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#language en
#pragma section-numbers 1
#pragma keywords BOINC, Grid Computing, Volunteer Computing, Open Source, Debian
#pragma description Tutorial for preparing a Debian-based server instance for a BOINC project - subsection on application deployment.

'' THESE PAGES ARE STILL UNDER DEVELOPMENT ''
<<TableOfContents(2)>>
Line 3: Line 11:
= Add an example app to BOINC project. =

Install the application package, boinc-app-examples. The example application used in the document is upper_case, which converts text inside a file to uppercase.

== Create a directory and add to app to project configuration. ==

{{{
% mkdir $installroot/$fileprojectname/apps/upper_case
% cp /usr/lib/boinc-server/apps/upper_case apps/uppercase/uppercase_$(arch)-pc-linux-gnu
}}}
= Add scientific applications to be distributed =

The BOINC project managers need to provide all the binaries for all the supported platforms. This is of some difficulty especially for those platforms that one does not own oneself. This page first demonstrates the workflow using xadd for a single platform. The second half of this page is dedicated to employing the binaries Debian provides for the purpose.

Another page describes how to perform the equivalent installation for the [[http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/WrapperApp|Wrapper]] application.

== Add a single example app for a single architecture to the BOINC project ==

=== Get binary of local platform ===

Install the application package, boinc-app-examples: {{{
apt-get install boinc-app-examples
}}}

The example application used in the document is ''upper_case'', which converts text inside a file to all capitals. Have a quick look that it is truly contained, since this walk-through may already be outdated (we are all volunteers): {{{
$ dpkg -L boinc-app-examples | grep upper_case
/usr/lib/boinc-server/apps/upper_case
}}}

=== Create a directory and add the app to project configuration. ===

This directory becomes an intrinsic part of your project.

{{{
[ -z "$installroot" -o -z "$fileprojectname" ] || . ~/.boinc_test.conf
appdir="$installroot"/"$fileprojectname"/apps/upper_case
sudo mkdir -p "$appdir"
}}}

Copy the file from the installed "boinc-app-examples" Debian package into that directory and rename it to distinguish versions and architectures. In our case, the ''app_ver'' variable is that of the BOINC server, the second part of the filename is that of the BOINC architecture.

{{{
appver=6.12 # adjust to the right version, only have single "."
boincplat=$(arch)-pc-linux-gnu # adjust to your architecture, maybe i686-pc-linux-gnu
sudo cp $(dpkg -L boinc-app-examples | grep upper_case) $appdir/upper_case_${appver}_${boincplat}
}}}
Upstream lists official BOINC architectures [[http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/BoincPlatforms|here]].

Please keep the version formatted that simply - or change the BOINC source code.

== Use the Debian-provided script to install binaries for multiple platforms ==

(D.: ... I am refering to /usr/share/doc/boinc-server-maker/examples/fetch_example_applications.sh , which is coming with the BOINC-server-maker package. Please amend that to fit the structure above described. sm)

When applications do not have dependencies non-standard dynamically loaded libraries (test with the tool 'ldd'), then one can use the regular binary from Debian. This should then be functional also for non-Debian/Ubuntu platforms. The boinc-server-maker package provides a shell script that downloads the Debian packages of a given name (the default is the boinc-app-examples package) and unpacks it to retrieve the binary from there.

''To be implemented:'' this will create a structure as described above for the single application.

= Inform local database of available binaries =
Line 17: Line 65:
<app> [ -z "$installroot" -o -z "$fileprojectname" ] || . ~/.boinc_test.conf
if [ -z "$installroot" -o -z "$fileprojectname" ]; then
   echo 'Variables $installroot (' $installroot ') and $fileprojectname (' $fileprojectname ') are both required.'
elif [ -d "$installroot/$fileprojectname" ]; then
   (cat << EOPROJECTXML
<boinc>
 <app>
Line 19: Line 73:
  <user_friendly_name>Convert to Upper Case</user_friendly_name>
</app>
}}}

and run
{{{
./bin/xadd
}}}

The xadd tool will parse the project.xml and will put the configurations to the database.

