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5 UD Monitor

Index
General Info
What is UD Monitor?
Who needs it?
What is the purpose of the "Backup" function?
Where do I get it?
How do I install it?
How do I return completed work units that have been cached?



The UD Agent itself does not provide for work unit caching. However, there is a user-developed utility called UD Monitor that does provide this function.

UD Monitor now has an automatic send and receive function. With one click, all results in your cache are submitted and the empty cache slots are refilled.

Here's some more info on UD Monitor:

Update!!! - The current version is 4.0 which will work with the latest UD/Ligandfit/PatriotGrid and also Folding@Home, found here: »udmon.sourceforge.net/

See this thread for recent update info.

UD Monitor
What is UD Monitor?
UD Monitor's primary function is to enable work unit caching for the UD Agent. It accomplishes this by installing multiple copies of the UD Agent on your PC and then automatically switching between them. After a work unit is completed, but before it can be sent, UD Monitor ends that instance of the UD Agent and starts up another one using an uncompleted work unit. This process repeats until all cached work units have been completed. At that point, UD Monitor can either quit or start up another program, such as Genome@Home, Folding@Home, or SETI@Home. This process ensures that no idle cycles are wasted.

Who needs it?
UD Monitor is targeted toward users with dial-up connections that are not able to (or don't want to) let the UD Agent connect automatically when a new work unit is needed. For example, laptops that are not normally connected to a phone line and PC's with modems that share a line with voice calls can benefit from UD Monitor. Broadband users or those with dedicate phone lines could also use UD Monitor to help avoid downtime during UD server outages, although that doesn't happen often.

What is the purpose of the "Backup" function?
UD Monitor provides the ability to backup work-in-progress to minimize the amount of work lost if the UD Agent or PC crashed. However, this function is no longer needed by most people as recent versions of the UD Agent are much more stable and less prone to corruption if there is a system crash.

Where do I get it?
You can download it here »udmon.sourceforge.net/ and there is also an Official FAQ. Yes, it's free, but the author will accept donations.

How do I install it?

Here's a Quick Start guide using settings I recommend. Feel free to adjust to your personal preferences.


1) Exit the UD Agent, if you already have it running.
2) Download the EXE file from the link above.

3) Install the program anywhere on your hard drive, preferably in an empty folder under "Program Files". For example - "C:\Program Files\UD Monitor\".

4) Run the ud_mon.exe program (double-click on it).

5) Click on Settings and then the UD Agent tab. Select the directory where your UD Agent is located.

6) Put a check beside "Run on start", "Log WU Completions. Uncheck everything else.

7) If you are on broadband 24/7, you may want to check Send Result before cache auto-switch.

8) Click on the Interface tab. The default settings are ok. You may want to increase the "refresh elapsed time" setting to a larger value (such as 300 seconds) to reduce the CPU time UD Monitor uses.

9) Click on the "Action" tab. Several events are listed. You can specify sound files to play or other programs to execute when those events occur if you wish.

10) OPTIONAL: Follow these steps only if there is another program you would like to run when the UD cache is empty.

a) Select the ".exe to Run" tab.

b) Click on the Browse button and select the program you want to run.

c) Put a checkmark in all of the option boxes.

11) Click OK

12) Select the "Backup" tab. This feature is no longer needed (it does NOT backup un-saved work). To disable it, set "Keep __ backups" to 0 and removed the checks from the "Auto backup every..." options.

13) If you want to cache work units, read on. If not skip to step 18.

14) Select the "Cache" tab. Put a checkmark in the Use cache box.

15) Right click in the cache window for the drop down menu:

16) Figure out how many work units you want to cache. You want enough work to last you between connections without grabbing so much that the results could become "stale". Try to grab no more than a week's worth.

17) For each work unit you want to cache, complete the following steps. Note that, to UD, each cache entry will appear as a separate "device" (i.e., if you cache 3 work units, UD will report that you're running the agent on 3 separate computers)

a) Click the "New Slot" choice or press the insert key.

b) Select the newly-created cache entry which will be marked as "Empty" and click on "Switch"

c) When the UD Agent configuration box pops up, click on the "Existing UD Member" box and enter your user name, password, and a unique device description. I use a numeric to identify each PC/cache combination (e.g., "ThinkPad #1", "ThinkPad #2", etc.)

d) The UD Agent will connect to the UD servers, download a work unit, and being processing it.

e) Once the work unit has been downloaded, return to UD Monitor and repeat this process until you have the desired number of cached work units.

18) Click on "Minimize" to get UD Monitor out of the way.

19) Replace the UD Agent shortcut in your Start/Programs/Startup folder with one for UD Monitor.

20) After UD Agent finished a work unit, UD Monitor will automatically switch to the oldest unfinished work unit. If you've used the "Switch" button to switch to one that is not the oldest (such as when adding a new cache entry), you can have UD Monitor switch back to the oldest work unit by holding down the Shift key when you click on "Switch".


How do I return completed work units that have been cached?

When you're ready to have UD connect to return completed work and download new work, do the following:


1) Connect to your ISP.
2) Open UD Monitor and select the "Cache" tab.

3) Right click on the cache window.

4) Click the "Send/Receive" choice or press F12.

5) Wait while UD Monitor automatically sends in the results from all completed work unit and then refill the cache. You will notice the UD agent starting and stopping several times during this process. This is normal.

6) When all of the results have been sent, the "Please wait" dialog box will disappear and UD Monitor will re-start the work unit that was processing when you clicked on "Send/Receive".

7) You may now disconnect from your ISP if you wish.

Thanks to MJF for helping out with this entry.

by RClarkofNC See Profile edited by slash See Profile
last modified: 2007-02-12 18:42:26


Below are two scenarios where UD Monitor comes in handy.

