New fold-server release

Hey guys,
For those of you interested in farming, a new release of my fold-server distro has just hit the virtual shelves at sourceforge. If you've looked at the idea in the past but gave up on it or tried and failed, this is the one to try it on. Instructions on installing and using fold-server are available here, or you can email me for help.

I hope this will make things a bit easier for those of you with farms, and enjoy!

Fold on!
Unhappy_mage

Sweet. If I had the time and money, I would definately do it. However, college doesn't pay the bills (yet). Someone else try it!

Any reason for me to upgrade?

Oldbenwa

So, does this use samba yet so I can monitor the clients using EM3 ?

I was really looking for something like this back in the day when G@H was still going.

I still have most of that old crap. Too bad it's too slow for Folding.

I'd suggest it. If you've got a spare disk sitting around, install it on that instead of overwriting so you've got a fallback position if I screwed something up, but it should go smoothly.

Reasons: the client dns issue is resolved.
the netconfig script is run over SSL (and everything http, too) now so it isn't quite as hackable as before.
it's based on DSL 0.9.3 instead of 0.9.2.
nerk: it does indeed use EM3! go to \\192.168.1.15 in a my computer window to check it out. everything's in share/, based on client name.

If you need help setting stuff up for this, I should be on around 9 or 9:30 at the latest.

SWEET, I'm just waiting for the CPU of node #1 to arrive, once things are running smoothly the orders for #2-4 go out.

Q: The saved work that is stored on the server, is that in a "Linux" only format?

Could I move the WU's from this to a XP platform?

I know this sounds wierd, reason is because I can fold 24/7 longer (2 weeks) with my corp boxes if they are under XP (I need my app/drivers ect. loaded to burn in other gear).

Originally Posted by marty9876

Q: The saved work that is stored on the server, is that in a "Linux" only format?

Could I move the WU's from this to a XP platform?

I know this sounds wierd, reason is because I can fold 24/7 longer (2 weeks) with my corp boxes if they are under XP (I need my app/drivers ect. loaded to burn in other gear).

I don't know, I'll try it. If it works at all, it'd be really easy to do: the clients all save their data to a samba share, so you could just copy over the entire directory. The client itself isn't copied over every time, so there's no linux client executables or anything. It does create an empty FAH500-Console.exe for EM3 to notice, but it's easy enough to just skip copying that file over.

Originally Posted by unhappy_mage

I don't know, I'll try it. If it works at all, it'd be really easy to do: the clients all save their data to a samba share, so you could just copy over the entire directory. The client itself isn't copied over every time, so there's no linux client executables or anything. It does create an empty FAH500-Console.exe for EM3 to notice, but it's easy enough to just skip copying that file over.

One thing I don't know about is how Stanford keeps track of whom it sent what. The reg keys in XP for example. I'm not sure if the box that uploads the data needs to be the same one which down loads the data? Make any sense? I'm thinking it don't matter.

Originally Posted by marty9876

One thing I don't know about is how Stanford keeps track of whom it sent what. The reg keys in XP for example. I'm not sure if the box that uploads the data needs to be the same one which down loads the data? Make any sense? I'm thinking it don't matter.

It doesn't matter. Stanford will take the unit back no problem. I've done this many times when I was stuck on dial up and WUs wouldn't upload properly on one box but work fine on another. They were both WinXP boxen, though they did have the different IDs. I've also done XP->2k and 2k->XP although that is the extent of what I've done. I have no Win98 boxen or anything else right now to test anything like that.

Nice sig, I just killed off a few brain cells... It looked like I was talking to myself, took me a few to figure things out.

I tried copying over the WU this morning, but I hadn't set the date on my fold-server box, so it thought it was 2002 and the box I copied it to said "Oh, deadline passed, try for a new WU". So I set the date right on fold-server, and it said, Oh wait, deadline passed, get another WU. I suppose the smart thing to do would be set the XP box's time to 2002 temporarily and see if it works, but I've never been known to do that.

And then I had to leave for school . Oh well. More tests to come this afternoon.
No [H]'s here because of school.