== Sign the application binary ==
  <user_friendly_name>upperCASE</user_friendly_name>
 </app>
 <platform>
  <name>i686-pc-linux-gnu</name>
  <user_friendly_name>Linux/x86</user_friendly_name>
 </platform>
 <platform>
  <name>x86_64-pc-linux-gnu</name>
  <user_friendly_name>Linux/amd64</user_friendly_name>
 </platform>
</boinc>
EOPROJECTXML
) | sudo tee "$installroot"/"$fileprojectname"/project.xml
fi
}}}

The platforms need not be defined here, since the default ''project.xml'' contains entries for all platforms, They are shown here for the user to understand finer details, and having duplicate entries on database will generate errors. In most cases, you can just append the application entries to the default ''project.xml'' file (found in /usr/share/boinc-server/tools/) and run xadd.

Change to the projectroot {{{
cd "$installroot"/"$fileprojectname"
}}}
and run initiate the addition of the binary found in the directory structure to the local database {{{
sudo bin/xadd
}}}

The local screen output will be similar to {{{
Processing <Platform#None i686-pc-linux-gnu> ...
  Committed <Platform#3 i686-pc-linux-gnu> ; values:
{'_dirty': False,
 '_lazy_lookups': {},
 'create_time': 1308988632L,
 'deprecated': 0,
 'id': 3L,
 'name': 'i686-pc-linux-gnu',
 'user_friendly_name': 'Linux running on an Intel x86-compatible CPU'}

Processing <App#None upper_case> ...
/var/tmp/boinc/boinctest/py/Boinc/db_base.py:63: Warning: Field 'host_scale_check' doesn't have a default value
  cursor.execute(command)
  Committed <App#11 upper_case> ; values:
{'_dirty': False,
 '_lazy_lookups': {},
 'beta': 0,
 'create_time': 1309737828L,
 'deprecated': 0,
 'homogeneous_redundancy': 0,
 'host_scale_check': 0,
 'id': 11L,
 'min_avg_pfc': 1.0,
 'min_version': 0L,
 'name': 'upper_case',
 'target_nresults': 0,
 'user_friendly_name': 'upperCASE',
 'weight': 1.0}
}}}
This is the output of xadd parsing a single platform specification and a single application, the actual output is much longer due the increased number of platforms. Also it should be noted that currently xadd has no provision to delete from databases, it always appends the entries to databse, if you want to remove/change existing entries, you should do it manually.

And when executing that line again, nothing happens since everything here is already inside database, : {{{
# bin/xadd
Processing <App#None upper_case> ...
  Skipped existing <App#None upper_case>
}}}

The file ''project.xml'' is not touched.


The database has now seen the application and platforms:

{{{

$ echo "select * from app" | mysql -u root -p $dbprojectname
Enter password:
id create_time name min_version deprecated user_friendly_name homogeneous_redundancy weight beta target_nresults min_avg_pfc host_scale_check
1 1308465648 upper_case 0 0 upperCASE 0 1 0 0 1 0


$ echo "select * from platform;"| mysql -u root -p test
Enter password:
id create_time name user_friendly_name deprecated
1 1308465648 i686-pc-linux-gnu Linux running on an Intel x86-compatible CPU 0
2 1308465648 x86_64-pc-linux-gnu Linux running on an AMD x86_64 or Intel EM64T CPU 0

}}}

= Sign the application binary =
Line 34: Line 162:
./bin/sign_executable apps/upper_case/upper_case_$(arch)-pc-linux-gnu code_sighn_private_key_file
te >> apps/upper_case/upper_case_$(arch)-pc-linux-gnu.sig
privateKeyfile="./keys/code_sign_private"
if [ -z "$appver" -o -z "$boincplat" ]; then
   echo "Please set appver and boincplat variables from above."
elif [ ! -r "$privateKeyfile" ]; then
   echo 'Have your private key ready as created during setup, expected at $privateKeyfile .'
else
   sudo ./bin/sign_executable apps/upper_case/upper_case_${appver}_${boincplat} "$privateKeyfile" | sudo tee apps/upper_case/upper_case_${appver}_${boincplat}.sig
fi
Line 42: Line 176:
Line 44: Line 179:
== Add a Work Unit == Sample output:
{{{
Toshiba:/var/tmp/boinc/boinctest# ./bin/update_versions
  Found <App#11 upper_case> version 612 for <Platform#2 x86_64-pc-linux-gnu>: upper_case_6.12_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Using signature file /var/tmp/boinc/boinctest/apps/upper_case/upper_case_6.12_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu.sig
Copying upper_case_6.12_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu to /var/tmp/boinc/boinctest/download/upper_case_6.12_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Ready to commit 1 items:
    <AppVersion#None upper_case 612 x86_64-pc-linux-gnu>
Continue [Y/n] y
Committed:
    <AppVersion#1 upper_case 612 x86_64-pc-linux-gnu>
Touched trigger file to make feeder re-read app_version table from database
Done
}}}

