Configuring a BOINC Digital Media Project for ETSU’s Digital Media Program - Prof. Vernon , Study Guides, Projects, Research of Software Engineering

Download Configuring a BOINC Digital Media Project for ETSU’s Digital Media Program - Prof. Vernon and more Study Guides, Projects, Research Software Engineering in PDF only on Docsity! Configuring a BOINC Digital Media Project Author: Trey Buck Date: 4 April 2008 Edited by Brandon Standifer and James Grindstaff Revision date: October 13, 2008 Table of Contents 1. Introduction..................................................................................................................................2 2. Check Prerequisites......................................................................................................................2 3. Configure MySQL.......................................................................................................................2 4. Configure Apache........................................................................................................................3 1. Introduction This document explains how to create a BOINC project for rendering a Maya file for ETSU’s Digital Media program. This document assumes a BOINC server has been installed and the BOINC source obtained and built, as described in a companion document, “Installing Fedora 8 for BOINC.doc”. It also assumes the Digital Media BOINC files are available on a supplemental CD See Appendix for a list of these files. 2. Check Prerequisites Log in to the BOINC server administrator account. This is the account under which the BOINC server was installed and will run from. This account is typically named ‘boinc’ or ‘boincadm’. Ensure there is a checked-out version of the BOINC source tree. It’s typically found under the BOINC admin account’s home folder. It will be entitled ‘boinc_trunk’ (e.g. /home/boincadm/boinc_trunk). If you can’t find the source tree you'll need to obtain a copy and build it before continuing. For instructions, see “Installing Fedora 8 for BOINC.” 3. Configure MySQL See if the current platform is running the mysqld service (/sbin/service mysqld status). If not, open the Service Configuration Panel and start the service, as follows: 1. From the Main Menu choose System  Administration  Services. 2. Enter the root password, if prompted. 3. Select mysqld from the list. Place a check beside it and click the Start button. 4. Save your changes and exit the panel. In order to create a project, the boincadm user will need permission to create the project database. The boincadm and apache users will also need full permissions on the project database. The following describes an easy, but totally insecure, way of getting a project to run. This procedure, which grants the boincadm and apache accounts open access to the msql database, is in gross violation of the most basic system administration tenets! Secure these accounts when installing a production system Open a terminal window and issue the following commands: 1. mysql -u root 2. grant all on *.* to boincadm; 3. grant all on *.* to apache; 4. exit It's worth repeating that these two MySQL accounts must be secured before putting the server into production. 7. Create Directories and Copy Files Begin by copying the applications and scripts to the appropriate destinations in the project. 1. Create two directories for FTP transfer - one for incoming submissions & one for outgoing files. '/home/boincadm/incoming' & '/home/boincadm/outgoing' are good choices. 2. Create two directories in the project root (/home/boincadm/projects/digm) - one called 'scripts' and the other called 'incoming_jobs': cd /home/boincadm/projects/digm mkdir scripts mkdir incoming_jobs 3. Copy the following files into the scripts directory:  proc_incoming  proc_job_dirs  create_workunit  publish_output  skel_launch_render.bat  skel_result_file_info  skel_reult_file_ref  skel_wu_template 8. Modify the Scripts The following four scripts may need to be modified:  proc_incoming  proc_job_dirs  create_workunit  publish_output Each of these scripts has a "Define Aliases ..." section that gives the paths of key directories needed for successful execution. The paths need to be edited to match the current configuration. For the instructions in this document, the "Define Aliases ..." sections should be as follows: proc_incoming script: # ************************************ # Define Aliases for Environmental # Configuration Parameters # ************************************ project_root_path="/home/boinc/projects/digm" script_home="$project_root_path/scripts" job_dir_path="$project_root_path/incoming_jobs" incoming_path="/home/boincadm/incoming" proc_job_dirs script # ************************************************* # Define Aliases for Environmental # Configuration Parameters # ************************************************* project_root_path="/home/boinc/projects/digm" script_home="$project_root_path/scripts" job_dir_path="$project_root_path/incoming_jobs" create_workunit script # ************************************************* # Define Aliases for Environmental Configuration Parameters # ************************************************* # Application name . This needs to match the # name of the BONIC application. # app_name="render" # Directories # project_root_path="/home/boinc/projects/digm" script_home="$project_root_path/scripts" boinc_bin_path="$project_root_path/bin" download_path="$project_root_path/download" publish_output script # ************************************ # Define Aliases for Environmental # Configuration Parameters # ************************************ project_root_path="/home/boinc/projects/digm" script_home="$project_root_path/scripts" upload_path="$project_root_path/upload" publish_path="/home/boincadm/outgoing" 9. Edit the Project File The config.xml file, located in the project’s root directory (/home/boincadm/projects/ digm), contains project-related global settings. Some of these settings must be changed before testing the project. Begin by removing the <uldl_dir_fanout> section. Open config.xml in your favorite text editor and delete the following lines: <uldl_dir_fanout> 1024 </uldl_dir_fanout> Then, change the <disable_account_creation> section to allow an account to be created with this project, in order to test it. The value of this section needs to be set to 0 instead of 1. Make the changes as follows: <disable_account_creation> 0 </disable_account_creation> To make these changes take effect, restart the project, as follows: 1. Change to the project root directory: cd /home/bonicadm/projects/digm 2. Stop the project: bin/stop 3. Start the project: bin/start 10. Edit the crontab Entry Add entries in boincadm's crontab that cause the project’s scripts to run every five minutes. You may edit the digm.scripts.cronjob file so the paths are correct and append the contents to the digm/digm.cronjob file and import it using crontab. Or you may edit the entries directly as follows: 1. Open a new terminal window. 2. Issue the crontab -e command. This will open the current user's crontab file for editing. 3. Add the following lines to the file: 0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * * /home/boincadm/projects/digm/scripts/proc_incoming 0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * * /home/boincadm/projects/digm/scripts/proc_job_dirs 0,5,10,15,20,25,30,35,40,45,50,55 * * * * /home/boincadm/projects/digm/scripts/publish_output\ 4. Save the file - <esc> :wq 5. Issue the crontab -l command to verify the changes. 11. Test the Project Now that the BOINC project is fully configured, feed some data into it. Copy the boinc_submit_2.zip file into the /home/boincadm/incoming folder. If everything is configured correctly, the scripts will take this file and turn it into one or more workunits. This can be monitored from the http://localhost/digm_ops webpage under the Workunits link. The next test is installing the BOINC client on a networked Windows computer, connecting to the project, and seeing if the workunits are downloaded and processed.