH Vinas on both devices... Oh well, was good while it lasted - I picked up about 8 days toward that beta bronze badge! Only 5 or so to go...
 
On old Android devices, it may be better to use Berkeley's. It appears to take up less space. I am going to try it on an old phone that has a v6 ARM processor (only 600 MHz) and see how it pans out. These devices have very limited internal storage and every MB counts for them. I was unable to run some projects under nativeBOINC unless I did a complete hard reset to manufacturer specs when switching between some projects. If they could figure out how to install and run from external cards, the problem wouldn't exist.

Berkeley's also still just calls the device localhost. This too can be quite confusing and/or irritating when trying to troubleshoot or monitor multiple devices.
 
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Well, we have another week of this month before switching gears. Does anyone have any preferences? I'm thinking Simap would be good, but they don't have work units consistently. Thoughts?
 
How is a choice of project normally made?
I've looked around on the DC Vault site but can't see a way to easily identify which offer easier or more difficult gains, probably not looking in the right place as I'm still wrapping my head around having around 9000 projects instead of just one (long term folder so more than one project still feels a little weird).
I have the day off work tomorrow to organise the server room in preparation for them being delivered tomorrow morning, and then I have the fun task of installing CPUs and RAM, installing OSes, and basically getting them all up and running! I have a target to reach elsewhere with them first but I hope to be able to hit September's project with all of them and my SR-2.
 
Normally, we just suggest one and maybe give reasoning for it. Then those wanting to make a push kind of just agrees on one...lol. This page was mentioned previously in this thread. http://digik-oz.nl/dcVaultStats.aspx?team=[H]ardOCP However, it doesn't fairly represent how easy it is to obtain those point values. If we have to dedicate a couple million points to move one position, it might be more beneficial to go somewhere else. You will also find that the smaller the project, the easier it is to obtain positioning/points. This is why many Vaulters don't bother with pushing the SETI standing and such.

I typically just pick one that I haven't reached my personal goal in yet. Or if I have an itch for badges, I may seek out a project that I can achieve an upgrade in.

On a side note, my first child was born today at 12:15. So, I may not be on the forums or keeping up on BOINC projects much for the next few days.

QMC@Home is back in business. Check out the new page. http://qmcathome.org/index.html
 
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Gilthanis said:
On a side note, my first child was born today at 12:15. So, I may not be on the forums or keeping up on BOINC projects much for the next few days.

http://qmcathome.org/index.html
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Right on!!! Enjoy, my friend! I remember that day well, even though it was almost 10 years ago. I know it's cliche, but they grow up so damn quick. It seems like yesterday I was holding her in my arms, and now I'm teaching her to set up a LAN gaming party in Minecraft for her and her friends... :D BTW, boy or girl?

On a different note, thanks to the FS/FT thread, the old dying q9550 system is now an i7-950 system! Time to ramp up 4 hyperthreaded cores and get to some serious BOINC testing!
 
Razor, my thoughts are with you, I know it's probably a hard time for you. I wish you and the family the best!

Gilthanis, Congratulations! You're hardly going to have time for anything now! But on the bright side, you have a baby to troubleshoot. Maybe try overclocking it? Just kidding!

Finally got the 2p up and running smoothly. Crunching SETI at the moment, waiting for whatever the project is for this month to be decided on. I'm up for anything of course. Should have another system online shortly as well.
 
Congrats Gilthanis!! Nice one!!
And thanks for the info as always, I'll be sure to have a look at the link.

Also, I've now started a project thread for my small server room - linky - to save cluttering up this thread with unrelated discussion.
 
Jathanis said:
. :D BTW, boy or girl?
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Jathanis, it is a girl. Full head of hair. 20.5 inches long and 6lbs. 5oz. She will certainly learn the [H]ard way. ;)

CaptainUnlikely, that is certainly going to be a good farm.

Kai, good to see you stop in. As far as what we decide, cast your vote. I run SETI on my GPU's when a CPU app is chosen, so I will be running it anyways as I push for my 1Million point goal there. I just wish Dr.A would pull his head out of his A about the Credit New system. The only thing that will change that is if we decide to push a different GPU project.
 
I just saw that I hit 1 Million points at Enigma. This is not only a project goal, but also a badge upgrade to Sapphire.
 
Nice, Gilthanis! I'm coming up on my third 10M in Moo!, and 20M in Muon this month. After those, my q6600 will be freed up for a lot more BOINC...

On a different note, I noticed I'm up over 1M in dnet/RC5-72,and didn't even realize it's been running as a service in the background! It's been a free 175K/month for who knows how long... :D But between that and Muon, it explains why my quad had only been doing about 50 hours of work a day instead of closer to the 96 it's capable of...
 
Congrats on the baby girl, she's a great edition to the [H]orde.

I agree with you on that, Dr. A really does need to step it up and continue to be the leader in DC like they used to be. They have fallen far behind as of late.

On a brighter note, Einstein has new apps released for gravity detection. I'm going to switch over to that and have my modest farm working hard to find some gravitational waves.
 