= Add a Work Unit =
Line 46: Line 196:
* Input file(s)
* Work Unit template
* Result Template

Create a test input file, with some text in $installroot/$fileprojectname/download/in

{{{
echo test string >> download/input_file
 * Input file(s)
 * Work Unit template
 * Result Template

Create a test input file, with some text in $installroot/$fileprojectname/download/input_file

{{{
$ echo test string >> download/input_file
Line 58: Line 208:
//missing
}}}

and finally create the work,
{{{
./bin/create_work -appname upper_case -wu_name test -wu_template templates/upper_case_wu -result_temp
late templates/upper_case_result in
}}}

This will create one work unit named test in the database.

== Start the project. ==

Now its time to start the project.

{{{
./bin/start
}}}
# The paths are to be changed in the next version of package, so watch out.
$ cp /usr/share/doc/boinc-server-maker/examples/upper_case_* $installroot/$fileprojectname/templates/
}}}

We will call the workunit test and to commit it to the database, execute
{{{
$ cd $installroot/$fileprojectname
$ ./bin/create_work -appname upper_case -wu_name test -wu_template templates/upper_case_wu -result_temp
late templates/upper_case_result input_file
}}}


= Start the project. =

Now its time to start the project, assuming we are still inside the project root,

{{{
$./bin/start
Staying in ENABLED mode
Starting daemons
  Starting daemon: feeder -d 3
  Starting daemon: transitioner -d 3
  Starting daemon: file_deleter -d 3
}}}

And ''./bin/status'' can be used to check status of the project.
{{{
$ ./bin/status
BOINC is ENABLED

DAEMON pid status lockfile disabled commandline
   1 16574 running locked no feeder -d 3
   2 16576 running locked no transitioner -d 3
   3 16579 running locked no file_deleter -d 3

TASK last run period next run lock file disabled commandline
   1 ? 24 hours NOW unlocked yes db_dump -d 2 -dump_spec ../db_dump_spec.xml
   2 ? 1 days NOW unlocked yes run_in_ops ./update_uotd.php
   3 ? 1 hour NOW unlocked yes run_in_ops ./update_forum_activities.php
   4 ? 7 days NOW unlocked yes update_stats -update_users -update_teams -update_hosts
   5 ? 24 hours NOW unlocked yes run_in_ops ./update_profile_pages.php
   6 ? 24 hours NOW unlocked yes run_in_ops ./team_import.php
   7 ? 24 hours NOW unlocked yes run_in_ops ./notify.php
}}}

THESE PAGES ARE STILL UNDER DEVELOPMENT

This page is about deploying a test application with BOINC/Debian, and this will replace add functionality section of the BOINC/ServerGuide page.

1. Add scientific applications to be distributed

The BOINC project managers need to provide all the binaries for all the supported platforms. This is of some difficulty especially for those platforms that one does not own oneself. This page first demonstrates the workflow using xadd for a single platform. The second half of this page is dedicated to employing the binaries Debian provides for the purpose.

Another page describes how to perform the equivalent installation for the Wrapper application.

1.1. Add a single example app for a single architecture to the BOINC project

1.1.1. Get binary of local platform

Install the application package, boinc-app-examples:

apt-get install boinc-app-examples

The example application used in the document is upper_case, which converts text inside a file to all capitals. Have a quick look that it is truly contained, since this walk-through may already be outdated (we are all volunteers):

$ dpkg -L boinc-app-examples | grep upper_case
/usr/lib/boinc-server/apps/upper_case

1.1.2. Create a directory and add the app to project configuration.

This directory becomes an intrinsic part of your project.

