.\"  Unix Manual page for BOINC

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.TH BOINC 1  "18 December 2007"  "BOINC 5.10"  "User Manuals"

.SH NAME

BOINC \- Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing 

.SH DESCRIPTION

The 

.B Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing 

(BOINC) 

is an open-source software platform which supports distributed computing, 

primarily in the form of "volunteer" computing and "desktop grid" computing.

It is well suited for problems which are often described as "trivially

parallel" or "embarrassingly parallel". 

BOINC is the underlying software used by projects such as SETI@home,

Einstein@Home, ClimatePrediciton.net, the World Community Grid, and

many others.

The BOINC client software runs on Windows, MacOS X, and Unix,

including Linux.

.PP

By downloading and installing the BOINC client software your computer

can participate in any number of BOINC-based projects.

For each project you simply need to "attach" to the project, by

providing the URL of the project, your e-mail address, and a password

which you select.

The BOINC

.I  core 

.IR client ,

running on your computer, will then connect to the servers for

all of your attached projects and will automatically download and run

applications obtained from the project servers.

.PP

For more details on how BOINC works see

.I http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/IntroUser

and the links therein.

.SH APPLICATIONS

BOINC applications are the programs which actually do scientific computing. 

Most BOINC applications are capable of displaying graphics when your

computer would usually show a screensaver, though not all BOINC

applications include such graphics capability.

(There are no screensaver graphics available yet for Unix.)

Several applications may run at the same time on a computer with more

than one CPU, and in any case the core client will alternate between

applications from different projects to try to maintain a ratio of

effort which you can control.

.PP

BOINC applications are generally written by the scientists who have

set up a particular BOINC project.

To learn more about what a particular BOINC application is doing on

your computer you should visit the web site for the BOINC project

which uses that application.

.SH DOWNLOAD 

The latest version of the 

.B BOINC

client software can be downloaded from

.I http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php

.PP

An rpm package suitable for installation on Red Hat Linux, Fedora

Linux, and any other Linux distribution which uses RPM packages,

may be downloaded from

.I http://pirates.spy-hill.net/download/RPMS

.SH LICENSE

BOINC is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under

the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the

Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at

your option) any later version.

.SH RUN BOINC ONLY ON AUTHORIZED COMPUTERS

You should run BOINC only on computers which you own, or for which

you have obtained the owner's permission.

Some companies and schools have policies that prohibit using their

computers for BOINC projects or similar uses.

.SH FILES

.TP 1.0i

.I /usr/bin/boinc_client

The BOINC "core client",  which is the

heart of BOINC.  

This program is run in the background as a daemon, and it then

controls which applications are run on your computer, along with

downloading "Workunits" and uploading the "Result" files from

completed tasks.

.TP

.I /usr/bin/boincmgr

The BOINC "Manager", which provides a graphical user interface (GUI)

which allows the user to communicate with and control the BOINC core

client.  

See

.BR boincmgr (1), 

for details.

.TP

.I /usr/bin/boinc_cmd

A command line tool which can be used to give specific commands to the

running core client.  Although not as easy to use as the graphical

interface provided by the BOINC Manager, 

.I boinc_cmd

provides more options.

See

.BR boinc_cmd (1), 

for details.

.TP 

.I /etc/init.d/boinc

A Unix init script to start 

.I boinc_client

when the system is booted and to stop 

.I boinc_client

when the system is shut down.  

Configuration settings may be put in the file

.IR /usr/sysconfig/boinc .

.TP

.I /var/lib/boinc

The working directory, under which the client core does all of its work.

This is the home directory of a special 'boinc' user.  

The BOINC core

client does not have to run as 'root', and indeed it should not be run

as 'root' for better security.

Different values for both the account name and working directory can

be set in 

.IR /usr/sysconfig/boinc .

.TP

.I /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg

A file containing the password needed to connect to the running core

client from the BOINC Manager.

.TP

.I /var/lib/boinc/client_state.xml

A file containing the current state of the running core client and the

files which it has downloaded or intends to upload.

.SH BUGS

Keep in mind that BOINC is continuously being developed and refined,

so there may well be bugs in any version of the software.

.PP

Any problems with the BOINC software can be reported and discussed 

in the BOINC forums at 

.IR http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev , 

or in the forums available on almost any BOINC-based project.

Individual bugs or feature requests may be submitted as a ticket in the 

"Trac" system at 

.IR http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac .

Specific technical comments may be set to the developers mailing list at 

.IR boinc_dev@ssl.berkeley.edu ,

but they do not provide technical support, and they are more interested in

receiving patches which fix bugs than they are in receiving complaints.

.PP

Any problems with the packaging of the BOINC software should be

submitted to the person who packaged the software for distribution,

not to the BOINC developers.

.SH SEE ALSO

.BR boinc_client (1),

.BR boincmgr (1),

.BR boinc_cmd (1), 

and 

.I  http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/UnixClient

.PP

For a list of some of the many BOINC based projects see

.I http://boinc.berkeley.edu/projects.php

or

.IR http://boincprojectstatus.ath.cx/ .

These lists are provided for your information only, and are not

endorsed by BOINC or U.C. Berkeley.   You can find other projects

which use BOINC via Google.

.SH VERSION

.de VL

\\$2

..

Revision Number: 5.10.21-18 

.br

Release Date: 29 Dec 2007 

.end