Anyone that use diskless please post here.
Share how you best manage your computers.
Such as Network boot, USB boot, or CD boot, or whatever method you use.

Also, it would really help if you provide a way to share what you have setup and make the files available or at least let us know how to set it up.

I am sure there are a lot of us with more than 2 computers and are trying to find a more efficient way to run BOINC.

I have a special interest here using BOINCpe. I see that there is a tutorial showing how to Boot it over the network, but it is in german on the BOINCpe site. One question that I would like to ask is that is there a way to make the BOINCpe set up a DIFFERENT computer name for each machine? Perhaps using the MAC address then determine the computer name to be assigned. Ex. If MAC address is 44-23-15-n3-43 then assign a name of PC3.

Are you interested in Linux, Mac or Windows?

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

BitSpit uses netbooting Linux, but you need a lot of RAM to cope with the VM usage at the moment. I have one running XP MCE2005, and have set up a Damn Small Linux box, both running from compactflash, but again, as there's no swap file it requires lots of RAM, especially if you're running multi-core.

Compactflash is easy to set up - standard install for Windows or Linux. Netbooting not quite so, but obviously has other advantages such as less overhead expense and lower running costs.

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BitSpit uses netbooting Linux, but you need a lot of RAM to cope with the VM usage at the moment.

I have a number of diskless Linux nodes that netboot. Most are single core and have 512MB RAM. A couple have dual core and 1GB RAM. They don't have any swap.

I told BOINC to use up to 100% of memory. I'm using BOINC 5.2.13 which doesn't check RAM usage when the app is running.

As I recall, there is an option with Linux where you can tell it to abort a program if it asks for more virtual memory than is available, or you can tell it to only abort if the program actually tries to use too much of that virtual memory and it runs out of real memory. I seem to be using the latter, and I don't have any problem with the WUs I'm currently getting. Those big WUs don't seem to actually use all the virtual memory that they ask for.

I have seven Linux systems that currently netboot. I'm using LTSP 4.2 with the local apps option and a custom SMP kernel. When one of the systems boots, part of the DHCP response tells it to download a network boot loader. The loader then downloads the Linux RAM disk image. From there it boots like a normal Linux system, just over a network. After booting, it runs a custom script that then loads the distributed computing client indicated in a configuration file. It will also restart a client or start a different one when the current one stops running.

All the systems are either dual or quad cores. I configure each one with 512MB RAM per core. The Linux RAM disk eats about 8MB of that. There's no swap file but I've never had a problem with lack of memory. Linux has much better memory management than Windows. The only PITA part is finding network cards that work well. In that area, I can tell you Realtek is garbage.

I have a no hard drive single-core older unit w/ 512MB RAM that boots from CD-R.
WinXP boot using boincPE.

boincPE (based on BartPE) is completely free, though not for a newbie to setup.

Files are stored on another networked computer's HD (which also supports boinc).

It took me a number of CD-R coasters before I got one fully working.

ENGLISH details on BOINCpe: http://blog.schreiter.info/boincpe-livecd-for-boinc/

As I recall ... different computer names need different copies of the CD.
The files stored on the network drive are based on MAC. Web site suggests using BAM to make initial setup & configuration easier.

The 2nd boincpe machine I setup died before I got a stable setup that was able to return completed WUs.

If I setup another (or have to redo the 1st), I'd try to get ALL of BOINC on network HD vice on the CD. That would be MUCH easier to upgrade BOINC.

It wasn't until seting up boincPE that someone pointed out the feature in BOINC Manager / Advanced / Select_Computer. It allows you to connect to boinc running on another machine to see what is going on and change configurations.

One gotta: if boincPE's connection to network drive is lost, then boincPE does not allow shutdown/reboot because it cannot write files to lost network drive. I had to add another batch file to "shutdown -r" without writing current data to hard drive.

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Now i used BOINCpe based but little modified for boot via TFTPD (instead CD-Rom) ,i found computer name is automatic assign not depend on MAC address (renew every time system boot)

i have winXP as file server store all project files
another two box cruncher is diskless system with X2 CPU
all connect with 10/100 Switch

and manage all acivity with BOINCview

check this forum for further info
http://www.meisterkuehler.de/forum/boinc-meisterkuehler-de-team/13752-boincpe-ueber-lan-per-pxe-boot-diskless-boinc-client.html

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Do you have a translation?
I can't read german, and tried but failed.

In addition, you said you use BoincView to monitor the system, how can you do that when BOINCPE asssigns different IP address each time? Also, the computer name is ALL the same?

check this forum for further info
http://www.meisterkuehler.de/forum/boinc-meisterkuehler-de-team/13752-boincpe-ueber-lan-per-pxe-boot-diskless-boinc-client.html

Do you have a translation?
I can't read german, and tried but failed.

In addition, you said you use BoincView to monitor the system, how can you do that when BOINCPE asssigns different IP address each time? Also, the computer name is ALL the same?

check this forum for further info
http://www.meisterkuehler.de/forum/boinc-meisterkuehler-de-team/13752-boincpe-ueber-lan-per-pxe-boot-diskless-boinc-client.html

1. you can use babelfish translation (http://babelfish.altavista.com/) not 100% correct but i think enough for guideline (as you see i'm username iGnUs in forum and i'm not german)

2. about IP address and BOINCview ,, i use Tftpd as DHCP with static ip fix by MAC address (you should read help if you don't know how to config)

3. computer name is NOT SAME for every node and automatic assign by BOINCpe (hostname is bartpe-xxxx ; "xxxx" is random number)

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