Please tell me about borgs

Snapshot

Snapshot

Snapshot

Soldato
Joined
11 Oct 2006
Posts
5,115
Location
Wiltshire
I think I get the general idea about borgs - they're PCs away from your home setup that are folding under your account so you get the credit - but is there usually any degree of control or reporting? Do people have their borgs reporting back to them or are they usually available for inspection? I'm installing 20 PCs in a school this week and am pretty sure I'll get permission to have them folding on one core (Pentium D 820 CPUs). The school is 100 miles from where I live so I'd like to know what the PCs are up to without interrupting whatever the brats (sorry, 'little darlings') are using them for.

Jonathan
 
You'll only be able to monitor the PC's like any other ability to monitor remote PCs by using software that connects into the remote network. Generally a VPN or something.

If you have that sort of access then you might be able to run f@hmon on your local PC setting paths to the various remote folding installations so they can see the logs. Alternatively you'd run f@h mon on a server that can see the network, and VPN to the server. In all cases permissions would need to be set to each folding directory on the PCs, opening up that folder to scrutiny by a designated user, so that f@h mon could actually read the logs.

Bottom line is that unless you are an admin for the network, you're going to have some difficulty maintaining any borgs.
 
Some members of the team work all the time in the borged location, so they can keep an eye on the machines. I think getting FAHMon-style reports on borged rigs is fairly uncommon, and most use the stats to keep an eye on their production. If you're not gonna be back at the school after this week, this is probably what you'll end up doing.

Getting permission is the most important thing, F@H isn't worth losing your job over :)
 
Thank you both. I am a sysadmin and can do pretty much what I want. I'm trusted to do what's necessary and there's no way I'd set up FAH without permission.

There's supposed to be a VPN on the router that should let me run PCAnywhere on the servers for remote maintenance but it's stopped working and is high on my list of things to fix (the bursar's PC is first as I want my invoices paid!). I think running Fahmon on the file server would then not be too intrusive.
 
F@Hmon isn't something that needs to be left running. It is independent of the f@h clients on each PC, it just has the ability to read the logs over the network, if you've got the right access permissions to the directories on the folding workstations.

I run my stuff over a windows active directory. I have to set the f@h borgs to run as a service, with that service using a login that has internet access rights. That way it will keep running despite user logon or offs.

I have f@h setup on my lappy with the path to each client recorded as something like \\clientPCname\folding. Then if I'm on net it will read the f@h logs and tell me the status of the client. If f@hmon is setup on a server this way, if you can VPN into the network and access the server via terminal services or similar then you can run the f@hmon and see what is what. Of course if you can't remotely access the workstation to solve a problem, then having f@hmon access becomes a pointless exercise.

This is something that you should clear with the school before installing. F@h will use more energy on a PC than if they were just idle. Over a few borgs that adds up. My borgs do currently run 24/7 but I will soon have to implement overnight shutdowns, simply due to the combined energy costs.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom