Server side setup

BOINC as a server only runs on Linux at the time speaking. If you are running in a Windows-only environment. The cloud, a hosted machine or local virtualisation are options.

Client side setup: none for Linux, VirtualBox for others

To attract as many as possible clients, those those should not need to perform too much of a configuration. And the Linux users will indeed just install the BOINC client and then run the jobs. But one does not want to prepare binaries for all the Windows and Apple platforms, especially not when those platforms are not available. The idea to circumvent that is a virtual environment. With VirtualBox there is a freely available highly performant technology available to execute code of foreign operating systems under one's own.

How to create the virtual image (optional)

  1. Download VirtualBox for your OS from http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

  2. Download an installer CD .iso (another image file) for Debian testing from http://www.debian.org/releases/stable/debian-installer/.

  3. Install VirtualBox and start it up

  4. Press "New" button and follow questions, leave defaults where unsure
    • give it a fancy name, it is a Linux machine of type Debian, not oracle (important for the default Logo later)
    • the amount of memory depends on the application you run. Make it 750 MB.
    • create a 1.5GB empty disk image (space is not taken until used)
  5. Give mass storage a second drive (click on it and then find the green "plus" symbol), which is the Debian installer .iso from above
  6. Start the machine, which will find the .iso as the only bootable decide, which will start the Debian installer, just follow the instructions
  7. Reboot and start from it, only install the base system, do the graphics after the reboot since otherwise the disk won't be large enough to cache the packages
  8. Log in as root
    1. sudo apt-get install lxde as a reasonably sized reasonably functional desktop
    2. sudo apt-get install boinc-client boinc-manager
  9. done. Exit VirtualBox.

It is tedious if it does not go through smoothly ... take a readily prepared one.

The larger Debian community kindly offers a such prepared image for us

  1. Download the image from http://bio4.dnsalias.net/download/BioNode/Boinc-20110808.box and untar it

  2. Download VirtualBox for your OS from http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

  3. Start the image
  4. If starting the first time
    • change root password
    • start BOINC manager (boincmgr) to add project of preference

Later starts of the image will see the application starting directly.

Back to BOINC/ServerGuide