[ -z "$installroot" -o -z "$fileprojectname" ] || . ~/.boinc_test.conf
appdir="$installroot"/"$fileprojectname"/apps/upper_case
sudo mkdir -p "$appdir"

Copy the file from the installed "boinc-app-examples" Debian package into that directory and rename it to distinguish versions and architectures. In our case, the app_ver variable is that of the BOINC server, the second part of the filename is that of the BOINC architecture.

appver=6.12 # adjust to the right version, only have single "."
boincplat=$(arch)-pc-linux-gnu # adjust to your architecture, maybe i686-pc-linux-gnu
sudo cp $(dpkg -L boinc-app-examples | grep upper_case) $appdir/upper_case_${appver}_${boincplat}

Upstream lists official BOINC architectures here.

Please keep the version formatted that simply - or change the BOINC source code.

1.2. Use the Debian-provided script to install binaries for multiple platforms

(D.: ... I am refering to /usr/share/doc/boinc-server-maker/examples/fetch_example_applications.sh , which is coming with the BOINC-server-maker package. Please amend that to fit the structure above described. sm)

When applications do not have dependencies non-standard dynamically loaded libraries (test with the tool 'ldd'), then one can use the regular binary from Debian. This should then be functional also for non-Debian/Ubuntu platforms. The boinc-server-maker package provides a shell script that downloads the Debian packages of a given name (the default is the boinc-app-examples package) and unpacks it to retrieve the binary from there.

To be implemented: this will create a structure as described above for the single application.

2. Inform local database of available binaries

Now add following lines to project.xml in the project root

[ -z "$installroot" -o -z "$fileprojectname" ] || . ~/.boinc_test.conf
if [ -z "$installroot" -o -z "$fileprojectname" ]; then
   echo 'Variables $installroot (' $installroot ') and $fileprojectname (' $fileprojectname ') are both required.'
elif [ -d "$installroot/$fileprojectname" ]; then
   (cat << EOPROJECTXML
<boinc>
 <app>
  <name>upper_case</name>
  <user_friendly_name>upperCASE</user_friendly_name>
 </app>
 <platform>
  <name>i686-pc-linux-gnu</name>
  <user_friendly_name>Linux/x86</user_friendly_name>
 </platform>
 <platform>
  <name>x86_64-pc-linux-gnu</name>
  <user_friendly_name>Linux/amd64</user_friendly_name>
 </platform>
</boinc>
EOPROJECTXML
) | sudo tee "$installroot"/"$fileprojectname"/project.xml
fi

The platforms need not be defined here, since the default project.xml contains entries for all platforms, They are shown here for the user to understand finer details, and having duplicate entries on database will generate errors. In most cases, you can just append the application entries to the default project.xml file (found in /usr/share/boinc-server/tools/) and run xadd.

Change to the projectroot

cd "$installroot"/"$fileprojectname"

and run initiate the addition of the binary found in the directory structure to the local database

sudo bin/xadd

The local screen output will be similar to

Processing <Platform#None i686-pc-linux-gnu> ...
  Committed <Platform#3 i686-pc-linux-gnu> ; values:
{'_dirty': False,
 '_lazy_lookups': {},
 'create_time': 1308988632L,
 'deprecated': 0,
 'id': 3L,
 'name': 'i686-pc-linux-gnu',
 'user_friendly_name': 'Linux running on an Intel x86-compatible CPU'}

Processing <App#None upper_case> ...
/var/tmp/boinc/boinctest/py/Boinc/db_base.py:63: Warning: Field 'host_scale_check' doesn't have a default value
  cursor.execute(command)
  Committed <App#11 upper_case> ; values:
{'_dirty': False,
 '_lazy_lookups': {},
 'beta': 0,
 'create_time': 1309737828L,
 'deprecated': 0,
 'homogeneous_redundancy': 0,
 'host_scale_check': 0,
 'id': 11L,
 'min_avg_pfc': 1.0,
 'min_version': 0L,
 'name': 'upper_case',
 'target_nresults': 0,
 'user_friendly_name': 'upperCASE',
 'weight': 1.0}

This is the output of xadd parsing a single platform specification and a single application, the actual output is much longer due the increased number of platforms. Also it should be noted that currently xadd has no provision to delete from databases, it always appends the entries to databse, if you want to remove/change existing entries, you should do it manually.

And when executing that line again, nothing happens since everything here is already inside database, :

# bin/xadd 
Processing <App#None upper_case> ...
  Skipped existing <App#None upper_case>

The file project.xml is not touched.