Scenario 1: PC only has Internet connection occasionally, such as a laptop.

Solution: Set UD Monitor to cache the maximum number of work units you expect to crunch while you're not connected. Put UD Monitor in your startup group. When a workunit is completed, UD Monitor will hold the results and switch to the next oldest cached work unit. When you re-connect to the Internet, click the "Send/Receive" button and all cached results will be submitted and the cache will be refilled.

Scenario 2: PC has an Internet connection, but you want to be able to crunch during server or ISP downtime.

Solution: Set UD Monitor to cache one day's worth of work units (at least 2). Put UD Monitor in your startup group. No other user intervention is required as long as the UD servers and your ISP stay up. UD Monitor will automatically submit results when completed and will keep the cache full. If there is an outage, you may need to click the "Send/Receive" button once service is restored to submitted results collected during the outage and to refill the cache.

by RClarkofNC See Profile edited by KeysCapt See Profile
last modified: 2001-10-03 19:12:11

•Quit the current version by right clicking the icon in the taskbar and choosing Close.
•Download and Unzip the new version from http://distributed.org.ru/?udmon.beta or http://distributed.org.ru/?udmon
•Move the extracted ud_mon.exe from where you extracted it to wherever you had UDMon installed before. It will ask you if you want to replace it or not, choose yes.
•Double click on it to start it back up again.

The shortcut in the startup folder will still work because the location of the program and name of it are still the same.

You will not lose any settings since those are contained in the .ini file and that is not being replaced.

by slash See Profile
last modified: 2003-03-11 17:39:45

When installing UD Monitor for the first time, remove the shortcut to ud.exe from the startup folder. Make a new shortcut in the startup folder to ud_mon.exe.

Then check your settings with the graphic below. Upon bootup windows will start udmon for you and udmon will start ud.

If your installed path for ud.exe is different then you need to change that also.


by KeysCapt See Profile edited by slash See Profile
last modified: 2003-03-28 21:55:22

•Open UD Mon
•Go to the cache tab
Right click on on all cache slots but #1 and choose "Delete Slot" (must be done one at a time)



•Next right click in the open window and choose "New Slot" (do this for as many cached units as you want)



•After you create the new slots double click on them one by one and it will launch the registration. Check the box saying that you're already a member, for "Member Name" type your user name then type your password. For the device name type in something like "Cache 1", "Cache 2", etc... Repeat this step for all the cache slots you want to have.



Note: Remember that you will not be able to click on the "blue pill" in the system tray to see your stats in real time, there is a delay related with UDMon but nothing is lost and everything is sent to the UD Server fine. You will also create additional devices on the UD page which will break down your stats between all the cache units.

by slash See Profile edited by KeysCapt See Profile
last modified: 2002-11-17 12:09:57

Question: I just sent in 2 completed WU results and my point count stayed the same. Is this normal for UD Monitor?

Answer:: Yes, because for each WU you have cached, you have the same number of UD clients installed.

In other words, your points were tallied but you are now currently processing a WU under an agent that doesn't know you did any other work.

Question: But then when do the points actually show up?

Answer: They will never be in real time but each time the UD Monitor uploads a WU it will get points to go along with it. Right after that the Monitor switches UD Agents to the oldest WU now has an out of date point total so it is just plain behind.

It will show up on your UD stats page (on the web) once per day.

Thanks to slash and hhuck for the questions and answers.

by KeysCapt See Profile edited by slash See Profile
last modified: 2003-05-18 20:48:02

If you've changed the protein names from the default, or a new version of UDmonitor comes out that automatically recognizes some of the proteins you've name,and you want to go back to the default names,just exit UDmonitor and open up the ud_mon.ini file (in the UDmonitor directory) and delete all of the lines in the [Protein] section (but not the section header itself. When you restart UDmonitor, it will repopulate this section with the default settings.

The current settings for the file are as follows
Updated July 24:
[Proteins]
4057=VEGF
4058=SOD
344097=TK
344098=RAS
730572=Cog-2
730573=C-ABL TK
882594=TK.q3
891437=FGF-R
897782=CDK
944933=RAF
937392=FTF
950446=VEGF.q3
901599=Anthrax
950445=PTP
1388771=LF:PTP
1393272=LF:FGF-R
1464937=LF:CDK
1637755=LF:RAS
1718364=LF:SPOX
1803417=LF:FGF-R(2)
1803418=LF:C-ABL TK
1878678=LF:RAF
1937682=LF:FTF
2258221=LF:SPOX-M1
2440959=LF:6COX
2440960=LF:PTP
2440961=LF:PTK
2610237=LF:SPOX-M2
2940551=LF:SPOX-M3
2940552=LF:SPOX-M4
2940553=LF:SPOX-M6
2940554=LF:SPOX-M8
2940555=LF:SPOX-M10
4587239=LF:1FLT

by RClarkofNC See Profile edited by slash See Profile
last modified: 2003-07-24 00:05:25

Yes! The latest versions of UD Monitor allow a program to be executed as soon as you run out of cached UD units. It is very easy to setup.

Just go into the settings for UD Monitor and then go to the Cache Exhaustion tab. From there, follow the screenshot.

Be sure to test your settings to ensure that it works.

Note: You may have to change the directory that TSC is installed in

by slash See Profile
last modified: 2003-03-28 21:59:20

Version 3.0 and above add a nice little feature that allow UD Monitor to perform a series of actions after the next save in order to minimize lost cpu time.

You can:
  • Stop the client
  • Send and receive cached results
  • Shutdown
  • Reboot
  • Logoff


To access these features, right click on the tray icon and highlight After next save. The choices will appear and you can select an action.

by slash See Profile
last modified: 2003-04-04 23:11:01