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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: BOINC Agent Support
Thread: Backing up computer ID - possible? |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 19
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D_S_Spence
Advanced Cruncher Canada Joined: Jan 5, 2017 Post Count: 118 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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My Linux Mint machine crashed and wouldn't boot.
I reformatted the HD and installed the latest Mint on it (21). Previously it had been some older version (14?). I gave the machine the exact same name as before. WCG recognized it as the same machine. I had no backup of the old machine, so no client_state.xml or anything else. It just worked. I thought it was because I gave it the same name, or maybe because all of the hardware was the same. |
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Sgt.Joe
Ace Cruncher USA Joined: Jul 4, 2006 Post Count: 7846 Status: Recently Active Project Badges: 
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My Linux Mint machine crashed and wouldn't boot. I reformatted the HD and installed the latest Mint on it (21). Previously it had been some older version (14?). I gave the machine the exact same name as before. WCG recognized it as the same machine. I had no backup of the old machine, so no client_state.xml or anything else. It just worked. I thought it was because I gave it the same name, or maybe because all of the hardware was the same. I have had the same thing happen to me several times. I think about 50% of the time I got the machine recognized as the old machine and the other 50% it started a new machine for me. I have no idea why it worked sometimes and not others. I guess that over time it really did not make a whole lot of difference. If I had wanted to keep particular machine statistics, I would just have had to keep my own. Cheers
Sgt. Joe
*Minnesota Crunchers* |
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BobbyB
Veteran Cruncher Canada Joined: Apr 25, 2020 Post Count: 638 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I thought it was because I gave it the same name, or maybe because all of the hardware was the same Or both.Well there goes the theory that <rpc_seqno> from client_state.xml does the trick. That obviously did not exist.. It sure would be nice to know exactly how Boinc determines that it is the same machine. It must to be a combination of different items. |
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Bryn Mawr
Senior Cruncher Joined: Dec 26, 2018 Post Count: 384 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I thought it was because I gave it the same name, or maybe because all of the hardware was the same Or both.Well there goes the theory that <rpc_seqno> from client_state.xml does the trick. That obviously did not exist.. It sure would be nice to know exactly how Boinc determines that it is the same machine. It must to be a combination of different items. Try :- https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Host_identification_and_merging Shows the different criteria used by WCG. |
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BobbyB
Veteran Cruncher Canada Joined: Apr 25, 2020 Post Count: 638 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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I thought I had read most of the docs at Berkeley. Guess not.
This certainly explains why that Macpro above got associated with an XP machine which died 5 years ago. There is one thing in that text which makes me wonder. This domain_name is really the machine name which shows in your results page. <domain_name>HP-PC</domain_name> It says: The default on Windows is "WORKGROUP". Then all Windows machine would qualify. So what does it see as "user name (network name of host)" It seems we were both right and both wrong. That page was last edited on 7 August 2014, at 12:05 |
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TPCBF
Master Cruncher USA Joined: Jan 2, 2011 Post Count: 2173 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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I thought I had read most of the docs at Berkeley. Guess not. Well, just had a quick look over that page and...WCG uses a different method to recognize existing devices to prevent duplicate registrations. The server compares the following host information: user name (network name of host) domain_name (The default on Windows is "WORKGROUP") ip_addr (the ip of the client on the local network) operating system name processor vendor memory There is one thing in that text which makes me wonder. This domain_name is really the machine name which shows in your results page. <domain_name>HP-PC</domain_name> It says: The default on Windows is "WORKGROUP". Then all Windows machine would qualify. Who ever wrote this didn't know anything about Windows networking, confusing the terms- network workgroup - network domain - computer domain The first one is an IBM/ Microsoft specific thing, used since the early days of LAN Manager/Windows for Workgroups 3.1.This is using Microsoft's SMB protocol, which predates the widespread use of TCP/IP and was a method to set up "peer-to-peer" networks (where each machine can be a "server" and a "client" at the same time. The later two are terms from the "Active Directory" system that exists since Windows NT and requires the use of a special machine/server on the network, a "domain controller" The computer domain name is for all I know identical with the TCP/IP "host name" of a machine. So what does it see as "user name (network name of host)" As I previously mentioned the now ubiquitous TCP/IP "host name".Thw wording used for this in the WCG ID part quoted above is bad choice at best. User name and (network) host name are two completely different things. The "host name" is unique (as required by networking rules), while there can be several different "user names" (commonly every Windows computer has at least two user names (profiles), "administrator" (which may be hidden on consumer PCs) and the actual user (login) names. From above quotes list, pretty much nothing applies to my case as - user names are different, pretty sure the XP machine had never a user name "Ralf" on it, which is the user name on the Mac. - the host names are different, the XP machine is "ojmr4a", the Mac is "MacPhoenix" - the XP machine was in a AD domain names OJMR.corp, macOS does have only a "work group", in this case, the macOS appends ".local" to the host name. On this Mac in question, it is set to my personal "work group" of my personal computers (and I do not currently use any AD) - the local IP addresses of both machines could have been eventually, possibly, maybe the same on the current network, but in general, the XP machine had (like all servers and workstations) a fixed IP address < x.x.x.101, the Mac is using a DHCP assigned IP address in the range x.x.x.101 through x.x.x.200 - the OS of both machines is different (obviously, Windows XP vs mac OS High Sierra) - well, both machines have an Intel processor (though the XP machine was a Core Duo, the Mac is an i7) - and memory isn't the same either, the XP machine (due to being 32bt) had 4GB, the Mac has 8GB So, for me, this is still a mystery. But then by now, I know that the Mac is known by a wrong/different host name in the Results list, and I don't really care. But it is clearly one area where WCG is "a bit weird" and that combination of criteria could be a possible source for the problems that people don't see the device that they expect (and didn't have two different accounts to begin with  ) |
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katoda
Senior Cruncher Poland Joined: Apr 28, 2007 Post Count: 172 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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Well there goes the theory that <rpc_seqno> from client_state.xml does the trick. That obviously did not exist. Situation I described and several time tested was when you try to re-use already existing BOINC client profile, with all config files already present inside. Trying to connect having incorrect rpc_seqno will result in creation of the new device, this I'm 100% certain as I suffered from it several times. The situation you refer to is when the connection comes from freshly installed BOINC client, with no config files. Then indeed parameters described in BOINC docs take priority and with some luck the system is able to recognize and to assign already existing client ID.  |
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BobbyB
Veteran Cruncher Canada Joined: Apr 25, 2020 Post Count: 638 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Good to know. I did not feel like testing and messing up something which works already.
I was wondering if you would answer back about your testing in this post: https://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/forums/wcg/viewpostinthread?post=691343 |
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katoda
Senior Cruncher Poland Joined: Apr 28, 2007 Post Count: 172 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Done!
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