The database has now seen the application and platforms:

$ echo "select * from app" | mysql -u root -p $dbprojectname
Enter password: 
id      create_time     name    min_version     deprecated      user_friendly_name      homogeneous_redundancy  weight  beta    target_nresults min_avg_pfc     host_scale_check
1       1308465648      upper_case      0       0       upperCASE       0       1       0       0       1       0


$ echo "select * from platform;"| mysql -u root -p test
Enter password: 
id      create_time     name    user_friendly_name      deprecated
1       1308465648      i686-pc-linux-gnu       Linux running on an Intel x86-compatible CPU    0
2       1308465648      x86_64-pc-linux-gnu     Linux running on an AMD x86_64 or Intel EM64T CPU       0

3. Sign the application binary

BOINC need to sign the application binaries before dispatch for security reasons.

privateKeyfile="./keys/code_sign_private"
if [ -z "$appver" -o -z "$boincplat" ]; then
   echo "Please set appver and boincplat variables from above."
elif [ ! -r "$privateKeyfile" ]; then
   echo 'Have your private key ready as created during setup, expected at $privateKeyfile .'
else 
   sudo ./bin/sign_executable apps/upper_case/upper_case_${appver}_${boincplat} "$privateKeyfile" | sudo tee apps/upper_case/upper_case_${appver}_${boincplat}.sig
fi

Update the boinc database,

./bin/update_versions

and prompt yes when asked for confirmation.

Sample output:

Toshiba:/var/tmp/boinc/boinctest# ./bin/update_versions 
  Found <App#11 upper_case> version 612 for <Platform#2 x86_64-pc-linux-gnu>: upper_case_6.12_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Using signature file /var/tmp/boinc/boinctest/apps/upper_case/upper_case_6.12_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu.sig
Copying upper_case_6.12_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu to /var/tmp/boinc/boinctest/download/upper_case_6.12_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
Ready to commit 1 items:
    <AppVersion#None upper_case 612 x86_64-pc-linux-gnu>
Continue [Y/n]  y
Committed:
    <AppVersion#1 upper_case 612 x86_64-pc-linux-gnu>
Touched trigger file to make feeder re-read app_version table from database
Done

4. Add a Work Unit

A work unit is the portion of data that the project should be analyzed, a work unit has following parts,

  • Input file(s)
  • Work Unit template
  • Result Template

Create a test input file, with some text in $installroot/$fileprojectname/download/input_file

$ echo test string >> download/input_file

Copy the default work unit and result template for upper case application to the templates folder.

# The paths are to be changed in the next version of package, so watch out.
$ cp /usr/share/doc/boinc-server-maker/examples/upper_case_* $installroot/$fileprojectname/templates/

We will call the workunit test and to commit it to the database, execute

$ cd $installroot/$fileprojectname
$ ./bin/create_work -appname upper_case -wu_name test -wu_template templates/upper_case_wu -result_temp
late templates/upper_case_result input_file

5. Start the project.

Now its time to start the project, assuming we are still inside the project root,

$./bin/start
Staying in ENABLED mode
Starting daemons
  Starting daemon: feeder -d 3
  Starting daemon: transitioner -d 3
  Starting daemon: file_deleter -d 3

And ./bin/status can be used to check status of the project.

$ ./bin/status
BOINC is ENABLED

DAEMON  pid  status      lockfile disabled  commandline
   1  16574  running     locked   no        feeder -d 3
   2  16576  running     locked   no        transitioner -d 3
   3  16579  running     locked   no        file_deleter -d 3

TASK       last run       period          next run        lock file disabled  commandline
   1          ?           24 hours           NOW          unlocked  yes       db_dump -d 2 -dump_spec ../db_dump_spec.xml
   2          ?           1 days             NOW          unlocked  yes       run_in_ops ./update_uotd.php
   3          ?           1 hour             NOW          unlocked  yes       run_in_ops ./update_forum_activities.php
   4          ?           7 days             NOW          unlocked  yes       update_stats -update_users -update_teams -update_hosts
   5          ?           24 hours           NOW          unlocked  yes       run_in_ops ./update_profile_pages.php
   6          ?           24 hours           NOW          unlocked  yes       run_in_ops ./team_import.php
   7          ?           24 hours           NOW          unlocked  yes       run_in_ops ./notify.php