Development for LHC@home

This version provides the updated docker wrapper v18.

https://lhcathomedev.cern.ch/lhcathome-dev/workunit.php?wuid=2709704
First docker Task in -dev running.
Same problem as in Production, Squid is not running.
Squid is running as a VM in Virtualbox.
Have no idea, how to get a solution.

In reply to maeax's message of 18 Feb 2026:

https://lhcathomedev.cern.ch/lhcathome-dev/workunit.php?wuid=2709704
First docker Task in -dev running.

Be prepared. that this "pp jets 13000 210 - pythia8 8.244 CP1-CR1" seems to be a long running job.
From 7 attemps: 2 success. 1 failure and 4 unknown.

Thank you for the Info,
10 day max or more, we will see.
btw: You wrote yesterday, Docker Tasks are faster ;-)

In reply to maeax's message of 18 Feb 2026:

btw: You wrote yesterday, Docker Tasks are faster ;-)

Compared to VirtualBox on a Windows host.

You can only check this by running exactly the same Theory "job run" with the same parameters on both platforms under comparable load.
I was very surprised that the difference was so big, because with VirtualBox we see elapsed time and cpu-time always close together and
wirh WSL container the elapsed time of a task is much longer than the measured cpu-time, what is strange. When looking at the cpu-usage of the Theory containers you see very often cpu-usage over 100%.
Example: pythia8.exe and the belonging rivetvm.exe together 103%.
I suppose the used cpu-time is badly measured by BOINC. The main process on the Windows host is vmmem and when running one single task, this process on a quad core (2 cores/4 threads) jumps between 25% to 40%.
I've limited WSL to max 3 cores and 3 GB RAM. When running 3 tasks the CPU usage of vmmem is between 60% and 75%. But at the end the elapsed times are much shorter. See my last example:

pp zinclusive 8000 -,-,100,170 - pythia8 8.306 tune-AU2m 100000 650

vbox:   Run time  5 hours  7 min 54 sec        CPU time	4 hours 57 min 50 sec
docker: Run time  1 hours 54 min 10 sec        CPU time 1 hours 40 min 49 sec

There is one big disadvantage at the moment of the use of docker for Theory tasks: When you reboot the host system, all work done before is lost and the task restarts from scratch.

theory_2922-4811546-642_0
Laufzeit 5 Tage 8 Stunden 58 min. 56 sek.
CPU Zeit 5 Tage 3 Stunden 33 min. 54 sek.
Priority 0
Prüfungsstatus Gültig
Punkte 8,112.07
max. FLOPS des Gerätes 7.55 GFLOPS
Anwendungsversion Theory Simulation v302.10 (docker)
windows_x86_64

One more Docker-Task now with 6 Days atm is running also.
https://lhcathomedev.cern.ch/lhcathome-dev/workunit.php?wuid=2709704

Name Theory_2922-4797518-490
Anwendung Theory Simulation
batch 524986
erstellt 5 Feb 2026, 3:20:53 UTC
autorisiertes Ergebnis 3700295
gewährte Punkte 7,688.01

next Task started.
Squid is active, have no way to control squid in Theory task.
Squid working inside of a VM.

I killed some neverending wus
Running Time 1 day 18 hours 13 minutes 12 seconds
CPU Time 1 day 0 hours 43 minutes 58 seconds