Development for LHC@home

Thanks, Rom.
How is determined now, how many cores to be used?
By the project preference file? What if it is undefined?

The new attributes in the project preferences are just cosmetic for now. Nothing acts upon them. Some of the possibilities are being discussed in this thread.

EDIT: I don't understand why BOINC assigns 1.5 cores.

If you haven't been using the XML plan class stuff it is probably falling back to some hard coded values in the compiled server scheduler dating back years at this point.

See:
https://github.com/BOINC/boinc/blob/master/sched/sched_customize.cpp#L888

If you all want to switch over to the XML based plan-class we can go ahead and remove the hard-coded stuff put in for the theory app.

I guess we always assumed the intuitional knowledge about what was added for the various CERN projects would be passed on from one generation to the next.

----- Rom

Just to be clear, removing line:
https://github.com/BOINC/boinc/blob/master/sched/sched_customize.cpp#L894

Should setup a multi-threaded VM to use as many cores as preferences allow and not cap it at 1.5 CPU(s).

----- Rom

The new attributes in the project preferences are just cosmetic for now. Nothing acts upon them. Some of the possibilities are being discussed in this thread.

EDIT: I don't understand why BOINC assigns 1.5 cores.

If you haven't been using the XML plan class stuff it is probably falling back to some hard coded values in the compiled server scheduler dating back years at this point.

See:
https://github.com/BOINC/boinc/blob/master/sched/sched_customize.cpp#L888

If you all want to switch over to the XML based plan-class we can go ahead and remove the hard-coded stuff put in for the theory app.

I guess we always assumed the intuitional knowledge about what was added for the various CERN projects would be passed on from one generation to the next.

----- Rom

The new attributes in the project preferences are just cosmetic for now. Nothing acts upon them. Some of the possibilities are being discussed in this thread.

EDIT: I don't understand why BOINC assigns 1.5 cores.

This is an issue with the BOINC client. When the computer is restarted, the VM goes in to the power-off state. Ideally, the BOINC client should intercept the shutdown request and save the VM. Does the same thing happen with the Theory Simulations in vLHC@home?

Hi Laurence,

Now the heartbeat file is created (copied to the shared directory) ~2 minutes after boottime and seems to be attached at least every minute,
but after 11 minutes runtime the VM is killed.

VM Heartbeat file specified, but missing file system status. (errno = '2')

Out of curiosity, what does the sched_request_boincai05.cern.ch_CMS-dev.xml file show as far as free disk space?

My sched_request_boincai05.cern.ch_CMS-dev.xml:

<host_info>
    ...
    <d_total>1999871410176.000000</d_total>
    <d_free>1583612952576.000000</d_free>
    ...
</host_info>

I'm curious if the client is misreporting the amount of free disk space to the project.

----- Rom

2/8/2016 9:23:26 PM | CMS-dev | Message from server: CMS Simulation needs 3007.27MB more disk space.  You currently have 6529.48 MB available and it needs 9536.74 MB.

<host_info>
    ...
    <d_total>1999871410176.000000</d_total>
    <d_free>1583612952576.000000</d_free>
    ...
</host_info>

If nothing else, can somebody change the Hypervisor timeout value from 24 hours to something more reasonable??? Or do I need to reset the project on all hosts to get the new wrapper, or what?

A simple restart of BOINC client will retry to start the CMS-task immediately.

Vboxwrapper version 26178 is already active.

All resumed! :-)

edit: Except half of them say "Hypervisor failed to enter an online state in a timely manner" and are sleeping for a day, and of course the Mac STILL says "Virtualbox not installed"...

In the slot directory you will find a floppy image file. This is attached to the VM and the user information can then be read from /dev/fd0.

Although the cron sleeps for 1 hour, the next cron job is run. I guess this is a bug :(

Hi Ivan (and Rom),

Just tested the new feature on my Mac but it didn't work. The boot of CMS code worked fine. After a BOINC suspend, the VM went into Paused state (and could be resumed OK), but after an exit of the BOINC manager the VM was left in PowerOff state, (not "Saved" state) and hence rebooted when BOINC was restarted.

Ben