I guess being an engineer /math geek, I've never really gotten into SETI... I like to focus more on the Bio Science or Math projects... :D

Isn't a lot of SETI's issues of late due to lack of funding?
 
Most of the time, SETI's problem is that its user base is too big for what SETI can handle. That is saying a lot because SETI has some serious hardware behind it. So, technically lack of funding is true because it would take a huge upgrade to be able to keep its users happy and full. :)
 
Well, since there weren't any other suggestions, I will go ahead and attach to SIMAP. This project does protein sequence comparisons. From what I have heard, they have a somewhat steady stream of work now. As far as GPU's go, I will continue my SETI/BETA goals to hit 1 million each and will crunch part of the time at GPUGrid with the handful of cards I have that work there.

Bio/Medical category in the Vault is our weakest category. I figured we should probably focus on those projects for a while. I was thinking of possibly focusing on Docking in September unless WCG adds a new project before then.
 
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My laptop should be on SIMAP once it's done with some Correlizer units.
Had to reinstall my gf's laptop about a week ago as the SSD just up and died, I'm going to try and revive it when I have a working desktop but I'm not holding out much hope. It's a 64GB Crucial M225, so fairly old.

Haven't had time to do anything with my servers yet, my gf has been having some seizures recently and I actually took the day off yesterday to take her to the doctor (again, after the hospital basically said they couldn't do anything after waiting 5 hours). The earliest appointment with a neurologist is the 12th of September, the doctor yesterday signed her off work for 8 weeks. We have no idea what it is - could be epilepsy, could be anything, there doesn't seem to be a specific trigger but they've got drastically worse in the last week. If what she is diagnosed with comes under the research aims of any specific projects, I'm likely to focus more on that - not because I expect what I have to make that much of a difference, but because at least that will make me feel like I'm doing something to help, when they happen it just leaves me feeling powerless and it's not nice for either of us.
 
Sorry to hear that CaptainUnlikely. I don't know of any projects that specifically research epilepsy. Focusing on the protein projects are probably your best bet there. If I see any mention of epilepsy in any of the projects, I will let you know.
 
We're not sure if it is epilepsy yet, it could be anything at this point. If it is, then I agree, any of the protein folding projects is probably where I'll focus...heck, whatever it is, they're probably my best bet anyway. We won't know for a while yet anyway. In the meantime, I'll try and make time to get some systems online as soon as possible.

Edit: I also picked up a good deal on a dedicated server lease, £3/month. It's only an Atom but it has 100Mbps bandwidth and 2GB of RAM, so I'm thinking of loading it up for DIMES or maybe trying out MJ-12. It's just to play around with really, I may use it to host some stuff like an IRC bot as well but it definitely seemed worth it for the price. Going to use it to gain some Linux experience as it'll have Ubuntu Server 13.04 on it.
 
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In case someone over here didn't see it, congrats to Gilthanis on [H]ard DCer of the month! July 2013 will certainly be a month to remember, huh? :D
 
Thanks Jathanis. And yes, it will be.

CaptainUnlikely, that is a nice deal for that setup. However, I doubt loading it up with DIMES will work out so well unless it has multiple cores/threads. Running multiple VM's may not work out so well on such a low throughput processor. Perhaps using it for MJ12 instead? Anyways, if you do try the VM's, let me know how they work out and what OS choice you end up going with.

Carbon_Rod, I am not sure how I missed your post, but thank you. Glad to see you in the forums.
 
Gilthanis said:
CaptainUnlikely, that is a nice deal for that setup. However, I doubt loading it up with DIMES will work out so well unless it has multiple cores/threads. Running multiple VM's may not work out so well on such a low throughput processor. Perhaps using it for MJ12 instead? Anyways, if you do try the VM's, let me know how they work out and what OS choice you end up going with.
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It seems to be single core with hyperthreading, so not particularly beefy. It might not go so well with multiple VMs, but I'm just thinking of giving it a try for the hell of it, to see how it copes. As long as the OSes I run in VMs are low overhead, it might work OK. At the very least it should be able to handle one or two instances while hosting some stuff for me and providing a test bed and learning environment.
I'll post back with results, anyway, it's currently in the setup phase and they say it should be ready for me within a week or so. £3 a month is a steal anyway no matter what I end up using it for.
 
Its been quite a while since I have been here.

Would like to say I will be back and with some power this September! I recently graduated from College and got a job in NC (moving from NY).

I have been out due to cost of electricity but, with the new job I will be able to get back into it.

See ya soon!
 
Great to hear that etothe3ric! If you have a preference on September project, make sure to pipe up. So far everyone has been willing to do whatever. Any hints at what hardware you will be bringing?
 
Gilthanis said:
Great to hear that etothe3ric! If you have a preference on September project, make sure to pipe up. So far everyone has been willing to do whatever. Any hints at what hardware you will be bringing?
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Haven't even looked that the projects yet, you guys have have so many new one since i've been gone.

I'll be bringing back online an i7 920 with a gtx460, C2D with an 550ti, C2D with an 8800GTS. Not the newest hardware but a good start. Will be investing an a Dell Poweredge 2950 but that be more for my ESXi than crunching.
 
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