unhappy_mage, a recommendation.

Okay, I think I've figured out an easy way to have it in either place, as easily as the other. You simply tell the router on which share to put the files, and it downloads what it needs to that share. The only difficulty could be having the clients save to the Windows machine, but that should work without any problems.

Since almost everything I need is built in, it shouldn't be too hard to get one of these out the door pretty quickly. I hope :p

 
What about the mod that allows you to add a sd card? BTW has anyone seen a way to do it to a version 3 of the WRT54G?

 
It's much easier to use windows shares or samba shares than to mod an SD card into the router and use it like that. Windows/Samba shares aren't hard to setup, and makes the possibilities much more flexible for storage.

Also, mage, why would you split it up between Windows shares and Linux shares? Linux shares (samba) are the same exact thing as Windows shares, unless you have some other way to store the files in realtime. I plan on using samba for storage, and I'd assume anyone else should as well, as both Linux and Windows can both serve the files that way.

And the faster you can get this out with a tut, the better mage. :) I plan on running 3 machines on it the first day I can, and my fileserver should be opterational this week.
 
Adding an SD card might work, but given that it's complicated, I don't have time to do it, and most people don't want complicated installs... it's easier and more expandable to use a hard drive from another machine.

Tsuehpsyde: The only reason to make a bother about linux shares versus windows shares isn't really a linux/windows thing - as you say, it's all SMB/CIFS to me. The possible problem is simpler - the network is in two halves, and for the "linux" side to know about the "windows" side, you need to have a route defined from one network to the other. Since the router does NAT, this is not a problem - it appears to both sides that they're talking to a local address, and only the router knows the difference. This would have been a real problem with fold-server, because it doesn't do NAT, but since the router is essentially designed to do this, it's no problem.

Also, on a side note, sleeping all weekend and then staying up all night seems to be a viable strategy. Ask me again in four hours to make sure, though.

Finally, I should play with my network so it's in two chunks again - I need a physically seperate subnet. I spent *two hours* figuring out that I was getting a DHCP lease from the router, not my linux box, and that was why the internet wasn't working. On second thought, maybe I'll scratch that "viable strategy" bit. Try anything twice, that's me.

 
^^ yea yea something he said.

Neat thing about a win share, average user could just go find the folder on win box it's in and click on the logs ect to see how things were going. EM3 would also be an easy install, point to local win share.
 
Not too bad, actually. I was a little drowsy during class, but that's normal. 8:00 classes are not for the sane.

I'm going to bed now, though. Any minute now. I think.

 
unhappy_mage said:
VMware is giving away virtual server now, for both windows and Linux. I already bought VMware Workstation for Linux, as well.
Click to expand...


Ya know I read that the "server" version was free and I downloaded it last week, but for some odd reason I thought it was only the Beta version.. I now know I have it all wrong.. This is a new VMware version that IS free and is still going to be free when it is out of beta. I have about 4 machines that run on VMware, but since I was using the desktop version I wasent running them all the time (The version I had did not run as a service).

I ran across MS's VM stuff about a month ago, and started putting all of my test bed stuff on that.

Yes it's convoluted, and if I explained what I had going on it would be even worse. i.e. 2 of my linksys wrt54g's running into another all doing NAT with Asterisk servers all over the place. 1 real and 3 virtual. Most of the time I dont even understand what I am doing.. :)
 
moetop said:
Most of the time I dont even understand what I am doing.. :)
Click to expand...
You and me both :D

Sad/funny story: I thought I'd bricked one of these. It wasn't responding to ping, it wasn't responding to telnet or ssh, the http interface wasn't working... but the switch portion worked fine. Dazed and confused, I played with it for an hour or so, trying to do the Linksys debrick before I got any more drastic. Then it hit me. I'd changed the IP address, and it took me at my word. I tried the new address, it worked. :rolleyes: Maybe more sleep really is better than less. First I need food, though...

I think at this rate I'm gonna be awake all day.

 
Do it for the [H]orde!!! =) And yeah, these routers rock. When I found DD-WRT and realised my router was compatibile, it was the coolest computer surprise I'd got in awhile. I'm still confused as to why Linksys dropped Linux.

So does it look like the regular 54G will hold fold-server? I'll snag up an older 54GS if I have to, but if I can keep using this one I will. :)
 
tsuehpsyde said:
Do it for the [H]orde!!! =) And yeah, these routers rock. When I found DD-WRT and realised my router was compatibile, it was the coolest computer surprise I'd got in awhile. I'm still confused as to why Linksys dropped Linux.
Click to expand...

Simple economics. The new version with VxWorks works will less ram and less flash ram. It sucks, but that's the way it is. I've got a pair of wrt54g's though, so I'm set as long as they don't burn up.
 
sandmanx said:
Simple economics. The new version with VxWorks works will less ram and less flash ram.
Click to expand...
And apparently they save more by reducing RAM than they spend on the VxWorks license.

 
unhappy_mage said:
You and me both :D

Sad/funny story: I thought I'd bricked one of these. It wasn't responding to ping, it wasn't responding to telnet or ssh, the http interface wasn't working... but the switch portion worked fine. Dazed and confused, I played with it for an hour or so, trying to do the Linksys debrick before I got any more drastic. Then it hit me. I'd changed the IP address, and it took me at my word. I tried the new address, it worked. :rolleyes: Maybe more sleep really is better than less. First I need food, though...
Click to expand...

#1 If you brick it dont worry. I knew that was part of the risk going in to this.. Of course try and do everything to get it back, but if it's dead it's dead.

