Hi all. Now that Classic is ending, I'm wondering whether to try again with Boinc or to say goodbye to SETI. I'm not trying to "vent"; I'd honestly like advice. Please no RTFM or "google it" replies; I've searched forums for more than an hour. Here's the story and my question, thanks:

I've been a Classic user since 1999 -- in the past two years, with two command-line jobs running simultaneously, with two 2+ GHz processors, in two tiny xterm windows. I have a dialup modem. The modem shares my voice phone line, so it can't do on-demand dialing. (I can only have one phone line; no DSL.)

If Classic needs to send and get data, it waits and, when I fire up the modem, I stop/restart each Classic job (control-Z, then fg) and they upload/download data. Not elegant, but simple and low-hassle. It works for me.

Six months ago I tried command-line Boinc. It was mostly a nightmare of "backing off" for longer and longer times with sporadic data transfer. I tried editing an XML file so Boinc would re-try as soon as I restarted it (after I'd connected to the Net). I tried resetting my Preferences on the Web (which I had to dial up before I could do... even more inconvenient) each time. Nothing worked reliably and easily. I had more and more work units piling up. I gave up and went back to Classic.

I get the feeling that Boinc was designed more for people with a continuous Net connection -- or, at least, with on-demand modem dialing. If you have a setup like mine and you've found a fairly reliable to get the data to transfer when you want it, would you please let me know? Otherwise, I guess it's goodbye SETI...

Jerry

P.S. I have several accounts on Linux and BSD boxes with 24-hour Net connections. Anyone know how I can use one of those boxes as a sort of "proxy server" that I can connect to when I'm dialed up -- to hold my finished work units, and maybe also let me download more work? Those full-time-connected hosts could deal with the "backing off" delays and I could just crunch work units.

If you previously stopped/restarted the seti classic application, you can do the same with boinc and the --return_results_immediately switch.

the 'backing off' function doesn't hurt you, you can just quiet the output. unlike classic seti, there is no useful information such as WU progress or status that you used to get with the --verbose switch. BOINC was meant to be run quietly in the background with BOINC manager as an optional interface.

If you previously stopped/restarted the seti classic application, you can do the same with boinc and the --return_results_immediately switch.

Ah, great. I don't think --return_results_immediately worked before, though I heard that it would be fixed. I think nothing happened: my modem lights wouldn't blink or anything. But maybe that was due to this next point?...

the 'backing off' function doesn't hurt you, you can just quiet the output.

This makes me suspect that I'll still have to be online at the precise time the client wants to send data -- which might mean leaving my modem on for however long the client has decided to "back off" and/or setting a timer to remind myself to go online whenever the client is about to transfer data? Am I missing something? Can I stop/start the client and its "backing off" time delay will be reset to 0?

Thanks.

Can I stop/start the client and its "backing off" time delay will be reset to 0?

if the --return_results_immediately switch works the way i think it does that would be correct. there is some confusion as to whether that governs results returning or reporting or both, but they are two separate functions. with dialup you will want both on demand.

Trux had worked on this function previously in his BOINC version
http://boinc.truxoft.com/

of course, if you run X you can use the BOINC manager to handle manual uploads

Trux had worked on this function previously in his BOINC version
http://boinc.truxoft.com/

of course, if you run X you can use the BOINC manager to handle manual uploads

I won't click "this answered my question" yet because I'll have to check this out, because I'd rather use the command line than X, and because I'd also be glad to get even more suggestions ;-). But now it sounds like I might be able to keep running SETI somehow... so thanks a lot for your help.

Jerry

I'd rather use the command line than X

The core client does run from the command line. You start the Manager under X to view status and control the core client via RPC (without having to exit the CC to restart with a command-line switch). My recommendation to control BOINC to work with manual modem connections would be thus:

* Start core client (I do this via user cron job)
* Start Manager and disable network access (Network activity suspended) while modem is not connected - feel free to exit Manager at this point
* When modem is connected, use Manager to enable net access
* When BOINC has finished its business online, disable access and, optionally, close the Manager till next time

This isn't quite elegant, but without dial-on-demand, I'd think this is about the best you can do.

---

Thanks, Trane. I'm busy getting ready for a business trip, but I'll look into this ASAP after I get back and post the results here.

Jerry

P.S. I just created the two stop_after_send.txt files and my two setiathome jobs sent their last data units. RIP, Classic.

Very similar situation here.
Since c.June-2002, I have been using a self-written
shell script to drive Classic over a on-request (not
on-demand) dial-up. The dial-up is controlled by
diald(8), which means the dial-up is automatically
brought down when idle. So the script used Classic's
"-stop_after_process" option as the indication of when
to initate a dialout (via diald's control FIFO), and
"-stop_after_xfer" to not go into its nominal loop of
process-return-fetch-repeat on a transfer.

I'm currently struggling with how to drive boinc in a
similar fashion. ATM, and this is a *guess*, it looks
like if I have the script periodically poll using
"boinc_cmd get_<stuff>" and parse the output, I can
work up when to bring the link up and then use other
boinc_cmd options to return the completed result and/or
fetch a new workunit.

However, this is all very much guesswork! ATM, I am using
the GUIs (plural - both diald and boinc_mgr) manually at
rather irregular intervals. It was in seaching for any
clews/ideas that I found this thread.

(BTW, is the Jerry Peek who started this thread the same
gentleman who who the O'Reilly MH handbook? I _still_
find it useful! Thanks.)