BOINC(1)

NAME
BOINC - Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing

DESCRIPTION
The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) is an open-source software platform which supports distributed computing, primarily in the form of "volunteer" computing and "desktop grid" computing. It is well suited for problems which are often described as "trivially parallel" or "embarrassingly parallel". BOINC is the underlying software used by projects such as SETI@home, Einstein@Home, ClimatePrediciton.net, the World Community Grid, and many others. The BOINC client software runs on Windows, MacOS X, and Unix, including Linux.

By downloading and installing the BOINC client software your computer can participate in any number of BOINC-based projects. For each project you simply need to "attach" to the project, by providing the URL of the project, your e-mail address, and a password which you select. The BOINC core client, running on your computer, will then connect to the servers for all of your attached projects and will automatically download and run applications obtained from the project servers.

For more details on how BOINC works see http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/IntroUser and the links therein.

APPLICATIONS
BOINC applications are the programs which actually do scientific computing. Most BOINC applications are capable of displaying graphics when your computer would usually show a screensaver, though not all BOINC applications include such graphics capability. (There are no screensaver graphics available yet for Unix.) Several applications may run at the same time on a computer with more than one CPU, and in any case the core client will alternate between applications from different projects to try to maintain a ratio of effort which you can control.

BOINC applications are generally written by the scientists who have set up a particular BOINC project. To learn more about what a particular BOINC application is doing on your computer you should visit the web site for the BOINC project which uses that application.

DOWNLOAD
The latest version of the BOINC client software can be downloaded from http://boinc.berkeley.edu/download.php

An rpm package suitable for installation on Red Hat Linux, Fedora Linux, and any other Linux distribution which uses RPM packages, may be downloaded from http://pirates.spy-hill.net/download/RPMS

LICENSE
BOINC is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2.1 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.

RUN BOINC ONLY ON AUTHORIZED COMPUTERS
You should run BOINC only on computers which you own, or for which you have obtained the owner's permission. Some companies and schools have policies that prohibit using their computers for BOINC projects or similar uses.

FILES

/usr/bin/boinc_client
    The BOINC "core client", which is the heart of BOINC. This program is run in the background as a daemon, and it then controls which applications are run on your computer, along with downloading "Workunits" and uploading the "Result" files from completed tasks.

/usr/bin/boincmgr
    The BOINC "Manager", which provides a graphical user interface (GUI) which allows the user to communicate with and control the BOINC core client. See boincmgr(1), for details.

/usr/bin/boinc_cmd
    A command line tool which can be used to give specific commands to the running core client. Although not as easy to use as the graphical interface provided by the BOINC Manager, boinc_cmd provides more options. See boinc_cmd(1), for details.

/etc/init.d/boinc
    A Unix init script to start boinc_client when the system is booted and to stop boinc_client when the system is shut down. Configuration settings may be put in the file /usr/sysconfig/boinc.

/var/lib/boinc
    The working directory, under which the client core does all of its work. This is the home directory of a special 'boinc' user. The BOINC core client does not have to run as 'root', and indeed it should not be run as 'root' for better security. Different values for both the account name and working directory can be set in /usr/sysconfig/boinc.

/var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg
    A file containing the password needed to connect to the running core client from the BOINC Manager.

/var/lib/boinc/client_state.xml
    A file containing the current state of the running core client and the files which it has downloaded or intends to upload.

BUGS
Keep in mind that BOINC is continuously being developed and refined, so there may well be bugs in any version of the software.

Any problems with the BOINC software can be reported and discussed in the BOINC forums at http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dev, or in the forums available on almost any BOINC-based project. Individual bugs or feature requests may be submitted as a ticket in the "Trac" system at http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac. Specific technical comments may be set to the developers mailing list at boinc_dev@ssl.berkeley.edu, but they do not provide technical support, and they are more interested in receiving patches which fix bugs than they are in receiving complaints.

Any problems with the packaging of the BOINC software should be submitted to the person who packaged the software for distribution, not to the BOINC developers.

SEE ALSO
boinc_client(1), boincmgr(1), boinc_cmd(1), and http://boinc.berkeley.edu/trac/wiki/UnixClient

For a list of some of the many BOINC based projects see http://boinc.berkeley.edu/projects.php or http://boincprojectstatus.ath.cx/. These lists are provided for your information only, and are not endorsed by BOINC or U.C. Berkeley. You can find other projects which use BOINC via Google.

VERSION
Revision Number: 5.10.21-18
Release Date: 29 Dec 2007