Hi,

short question : How do i enforce that boinc does not ever use more than 50 MB of RAM?

long question/reasons for question :

I'm running boinc/rosetta on a debian linux vServer and I would neet to limit the amount of memory boinc uses.

The box has 8GB RAM (and 3 GB swap) of which only 256MB are available for my VS-instance. Boinc doesn't get this and tries to grab more memory than is available and crashes or produces client/computation errors.

I'd like boinc to uses ~50MB of RAM max so I told it ro use 0.005% of the total virtual memory my box has in the web menu (11000 x 0.005 = 55).

This settings seems to be ignored as top claims that boinc was using ~112MB of RAM. This leads to out-of-memory-errors for all processes (mail server, ssh, boinc itself) and is totally unacceptable.

I tried to limit the ressources available to the boinc user in /etc/security/limits.conf, but this doesnt really seem to affect anything. I set up 30MB max memory there and no boinc instance uses more than 30, but there are multiple instances running :-(

relevant lines of limits.conf :


###

folding         hard    priority        20
folding         hard    memlock         10000
folding         hard    data            20000

###

I also used launchtool to limit boincs ressources, but this makes it crash instantly :

###

folding@mybox:~$ launchtool --tag boinc --limit-data-memory=20000 --limit-process-count=3 './boinc -attach_project https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta <myuidkeyhere>'
bash: xmalloc: ../bash/locale.c:58: cannot allocate 2 bytes (0 bytes allocated)

###

Note: I'm running the command line client and don't have X11 installed.

Any suggestions?

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spirit

The system requirements page confirms Rosetta requires at least 256MB on Linux. They also have two different task sizes, to help assure they don't send tasks that require lots of memory to machines that have little. Since your machine reports a lot of memory, I doubt it understands that you don't have it available for use, so you may also be receiving tasks designated for larger memory systems.

Typically on Windows I see the small tasks taking around 110MB. The larger tasks can take over 200MB of actual memory. The project requirement is higher to assure you've got room left for your operating system and to help assure Rosetta doesn't totally take over the memory of your machine.

What you have attempted, changing your BOINC General Preferences, is the only means I am aware of to control memory usage.

Perhaps someone experienced with Linux might have some other options for you to consider.

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Add this signature to your EMail:
Running Microsoft's "System Idle Process" will never help cure cancer, AIDS nor Alzheimer's. But running Rosetta@home just might!
https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/

Advice is Do Not Run Rosetta@Home, you need to find a project that will let you use that little (Seti@Home will scale back but run a lot slower, XtremLab will but doesn't really do anything...)

Future versions of BOINC will be better at memory managment, (which is different to VM, Virtual Memory/Page file.) At the moment you cannot limit 'real memory' and either way Rosetta@home just wouldn't run.

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Team mauisun.org

OK, thanks for the info.

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spirit

It's been reported here and elsewhare that the memory thing will be dealt with in future boinc versions, but I have to wonder if it will have any use. My new box uses a core 2 duo and only uses about 600 megs of two gigs of my ram on the puppy. Geez, I would love for BOINC to use 1 to 1.5 gigs of all that ram. Will any new version help those like me who have boxes that have plenty of ram to make use of the excess?

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(Click for detailed stats)

I believe once Rosetta Design module is made compatible with BOINC, they will love your machines with such high memory capacity.

It's been reported here and elsewhare that the memory thing will be dealt with in future boinc versions, but I have to wonder if it will have any use. My new box uses a core 2 duo and only uses about 600 megs of two gigs of my ram on the puppy. Geez, I would love for BOINC to use 1 to 1.5 gigs of all that ram. Will any new version help those like me who have boxes that have plenty of ram to make use of the excess?

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It's been reported here and elsewhare that the memory thing will be dealt with in future boinc versions, but I have to wonder if it will have any use. My new box uses a core 2 duo and only uses about 600 megs of two gigs of my ram on the puppy. Geez, I would love for BOINC to use 1 to 1.5 gigs of all that ram. Will any new version help those like me who have boxes that have plenty of ram to make use of the excess?

That has nothing to do with BOINC, but the projects. If the program just doesn't need it then no it will not use it.

We did have some 1GB tasks come down quite a long time back but there where some problems (note they would only be used on computers that could handle it)

ClimatePrediction.net also had some 1GB tasks as well.

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Team mauisun.org