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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: BOINC Agent Support
Thread: Do I want to run BOINC as service? |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 9
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keithhenry
Ace Cruncher Senile old farts of the world ....uh.....uh..... nevermind Joined: Nov 18, 2004 Post Count: 18667 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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BOINC has long been quite stable and reliable for me - and it still is but this year seems to be a bad one for power blips. The electricity flickers just long enough to kill my WIN10 desktops. They boot right back up and then sit there on the login screen. BOINC doesn't start until I login - and that can be hours later. Looking around here and on Berkeley's BOINC forums, it seems that the answer is to install and run BOINC as a service. Yes, I know about the GPU restriction - not an issue. With 7.12.1 just getting released, seems like this might be a good time to make this switch. I as understand this, this would mean the BOINC client runs as a service so it starts when the machine boots. I would still have to login to windows to start BOINCMgr or BOINCTasks but that is fine too. I don't have multiple user accounts on any of these machines so would I need to worry about the set of groups that appear to get set up when running BOINC as a service? I also read about changing the password so I'm wondering if I have to store a password somewhere? Is that the password I used to attach to WCG way back when? Just wanting to have things straight before I try this....
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Uninstall and reinstall, choosing the service and 'allow all users' options in advanced and you're all set. No concern about passwords.
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keithhenry
Ace Cruncher Senile old farts of the world ....uh.....uh..... nevermind Joined: Nov 18, 2004 Post Count: 18667 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Ok, so it is as simple as I thought. Hmmm, come to think of it though, do I want to empty my work queue first? I've never had to do that when just updating BOINC and hope it's the same for this.
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ca05065
Senior Cruncher Joined: Dec 4, 2007 Post Count: 328 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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There is one difference I have noticed when running BOINC as a service is that although Boinctasks will shut down BOINC it cannot be used to start it again. BOINC does start but work units fail because it does not have the correct permissions to write files. It is better to stop/ start BOINC using the Services tab within Task Manager.
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Coleslaw
Veteran Cruncher USA Joined: Mar 29, 2007 Post Count: 1343 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Or, if you aren't worried about anyone sitting down and using your computer, you could also set Windows to automatically log in upon booting up.
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Ok, so it is as simple as I thought. Hmmm, come to think of it though, do I want to empty my work queue first? I've never had to do that when just updating BOINC and hope it's the same for this. All you need to do in the said 'advanced' installer options is point the data-directory path at the one you had before, usually C:\Program Data\BOINC and all permissions will be set correctly, PROVIDED, you do choose 'Allow all users'. The manager will then transparently start the client when launched manually. Then no run empty is needed either... just continue. [Edit 1 times, last edit by Former Member at Jul 23, 2018 10:02:56 AM] |
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keithhenry
Ace Cruncher Senile old farts of the world ....uh.....uh..... nevermind Joined: Nov 18, 2004 Post Count: 18667 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Lavaflow, thanks for all the help! I now have BOINC running as a service on all my windows machines. It was as easy as I hoped it would be and as you said it would be. "Allow all users" is checked by default and I think I can see how unchecking it could either cause problems or means more work to avoid them. Shutting down and restarting BOINC works fine. Booting up does appear to take very slightly longer but that makes sense - BOINC has to start as a service and the client starts all the concurrent WUs and THEN you get to see the windows login. Nowhere near an issue. This will be very handy each month when the manure-pile of the windows update process hits too.
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
You can set a service in its properties to load automatic 'with delay' , but see only small benefit for an actual 'used' device. Those that are only crunching, crunch sooner with service if you leave it at automatic.
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hiimebm
Senior Cruncher United States Joined: Oct 19, 2014 Post Count: 305 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Assuming you have one user account on the machine, you can always run the command "control userpasswords2" and uncheck the box that says "Users must enter a username...". You can always set the machine to lock after, say, 1 minute or such.
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