#2 Ethereal is your freind. I was having a hell of a time chainging the IP address on a couple at home.. I finaly got it to change, but I was using ethereal to see what the dam thing thought it was talking to.. (what network)
 
unhappy_mage said:
Adding an SD card might work, but given that it's complicated, I don't have time to do it, and most people don't want complicated installs... it's easier and more expandable to use a hard drive from another machine.
Click to expand...

I was mainly going for the coolness factor. I would really like to add a SD card to mine and play some, guess I will did some more for it.

 
Well, I've got a good idea of what changes have to happen, and I've made some of them, but I still have to figure out how to take all that and turn it into a firmware image. It's not readily obvious (to me, anyways :p) and I can't find any documentation on how to go about it. Anyone have a link? Essentially, what I need to do is split the kernel+rootfs into two parts, modify the rootfs, and repack it. I am gonna be pretty busy with classes and such until Friday or so - physics test, sociology paper, blah blah blah. After that I can play with it.

 
unhappy_mage said:
I am gonna be pretty busy with classes and such until Friday or so - physics test, sociology paper, blah blah blah. After that I can play with it.

Click to expand...
pfui ! So you are still actually going to school with all this folding stuff on your plate ?? And here I thought you gave it up for the marguerita competition :D (and the not_so_cheap dorm room)

Well, you must be doing something right... keep it up !

RPhArrow --\\\----------------->
 
RPhArrow said:
And here I thought you gave it up for the marguerita competition :D (and the not_so_cheap dorm room)
Click to expand...
Now there's an idea! Why didn't I think of that? :cool:

 
I've started a Wiki page here documenting how to build DD-WRT from scratch, and I'll be putting one up soon describing how to make changes to it.

 
So I take it that means we're not far from being able to use a fold-server? :D Please please please?

Full Folding Ahead!

 
Well, not far in distance, but I've hit a snag in compiling it and can't figure out how to fix it yet. And it takes 70 minutes to try it again, so it makes for a slightly extended debug time. :( But I'll have plenty of time this weekend to work on it, so it's coming soon. I think.

And then I have to get back to working on the "folding farm spreadsheet" thing for OSUguy98... it's almost done but I've been letting it sit. I haven't forgotten you!

 
tsuehpsyde said:
So I take it that means we're not far from being able to use a fold-server? :D Please please please?

Full Folding Ahead!

Click to expand...

Dude, let him finish it, I'm sure mage is working on it. While it's not quite as annoying as people walking in your office when a server is down asking "When is it going ot be back up?" and loosing your train of thought, it is annoying to keep bugging him. Give it a few days.

 
sandmanx said:
Dude, let him finish it, I'm sure mage is working on it. While it's not quite as annoying as people walking in your office when a server is down asking "When is it going ot be back up?" and loosing your train of thought, it is annoying to keep bugging him. Give it a few days.
Click to expand...
I don't mind - it gives me an excuse to update you all on what's going on without feeling like I'm trying to stick this thread to the top or something. And it reminds me that I shouldn't be playing Guild Wars, I should be working on this :rolleyes:

On the other hand, I'm gonna feel bad if I see this thread bumped and have absolutely nothing to report, so I'll post when stuff happens, mmk? I'll interrupt, stop polling ;) No hard feelings either way.

 
Yeah, don't be such a woman Sandman. This is my thread and my idea, afterall. ;) I'm allowed to be anxious and keep the hot coals on mage's feet. :D
 
Could someone explain what a fold server would do, how one would use it, and why one would want to do so?
Thanks,
 
A fold server, specifically this Linksys edition, would come in the form of firmware for your WRT54G-based router. You install it to the router, and plug a bunch of machines into it and set them to boot from network (most modern machines can do this, it's called PXE). The router sends them what they need to boot, and they start folding. You can check the stats with EM3 or the built in interface.

Why? Because it's cheaper than N windows licenses. But it only works for farm boxen - they're very stripped-down in terms of being usable in the interest of going light on memory requirements. One only needs 96 mb for a farm box, and 256 is enough to do most larger units. With 512 one can (could) even get QMDs, although they're far more rare on Linux. It's designed to be as easy as possible to add more machines to the farm - plug in a machine with power and network, make sure it's set to boot from the network, and away it goes. The older version is designed to run on a full-fledged machine, and it's still around, but this is the latest step in making it easy to use.

 
Fold server, by far one of the best creations I have seen in the folding biz. One server can hook up a nearly limitless ammount of clients with redueced harware and software costs. It uses Linux on remote machienes and runs the entire system in the ram. no hard drive, or OS required. Easy setup to add machienes andd works great.
 
sandmanx said:
While it's not quite as annoying as people walking in your office when a server is down asking "When is it going ot be back up?" and loosing your train of thought,
Click to expand...

This is what someone invented shotguns for. No, it wasn't invented for hunting or war or anything like that. It was invented to shoot the annoying people in your life that will not leave you alone long enough to fix that which they are bugging you about fixing.

 
I'm buying a WRT54GS v2.1 from a FSFT thread here. Fairly good price, and I know it's the right revision. Thanks again to Hito for sponsoring this.

 
Couldent resist getting your own? They things are great .. I was looking around and found another. I have 6 total. :rolleyes:

This go's along with my "Findable Mass" theory. You buy enough of any 1 item that you can find one within 5 minutes of you needing one..
 
I've got compiling working, I think. It takes about 83 minutes, and generates a *lot* of different images. But that's okay, as long as it works. I'm about to try flashing the router (the 54G), wish me luck. Hopefully it doesn't change the IP, or I'll become completely lost :rolleyes:

Edit: Who'd've thought it? A day later, we post within 2 minutes of each other...

 
I have successfully flashed my WRT54GS with a firmware I build. This means I'm only a dozen hours or so of work from a release. But that doesn't mean a dozen hours of time, hold your horses ;)

 
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