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World Community Grid Forums
Category: Support
Forum: Suggestions / Feedback
Thread: running research without internet connection |
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Thread Status: Active Total posts in this thread: 10
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I know this is a weird question but I would like to help as much as possible. Let me know if I am out of my mind
 Let me explain my situation. I work for a company that buys brand new PC's in bulk every year. At any time I have 100 to 200 PC's that are not being used. Well I cannot hook them up to the network at work but I can put the software on it. Is there anyway I can have a laptop at home download the work files and have the PC's work on them at work then bring the laptop back home and upload the results to the server. I know this prob can't be done, but maybe I can help code it  |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
Hello thesheff17,
This sort of sneakernet mode of operation is possible, but it has many hidden gotchas and is frustratingly difficult. It is probably more reasonable to put that time and effort into a presentation trying to convince your company to become a partner of IBM's World Community Grid. See http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/about_us/viewOurPartners.do and http://www.worldcommunitygrid.org/about_us/viewBecomePartner.do A good start might be to test the water by asking for permission to run a single copy of the UD Client and of the BOINC client on 2 computers connected to the Internet. This gives your local system manager a non-threatening way to learn how well the grid software works (or doesn't work) on his network while letting you learn about his concerns and opinions. Lawrence |
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AtioTech
Cruncher Joined: Oct 26, 2006 Post Count: 1 Status: Offline |
I know this is a weird question but I would like to help as much as possible. Let me know if I am out of my mind Let me explain my situation. I work for a company that buys brand new PC's in bulk every year. At any time I have 100 to 200 PC's that are not being used. Well I cannot hook them up to the network at work but I can put the software on it. Is there anyway I can have a laptop at home download the work files and have the PC's work on them at work then bring the laptop back home and upload the results to the server. I know this prob can't be done, but maybe I can help code it The UD Agent can do what you want. Follow the steps below- 1. Get a PC, say PC(A) with network connection. Download a UD agent and run it as normal. 2. After the UD agent is running shortly say a few minutes, exit the UD program. 3. Go into your boot drive, drive C normally. Go into the directory -Program files, cut the whole World Community Grid folder out and paste into your USB thumb drive (at least 128M). 4. Stop the thumb drive and take it out from the PC (A). 5. Plug the thumb drive into your PC witn no network connection, say PC(B). 6. Paste the whole World Community Grid folder into the Program files directory of your boot drive of PC(B), go into the World Community Grid folder and run the program UD. Now it should be running. 7. After the UD agent reaches 100%, exit the UD program. Wait for 3-5 minutes as it is still writing files to the hard disk. Then go into the Program files directory and cut the whole World Community Grid folder and paste into the thumb drive. Stop the thumb drive and take it out from PC(B). 8. Plug the thumb drive back into PC(A), cut the whole World Community Grid folder and paste into the Program files directory. Go into the World Community Grid folder and run the UD program. It shall upload the results to WGC and then download a new UD work unit and run it. 9. Repeat step 2 to 8. To make life easier, I've tried to run the UD agent from the USB thumb drive direct i.e. not copying the World Community Grid folder to the Program files directory. For most occasions it is ok but it do fail a few times with no reason. You can try it. |
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marrone
Cruncher Joined: Dec 11, 2006 Post Count: 7 Status: Offline Project Badges: 
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I take it nothing for boinc?
