Team Starfire → [BOINC] Setting up BoincView (windows)

BoincView is a great utility to monitor and control your fleet.

Here's a quick install guide to help you make the most of it.

Download and install it from Here .

Choose which machine you want to install it on, and install the software. Make note of the machine's IP address. You can open a command window and type ipconfig, and that should show you.

Next, on each client, you need to do 3 things.

First, you need to obtain it's boinc password. This is found in your boinc install directory (usually c:\program files\boinc). Open the file named gui_rpc_auth.cfg Use either notepad, wordpad, or your favorite text editor. The code you see there is the password.

Second, you need to create a text file named remote_hosts.cfg This file needs to have the IP address of the box on which BoincView is running. This file can be created using notepad, wordpad, or any text editor, and must be plain text. If you use notepad, make sure that the saved file does not have .txt at the end. Note: You may add additional IPs to the file to allow multiple boincview installations if you wish.

Last, restart the boinc service. This will activate the remote_hosts.cfg file and allow RPC access.

Once this file is set up on each machine, and you have the passwords for those machines, go into BoincView. To add a location, you can click on the large green plus sign towards the left side of the window on the toolbar.

Type in the name of the box (or whatever you want to call it).

Choose the Via network access (using GUI RPC) radio button.

In the hostname or ip address box, type in either the hostname or the IP .

Boinc Password is the password you got from the remote machine's gui_rpc_auth.cfg file.

Leave the port unchanged. If boinc can't use it, it will automatically switch over to an alternate port.

Set the Interval For Updates to whatever you want. I have mine set at 30 seconds for each box.

Click Apply.

If you get an error that there's nothing on port 1043, then the gui_rpc_auth.cfg file either wasn't created, or the boinc service wasn't restarted.

You can now use the functions within BoincView to control the boinc client on any configured machine.

Hope this helps .

Very nice write up. I agree, a wonderful program. I use it daily to check on and manage my fleets.

Very nice indeed! Any tips on general use you'd like to share?

One tip is that the work tab can be dangerous. For example, I'm running 10 hosts and have over 3000 queued and in progress wus. So when switching to the work tab for all locations, the progam can take a long time to configure itself, and appear to hang. There are two ways around this.
First, when switching to the work tab, make sure you have one location selected.

The other way is once you get to the work screen (make sure you only have one location selected), right click over the entries on the work tab and uncheck the show all results tab. This will show you only the completed and in progress wus, and you can safely switch to the work tab when all locations is selected.

If you later want to see queued wus, first choose a single location, then check the show all results menu choice and remember to uncheck it when you're done.

Thanks XaaK, now I see what I haven't been doing right. Great guide.

I use boinview daily to monitor both my corp fleet and home farm.

can't get it to work keeps saying it can't find anything.. Do I need to forward any ports?

How do you restart the service?? I don't see BIONIC under the Service section in XP.

if you installed boinc as a service, it will be running when you start windows (unless there is an error). to start the service if it has stopped for some reason, open a DOS box (start/run/cmd). When the black box opens up on your screen, type the command NET START BOINC

It will be obvious by any messages displayed if it worked or not.

BOINCVIEW will try to see the BOINC client program by looking at port 1043 or 31416. If BOINC is not running, BOINCview will complain.

I guess I did not install it as a service thats why?

I'm not running BOINC as a service and BOINC view is working fine for me.

I followed the instructions set forth in this thread to a T and had only one minor issue.

I would like to say that it should be made a little clearer that the remote_hosts.cfg file needs to be IN the BOINC directory and contain the IP address of the host running BOINC View then you just copy and past the file to each of the machines you want to monitor using BOINC View. Took a few minutes to figure out why I couldn't get any info on the remote box then I figured out because I put the IP of the machine I was installing BOINC on in the file instead of the machine I had BOINC View running on. Once I figured that out everything shows up like it's supposed to.

thats what I did.. I made the file I put my pc's IP address in it, I take it it means the Real IP and not the 192.168.1.101 type address.

But yeah I renamed it and I put the file in the BIONC folder, no good.

when you start your remote clients, use Net Start Boinc -allow_remote_gui_rpc

another situation, do you have a firewall on each of them?

No firewall on any of them

How do I restart the service, With the above line you gave me?

edit: oh you said restart..

To restart, you will need to type 'net stop boinc' then do what you need to do, then net start boinc. or upon each system reboot, this automatically is done for you.

yep, on the remote clients to enable them, once they are enabled, you can just use 'net start boinc' from here on out.

Go to a command prompt (Start Menu, then Run -- Type cmd), and in the black window, type Net Start Boinc -allow_remote_gui_rpc (or copy and paste this in there)

I typed in Net Stop boinc and got this

"The specified service does not exist as an installed service."

correct, run setup again with the boinc executable and choose to install as a service. you will need a version of NT, Windows 2000/XP/Server 2k3.

ouch if thats the case then I will pass.

I'm not certain, but if i recall the last time that i had to reinstall the boinc client on a host as a service which was already installed, it did not delete any pending work.

I hope you aren't taking it the wrong way by thinking you need a reinstallation of your OS. There isn't anything really to say 'ouch' to other then just running the boinc setup file again and choose install as a service. If it's a pain, or the thought of losing a few pending work to get it going, then I understand. Hey, happy crunching!

I know I don't need to reintall the OS, I just had to deal with all the Hassle of getting the omptimed client to run I really did not think I needed the Services version of the Client.

I tried this out and I wasn't able to get it to work. No big deal. I removed the software.

After rebooting my computer, I now get the following error message when BOINC tries to start:

"BOINC manager is not able to connect to a BOINC client."

I figured it must be the remote_hosts.cfg file that I put out there. But after I remove it, I still get the same error message.

Does anyone have any hints on what to try next?

Thank you.

billz

Also, I just noticed that a process named setiathome 4.11 windows intelx86.exe is running at about 99 percent. Even though BOINC Manager is not connected and not even running.

...and when I try to end the process, it comes back in just a few seconds.

Any idea on what's going on here?

Thanks

billz

You can set it up using the Update mode "via network access (using GUI RPC)".

1. Allow Sharing on your clients Boinc folder.

2. Create a new client location in BoincView and name it.

3. Select "via network access (using GUI RPC)" in the Update mode

4. In the Shared or local folder of the BOINC client box point it to the directory of the shared BOINC folder on your client. X:\Program Files\BOINC\

5. Click apply

Do this for each client system.

>Fred

In the Task Manager make sure boinc.exe is not running.

Satman - thanks for the help. I was able to get the SETI process stopped.

But I'm really stuck now. I don't need or want to use boincview anymore. I uninstalled it boincview and after rebooting Boinc Manager will not work. Next I uninstalled and re-installed the Boinc Manager.

I must have missed a step somewhere though because now I can't get Boinc Manager to connect to localhost. I go to File|Select Computer..., a dialog box comes up and asks me for host name and password. I put 'localhost' as host name. For the password, I paste in the string I got in the email from Berkely. It thinks about it for a second and comes back with the error message of "BOINC Manager is not able to connect to a BOINC client."

Any ideas...

Thanks!

billz

Look in your BOINC folder for a file named gui_rpc_auth. Open it with an editor, that is the password BOINC is looking for. It will change each time you install/reinstall BOINC.

If you're trying to connect to the computer your currently on, then go to select computer, leave the box "Blank" and click OK, it should connect to "localhost".

>Fred

BoincManager will also be unable to connect if boinc.exe is not running.

BOINC.exe can be thought of as the "operating system" for all Boinc projects. It must be running in order for it to manage whatever distributed computing project you have selected. It will calculate the benchmarks, contact the project servers, and upload/download work. When you killed seti*.exe, BOINC noted the seti client application was stopped, and restarted it.

BoincManager and BoincView are interfaces between you and boinc.exe. You pass commands to boinc.exe to attach to projects, update, suspend or detach projects. However, if boinc.exe is not running, then BoincManager or Boincview doesn't have anyone to "talk" to.

Hope this clears up any confusion on who does what.

Thanks all! I think I have a better understanding of what's going on. I've got some things to try, but it'll have to be later today after I get off work.

billz

Is there something wrong with the Bonicview website?

I FINALLY have my Boinc working again. But it looks like in the process, I whacked BoincView. When I go to that linked website, the main frame is empty. Clicking on "downloads" results in the same.

I'd like to get BoincView back.

Downloads are there, I can see them here: »boincview.amanheis.de/?p ··· download

You might need to scroll down

The windows download direct link: »boincview.amanheis.de/do ··· view.zip