Upgrading linux boinc installation

[Brucifer]

Good morning/afternoon/evening/whatever, wherever you happen to be.

I currently have on multiple linux boxes some sztaki boinc installs of boinc v4.19 I think it is. Anyway, I need to upgrade to 5.4.9 or whatever. How do I do this since they have changed a few items since then. I'd like to keep the same system ID#'s, otherwise I'd just detach and do new installs.

[AMDave]

It should be straight forward (touch wood + a dozen hail marys LOL)

* make a backup copy of the contents of the dir your files are in.
* download the xxx.sh BOINC installer into the parent folder (1 up)
* chmod it & run it as the boinc-user (if you had created one)
* if you end up with a different folder like I did "BOINC" instead of "boinc" then copy your project executables and XML files across to the new dir OR copy the contents of "BOINC" into the boinc" folder allowing over-write (my preferred option). The second way should give. You all the new files, with your projects still in place.

I used the boinc-start manually the first time to check it was all working ok via SSH, then killed it, set up RPC and ran my cron job.

I mangled a start script from another poject to put into my crontab which calls the boinc-client directly as a background process and checks if it is still running each hour and kicks it off again if it had stopped or the machine had rebooted.

I know SZTAKI had standalone programs etc and a "hybrid" boinc setup in the early days, so if you had that then you would want to tap into the project secific knowledge they have in their forums.

[drezha]

* chmod it & run it as the boinc-user (if you had created one)

Is there a benefit to running Boinc (or any DC project to be precise..mainly F@H I'm concerned about ) as a seperate user?

[gatekeeper53]

Geeezzz your making Bill Gates look better and better

[daddygeek]

gatekeeper53 said:

Geeezzz your making Bill Gates look better and better

:XXbazooka: NOT

[gatekeeper53]

LMAO another Gates fan

[Brucifer]

Thankyou!

[AMDave]

Running an app as a separate user simply provides protection for the app and protection to the rest of your system if something should go wrong or get compromised. It is easy to set up customised users like this in *nix. Testing apps in that other OS is best done inside a virtual machine IMHO.

example - I want my Oracle RDBMS to run under its own user so that if I "lunch" my own user session on the box, the database doesn't come down with it. Or, if I want to compile and try out a "bleeding edge" application (that might include a back door that someone built into it or could have a bad memory leak in the code) I would do that inside a user session created just for testing that app with VERY tight access restrictions on it.

Much of it is just me being security conscious but I have have learned some lessons from the past - like how much mental anguish you endure when you accidentally destroy a background process that you have been running for two days and your delivery deadline is just hours away.

I like that I make mistakes. It means I am human and that I can learn something from it. When I'm testing something or generally just farting around on my Linux boxes I don't want to endanger the good work I have put into my DC projects or the other apps and jobs that are running. Separate application user ids are an easy way to keep me from giving myself an unexpected headache.

[AMDave]

@ gatekeeper
--> patch, reboot, scream, repeat LOL

S'ok. I run a couple of where-the-wind-blows boxes too, but when I want it to stay running I use Linux. >cheesy-grin<

Can't afford the protection from the power company though.
Still averaging 1 power failure per month this year. Sucks.

[Brucifer]

@ gatekeeper
--> patch, reboot, scream, repeat LOL

S'ok. I run a couple of where-the-wind-blows boxes too, but when I want it to stay running I use Linux. >cheesy-grin<

Can't afford the protection from the power company though.
Still averaging 1 power failure per month this year. Sucks.

Count yourself lucky Dave, I'm averaging one a week. Like Monday mornings, like guess what day it is???? You Aussies are really quick!! Yes, it is Monday! And we are getting close to the witching hour. And of course it is always just an act of God according to the utility people. So I guess God uses a clock around here. And while I've been pretty much lucky, I've dropped a couple of systems and eaten up a bunch of power supply's. And like you I can't afford expense of a APM setup.