I'm new to Boinc and WGC, though I've been part of United Devices' program for a while. It looks to me that BOINC can, to some degree, queue up some work units (presumably it queues up a couple so it can start crunching while uploading statistics from the done unit(s). Looks like two at a time, but I'm running dual core, so maybe it factors that in). Anyway, it would be great if it can download a bunch of units, collect them into an easy package, then can be sneakernetted to another machine for crunching. I have new machines coming in at work that I can possibly use, but they won't be connected to the net. Then just reverse the process. Seems to me this shouldn't be THAT hard to do, but of course, I don't know the code! -Mike |
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Sekerob
Ace Cruncher Joined: Jul 24, 2005 Post Count: 20043 Status: Offline |
A rough sketch:
----------------------------------------1. Create multiple registrations for as many devices u plan to sneakernet on the Internetted PC.... call them BOiNC-A, -B, -C and install them all in their own program dir. 2. Fire up BOiNC-A. Set Connect Period to e.g. 5 days and let it run for a bit to get enough work downloaded (u only get 10 per ten minutes max, 120 a day). 3. Close A, copy the whole BOINC A dir structure to USB stick and carry it to Zombie A. Copy Whole structure That machine and fire it up... let it run with the Network Connect option Off. 4. Do same step 2/3 for BOiNC-B, -C and copy to Zombie-B, -C 5. et cetera, et cetera. 6. When any of the Zombies are done, copy the whole structure and put it Back on the internetted PC in it relavent BOiNC dir. 7. Fire it up and set the Network Connection to Always Available.... it should flush and start retrieving new work.... takes a while to get the buffers filled up again. On On On ...... u will be a busy man and u need to do some checklist admin else u will mess up sooner or later. Various fora discuss BOiNC sneakernetting, but as Lawrence indicates its tricky. Last warning.... make sure the PC's are like for like.... any WU started on one CPU and continued on a different CPU family runs risk of getting an invalid result. Best candidate projects are the long runtime once like FAAH..... they take 6-8-10 hours depending on the CPU speed. U need to make absolutely sure nothing of BOiNC is running when doing the copy/move exersizes.... verify this in Taskmanager. Have fun..... call 911 if things go wrong. PS I dont know the code either, 
WCG
----------------------------------------Please help to make the Forums an enjoyable experience for All! [Edit 2 times, last edit by Sekerob at Dec 13, 2006 10:18:24 PM] |
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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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Hey Sek, here I come with yet another crazy idea
---------------------------------------- Would there be any possibility of defining the hard drive on each of the sneaker-netted PCs of a like kind as a network drive to the matching kind non-zombie PC and let it handle the communications? Sort of just like running multiple instances on BOINC on the same PC No, I ain't been smokin' no stuff. I'm just naturally wierd after a long day at work |
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Former Member
Cruncher Joined: May 22, 2018 Post Count: 0 Status: Offline |
I do know the code (a little) and it dawns on me that a sneakernet client or utility would be totally possible.
A fair amount of effort, though - and my project queue is backed up for months. Still, if there's enough interest, I would love to collaborate with someone. |
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Sekerob
Ace Cruncher Joined: Jul 24, 2005 Post Count: 20043 Status: Offline |
Hey Sek, here I come with yet another crazy idea Would there be any possibility of defining the hard drive on each of the sneaker-netted PCs of a like kind as a network drive to the matching kind non-zombie PC and let it handle the communications? Sort of just like running multiple instances on BOINC on the same PC No, I ain't been smokin' no stuff. I'm just naturally wierd after a long day at work Well a modern Shakespeare would say: To Be Or Not To Be...... Netted.
WCG
Please help to make the Forums an enjoyable experience for All! |
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marrone
Cruncher Joined: Dec 11, 2006 Post Count: 7 Status: Offline Project Badges:
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Thanks for the idea Sek...I'll have to try it.
Didactylos: can't help with collaboration here :(. But you have my moral support for it :). Is there interest? My opinion is that a handful of people are interested. But these handful of people probably have access to a large number of machines, and the simpler the process, these handful of people will be more likely to bother doing it, since it will be an easy bother :). (wow, talk about lousy grammar there) Certainly, allowing a large number of unit downloads in one fell swoop will help, so as to only have to do one transfer/week or even every two weeks. The unit expiration date might have to increase, in order to help this out, so this might be a policy change, which I'm sure is probably tougher than coding it! But I think it's worth it. Making the units independent of the device would be important. I could see someone plopping a large amount of work units into a shared directory, and letting their clustered machines have at them, with something as simple as a filename (based on ip address or mac address) to use as a lock indicator. I don't know how these units are packaged (I'm at work now, so I don't have access to my home machine with boinc on it) but if it can be put in one file (tarred or zipped, etc) then it could be packaged conveniently. Ok, I'll stop rambling now, but good luck to anyone who attempts this! -Mike |
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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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Well, holy insane ramblings Batman!
---------------------------------------- It would seem I managed to say something that gave D. some sort of idea. I think this would be rather handy to more folks than we realize. It could help out folks who want to run WCG on a bunch of machines they have (say in an office) but not have to provide each with an external internet connection. In effect, you have one or a few machines that have the connection that handle communicating with the WCG servers for the unconnected machines and then transfer the data to those machines for crunching and then back for returning to WCG. Maybe the connected machines could even run a virus scan on what they download from WCG so as to allay any fears. |
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