Is it possible to get the scripts to do all this running on a standard linux install? That would be top class, as i could get it running on my file server, and save myself some grief when i eventually get round to starting the farm im planning.

Also, sorry to thread hijack, but as farm as proc choices for farming goes, is it worth getting the hyperthreaded chips over say, an equivalent speed celeron D? In essence, does hyper-threading add ~50% to the points per day, for maybe a 10% cost increase?

I think the HT adds about 10-20% to your points... There are others here who can better answer that (and probably back it up with data)...

back ontopic... I need to find some time to give this a try... I need another PC though... I don't want to switch mine or my mom's over to linux just yet... she has a hard enough time as it is....


Keep on Folding!!

Originally Posted by Herulach

Is it possible to get the scripts to do all this running on a standard linux install? That would be top class, as i could get it running on my file server, and save myself some grief when i eventually get round to starting the farm im planning.

Also, sorry to thread hijack, but as farm as proc choices for farming goes, is it worth getting the hyperthreaded chips over say, an equivalent speed celeron D? In essence, does hyper-threading add ~50% to the points per day, for maybe a 10% cost increase?

It is *possible*, and if you want to get this going, email me and I'll send you more information, but the distro is definitely 10x easier.

Like OSUguy said, 10-20% increase in points. This is also true of non-celeron chips. Stanford prefers that you only run one instance per real processor, though, so if you're in it for the science celeron D's are a win.

Osuguy: keep in mind this takes almost no machine to get going. You can run the server on a pentium machine, it doesn't take anything fancy. My server is an duron 1200, but I've run it in a virtual machine in Bochs before, which is really slow. I want to try it on a real box at this kind of speed, though. I'll have to dig through all my old junk.

Come to think of it, I should look into integrating smoothwall/m0n0wall features in this. Router machines would make a really easy place to set this up.

Originally Posted by unhappy_mage

IOsuguy: keep in mind this takes almost no machine to get going. You can run the server on a pentium machine, it doesn't take anything fancy. My server is an duron 1200, but I've run it in a virtual machine in Bochs before, which is really slow. I want to try it on a real box at this kind of speed, though. I'll have to dig through all my old junk.

Well, there are 5 PCs in the house.... 3 are running.... one is dead right now (KT7A that won't post)... and one is my mom's old P-133.... I'm just looking for an excuse to get another folding box in the house ;-)



Keep on Folding!!

Ok cool, prob gonna go for the digging an old machine out option though, Just so i understand everything right, it goes
network->NIC1
then the farm all connects into NIC2 right?
Also how well does it play with dhcp? Is it a sort of fine in principle but maybe a bit of a ball ache kind of thing? Or a definate no go area? I ask because experimenting in the past ive had trouble with setting up static ips on the lan, mainly because for some reason my isp decides to change DNSs every couple of days, same 4 or 5 ips, just cycles them, annoying as hell.

Originally Posted by Herulach

Ok cool, prob gonna go for the digging an old machine out option though, Just so i understand everything right, it goes
network->NIC1
then the farm all connects into NIC2 right?
Also how well does it play with dhcp? Is it a sort of fine in principle but maybe a bit of a ball ache kind of thing? Or a definate no go area? I ask because experimenting in the past ive had trouble with setting up static ips on the lan, mainly because for some reason my isp decides to change DNSs every couple of days, same 4 or 5 ips, just cycles them, annoying as hell.

The network is set up like you said.

As long as the router (gateway) you point fold-server to (a linksys box, m0n0wall, whatever) knows how to do DNS you should be OK. I think. Maybe. If it doesn't work automatically, then you'd have to set the DNS for fold-server itself manually, but it does dns for all its clients, so as long as it knows where to look, they'll know where to look too.

BTW, it has to have a static IP in order to route properly. Imagine there's someone relaying all conversation between you and a friend. In order to talk to your friend, you have to know where to find the middleman. If he keeps moving around, then you'll have no idea where to locate your friend.

OSUguy: I know the feeling. Right now we're down to 7 computers in the house. I feel lonely

Cool, d/led the iso, reading the notes, i assume external netmask is the network side, and internal the farm side? Think thats about it i was confused by. FOund an old p2 in the loft its going on after tea