Riesel Sieve Project Guide - Sieve
Riesel Sieve Project Guide
(1) If you have not already, you will need to register in the Riesel Sieve system. Head on over to http://stats.rieselsieve.com/users/register.php to get started. Here, you will put in your profile settings, such as team and country. This is separate from the forum registration, although we encourage you to use the same name on both for consistency.
(2) You will need two things to participate in the Sieve. One is the proth_sieve program, the other is the Riesel.dat file. You can obtain both through http://www.rieselsieve.com/dload.php
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http://www.amdusers.com/images/rieselsieve/step2.gif
-PII, P3, or Athlon computers - download the proth_sieve_cmov version
-P4, newer Celeron, or AMD64, download the proth_sieve_sse2 version.
-A note: P4's are much more efficient at LLR than sieveing
You will need WinZip or equivalent to unpack the files. Unpack the files into a new directory of your choice.
(3) Log in to the Riesel Sieve User pages, http://stats.rieselsieve.com/users/login.php Once you enter your username and password, click on "Sieve Reservations" to create a new reservation. Select a predefined range size from the dropdown box, or enter a custom size in the text box. Select submit, and the system will confirm your sieve reservation.
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- If this is your first reservation, use a 5 or 10G range. This will take about a half a day to two days on most newer computers. It's a good way to get started with the sieve.
- After you run your first range, you can select any size between 5 and 1000G. Tips on how to select will be below.
(4) Open the folder containing your proth_sieve files and the Riesel DAT file. Double-Click on the proth_sieve_(version).exe file, and a command window will open. The program will prompt you for the sieve range you reserved. Enter the beginning range number, then hit enter. Enter the ending range number, and then hit enter.
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Now, the waiting begins.
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The program will output status information to the screen, including factors it finds and the speed it is sieveing at. This is normal output.
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Closing the proth_sieve.exe window will shutdown the client. When you restart the program, it will pick up where you left off, based on its status files. Frequent starts/stops will only slow you down, it will not affect factor finding.
(5) When the client is done, you should see several new files in your proth_sieve directory. The only one we are interested in is fact.txt. These are the new factors that the program has found. Open fact.txt in a text editor. Select all of the contents and then CTL-C to copy.
In a web browser, open http://www.rieselsieve.com/sieve/ This is the site to submit all of your factors. Enter your username in the user box, then paste the factors into the submission box.
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The script will verify your factors, submit your factors to the DB, email them to the admins, and output how many of them are "valid". This is a bit of a misnomer - it says how many are valid AND new. Sometimes, a k/n pair has been eliminated by a submission a user recently made. Since the DAT file is only updated so often, some duplicate factors will be submitted - this is OK.
(6) Log back into the user pages, http://stats.rieselsieve.com/users/login.php and select "Sieve Reservations". This time, you'll want to click on the link to "mark outstanding ranges complete". A dropdown box will show each outstanding range you currently have. Select which one you'd like to mark complete, and click sumbit. The script will confirm your submission. Please do not do this until AFTER you've submitted your factors (it reminds you, don't worry).
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(7) Go back to Step 3 and make a new reservation. To decide how large to make it, open the file stat.txt. At the bottom it will say xxxkp/s. This is the average speed that the program ran at. Multiply it by 1000, and you will have how many k's will be eliminated in a second. Now, divide 1000000000 (1 billion) by that p/s number. This will tell you how long (in seconds) it will take to do 1 billion. Reserve a range that will take you about a week - you can go longer or shorter on ranges, but about a week is average. This ensures that it won't take you too long to complete your reservation. Try not to take more than 3-4 weeks at a time.
For example: 97 kp/sec: 97000
1000000000/97000 = 10309.3 seconds, or 2.86 hours. So in one week (168/2.86) I can do about 58G. Reserving 60G is fine, but 50G or 100 G are also very acceptable (and more common).
If you get stuck / have questions, feel free to drop in to #rieselsieve on irc.freenode.net, or visit the forums, http://www.rieselsieve.com/forum/
