When / Why to use BOINC with VirtualBox?

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fastgeek

[H]ard|DCOTM x4 aka "That Company"
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I've never used the BOINC + VB client before. For whatever reason I thought it wasn't needed; but the more accurate explanation is that I didn't understand why that option was there. Just installed BOINC+VB on my home computer (E5-2596v2 w/ 32GB RAM, 1070GTX, etc) to try and help with LHC at little once I learned that anything other than "SixTrack" required it. Not going to lie, it was a real pain in the ass. Kept having the issues in which the VM wasn't engaging. Nuked everything related to BOINC after install and all is well now. That said.

Now I'm wondering... have I been screwing myself over in other projects by not using the VM enabled BOINC option? In the case of the current Pentathlon competition, am I leaving points on the table by not going that route? Inquiring minds want to know! :) Thanks!

(BTW, looks like LHC has decided to do two 8CPU instances of Atlas + a few instances of SixTrack as available.)
 
You actually managed to get it to work? Which OS?

I kept getting VirtualBox not installed from LHC.

The WUs for the VB apps do produce more points then Sixtrack.
 
Priller said:
You actually managed to get it to work? Which OS?

I kept getting VirtualBox not installed from LHC.

The WUs for the VB apps do produce more points then Sixtrack.
Click to expand...

Not sure if you've already managed to get this working or not.

If not, you could try to uninstall both boinc and vbox completely (including the program data folder boinc leaves behind) and then install the development version BOINC 7.7.2 + VirtualBox 5.1.18. Apparently, some people are experiencing issues with earlier versions of vbox.

This worked for me on windows 10. At least it did after I remembered to enable virtualisation in the bios.
 
phoenicis said:
Not sure if you've already managed to get this working or not.

If not, you could try to uninstall both boinc and vbox completely (including the program data folder boinc leaves behind) and then install the development version BOINC 7.7.2 + VirtualBox 5.1.18. Apparently, some people are experiencing issues with earlier versions of vbox.

This worked for me on windows 10. At least it did after I remembered to enable virtualisation in the bios.
Click to expand...

Doesn't exist for Linux. Last updated 2014 and doesnt included VB. The version in the Software Center is 5.0 but if you use the Package Installer it is for 5.1. Issue is it "Breaks existing package 'virtualbox' conflict: virtualbox-5.1

EDIT: Got 5.1 installed. Had to remove 5.1(That I never installed) then did an autoremove after it and that solved the conflict.
 
Last edited:
Priller said:
EDIT: Got 5.1 installed. Had to remove 5.1(That I never installed) then did an autoremove after it and that solved the conflict.
Click to expand...

Great news! I'm 5 years out of date with Linux so was completely stumped.
 
phoenicis said:
Great news! I'm 5 years out of date with Linux so was completely stumped.
Click to expand...

I have yet to see it work and after doing an update I have yet to get the Notice that VirtualBox isnt installed.

I changed settings to pull the VB apps for LHC so I will find out when it tries to pull those WUs if the same error reappears with the updated VB installed.
 
I've ran a lot of Virtualbox work units as I had the goal of hitting 1 million points in every projects before they merged a few.
1. Most motherboards have the Virtualization turned off by default in the BIOS. - Turn it on
2. Linux isn't my thing but is harder to get working. One of the Linux gurus would have to help y ou.
3. I don't use the version of Virtualbox packaged with BOINC. Rarely has that version ever actually worked well for many projects. I just download the latest and greatest directly from Oracle and let it run until I have problems.
4. Install the extension pack which I do not believe comes with the version packaged with BOINC.
5. Virtualbox apps "may" credit more or they "may not" depending on projects. You would need to test this. There is no solid rule on it.
6. Virtualbox apps are the scientists/devs way of being lazy while simplifying their work. It means all work is done on the same OS environment under the same general conditions.
7. Virtualbox apps will want more RAM per work unit due to OS overhead, but are typically (but not always) multi-threaded and thus uses less RAM over all.
8. Virtualbox apps typically have used more networking resources due to their larger size and some will continue to communicate back and forth with project servers as they download upload more work inside the work units.
9. Virtualbox apps allow for a virtualized check pointing system that some applications do not allow naturally by implementing the snapshot option. This is a good thing for those who have systems that reboot monthly or more often.
10. You do not create the virtual machine yourself. The project sends it to you.
11. Do not try running a virtual machine inside a virtual machine. That can be like crossing the streams...lol
 
I also forgot to mention that the virtualbox apps are not always good at cleaning up after themselves. Periodically you may have to manually delete some either from the Virtualbox client or from going through the slots directories in the BOINC data directory.
 
Another reason to run the virtualbox apps is if you are a badge hunter. ATLAS has badges where the other LHC apps currently do not. You also get run time credited if you are running WUProp which goes towards badge upgrades.
 
I did get an ATLAS WU so looks like on Ubuntu atleast you must have V 5.1 installed for BOINC to see VB.
 
So is installing BOINC + VB a major PITFA on Ubuntu? If not, I might switch over a couple boxes running Cosmo to churn out completed WUs faster. That 4P 4640v4 takes anywhere from ~5-6 hours to ~11-12 hours, depending on the WU. A certain other box looks like it's around 4-10H, depending on the WU. I am going to switch the 4P-E7 box to B+VB (still on 2012R2) and see if that helps. Just did a painful thing and killed all WUs with more than three hours remaining.

phoenicis said:
... uninstall both boinc and vbox completely (including the program data folder boinc leaves behind) ...
Click to expand...

That's exactly what I did; but I also took it a couple steps further by deleting every single reference to BOINC on my HDD (dir /s/a boinc*.* is your friend) and then all references in the registry, too. :p
 
It was at first. But now it looks fairly straight forward if using the right versions. I can provide any assistance should you need it.
 
If you have some quick and dirty steps, that would be great. I sunk way too much time into getting all of those Ubuntu systems online yesterday; so need to be a good boy and keep the BOINC related stuff to a minimum today. :)
 
If you want to run F@H at the same time install 14.04 LTS, F@H, then upgrade to 16.04 LTS.

Once your in 16.04
Install Boinc from the Software Center
Install GDebi Package Installer
Install VB from their website. Again must be 5.1. The one in the Software Center is 5.0 and will not work. It will download a deb, open with GDebi. If it gives the error "Breaks existing package 'virtualbox' conflict: virtualbox-5.1" then apt-get remove it and autoremove.
After VB is install download the extension pack from the VB website and then drag that over the VB icon and it will ask if you want to install.

After that you should be good to go.

Just be cautious as the install for boinc is a PITA with folder permissions. If you want to add a cc_config for example, you'd have to claim ownership of the entire var/lib/boinc-client folder. Add or change the file, then change all of the permissions back. I recommend doing this with Boinc off or Boinc will go completely blank.
 
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