[Arkaine23]

I recommend trying this OS out since its so useful, even if you don't use it to run diskless crunchers.

I've been working on a little something for the DC teams here at OC.com. It's called Overclockix, and is a customized version of Knoppix 3.2. It's basically a full-featured Linux OS that runs from a bootable CD-rom. I've installed a number of DC clients and burning applications and written scripts so that you can control them with one-word commands. It's also got a lot of system recovery and network admin/security type apps.

You can run the following GUI's:

KDE 3.1
Fluxbox
Icewm
No-GUI aka text mode

It will open applications into a ramdisk, so ram can be a limiting factor in what you can do with it when running without HDD. I suggest 128mb minimum for KDE, more if you have it. 128mb is fine for flux and ice, and they might do alright with just 96mb. In text mode 64mb of ram should be plenty.

There are some cheatcodes that you can enter at boot-time by pressing F2. Mostly they help force certain settings for monitors and video cards that auto-configuration can't do correctly. I suggest you look them up on www.knoppix.net/docs

For example, to boot my laptop properly, I use: knoppix fb800x600 xvreshresh=60

or to start in text-mode: knoppix 2


To start seti use these commands on a terminal:

foldoff
setion

That will crunch on the default config, for user Arkaine23.

To start seti and make your own config:

foldoff
cfgseti


There are some other useful commands-

setioff will kill seti
viewseti will display the state.sah file
setionproxy [IP_ADDY:Port] will start seti with a user-defined proxy

top a task manager



There's a lot more and I've included some documentation in a folder on the desktop called Info.


The 686mb iso is being uploaded to 2 servers now and should be available around 2AM CST tonight. I will post the links to download it when it is available. The iso is 686mb.



Also includes:

Prime95
memtest86
dbench
Folding@home
opera 7.11
mozilla
Gimp
XMMS
xine
OpenOffice
Apache
ncftp
and several thousand more applications....

Confirmation- Nforce2 integrated NIC's are supported, just not the 10/100/1000 ones. A7N8X deluxe seems to have one that's not supported.

[TC]

I'm looking forward to giving this a shot just as soon as I have a barebones box to try. I'm sure I could let it crunch in the author's name for a little while too

[Arkaine23]

persistent /home- you can customize it to your liking and move the home directory out of ramdisk to a hard drive or usb pen drive! If you do, it will store the work units on that medium instead of in ramdisk, so you can shutdwon and reboot and it'll pick up where you left off.

Once again I'll plug Opera as my preferred method to get large files since it can resume a broken download, and Nero for burning the .iso into a bootable CD.

Links

OCfoldingteam mirror

[Mictlan]

With a file so large you should use checksum to get an alphanumerical number so people can check if they have d/l correctly the file

[Demont]

awesome arkaine, i cant wait to try it when i get home.

[edit] question, how can i make it boot up and start on seti automatically in case of a power outage or something?

[Arkaine23]

I'll probably make some small improvements in a few weeks once its been tested widely, and will make MD5's then.

Well, with enough hosting space, I can make a version that runs seti at startup. This version runs folding@home at startup. As far as automatic power-on, your bios may have those features, I know my A7N8X does....

theory: You can make a persistent home directory on a floppy or hdd and add a script to /home/knoppix/.kde/Autostart that runs the commands foldoff and
setion.

#!/bin/sh
foldoff
setion

(Then you need to:
chmod +x your script)

Then make a persistent home and boot with the cheatcodes- myconf=/mnt/floppy (or wherever your persistent home is stored.)
To run seti with your own config:

boot the cd
use the commands:
foldoff
sudo cfgseti

It runs and lets you input your config, then restarts seti in stealth mode after about 35 seconds. You can check on it with either of the commands:
top
viewseti

Before attempting to save or restore a work unit, you must create a file (see below) and also make sure the save location is mounted and writeable. (rightclick the icon if its a hdd or floppy and choose "mount" or "change read/write status")

The save-wu feature doesn't seem to work (for folding@home anyway) if the client is running, which means my scheduled script won't work, but you can shutdown the client with the setioff command and then manually run the savewu script (savewu seti -You also have to make a file in /home/knoppix called "save" that contains a directory path to the save location). You could run the commands manually too(cp /home/knoppix/seti/work_unit.sah /save/location) to copy the work_unit.sah to a local or network hdd/floppy/pen drive before shutting down. Then before starting up seti again, run the restorewu command. In order to make the feature automatic I could edit the script, but you'd have to live with it shutting down the client every so often in order to make a back-up of the wu, which would not be very efficient for wu times.

But its linux. You shouldn't need to reboot, and if you do, you can save the WU before-hand and restore it later manually. I had hoped I could make it happen every 30 minutes without requiring any input from a user or interrupting the client, but that seems to be impossible. I'll keep experimenting though. It may be that seti doesn't lock its work_unit.sah file like folding@home does......

[TC]

I like the digital blaspemy wallpaper

[Arkaine23]

Yup- KDE is set to be pretty flashy, but a little conservative on the effects.

Flux and Ice offer a more minimal interface. Just added a pic of karamba to the previous post....

You can bypass the preset configs if you boot to text mode.

knoppix 2 screen=whatever_resolution_you_like

su knoppix
nano /home/knoppix/.xinitrc

Make a .xinitrc file and choose the WM you want to run.
ex:
exec fluxbox
#startkde
#/usr/bin/icewm

Then:

startx


This also fixes the problem of logout=reboot. If you want to operate this way and still use the ciustom configs, you'll have to as root:
cp -r /etc/skel/.kde* .fluxbox .icewm .opera .vnc /home/knoppix (might be some other configs you'll want to...)
chown -R knoppix:knoppix /home/knoppix/.*

Then as knoppix, startx.

[Arkaine23]

Sorry all. I had to remove the links to the snapshots because it was loading my ftp server too much and causing problems. I may upload some new snapshots to another server later on...

[markodude]

Wow - this looks totally wicked - good work
Do you think I could use it in order to act as a server for my schools 20 ws I use as temp crunchers? ATM I use them only during school holidays as I have to log on each station individually and then start SETI driver etc. This is too much hassle, also I cant repartition the hard drives at all or muck about with them much - if I could run a diskless cluster server and automate the process of booting the machines, then I could set it up to run SETI every night after school closes and during weekends.....any tips how to do this?

[Arkaine23]

There is probably a way to use knoppix as a terminal server, but I haven't explored it. This OS is meant to run in the CD drive of each client machine, stand-alone. It also does not queue any work, though I guess you could download setidriver into the ramdisk, run it in wine, and cache a few WU's in the ram, or alternatively save them to a mounted HDD.

What you could do is burn 20 cd's and boot each machine from them. You don't login to overclockix, it goes straight to a desktop. you'd have to run 2 commands on each machine in order to 1. stop folding, 2. start seti and use your own user_info instead of the default. If you have a machine on this network that caches wu's on a hard drive, you could probably tell all the overclockix boxes to get wu's from it.

Where this OS shines is:

That you can build a layer of a cluster with just:

mobo w/ video/lan
128mb of ram
cpu and hsf
psu (can make 1 psu power 2 motherboards even)
cdrom drive

It configures itself at boot-time, possibly with some input from the user in the form of cheatcodes.

That it's all on a CD and you can just take it wherever you go.

That you can save your settings to a usb pen dirve or hdd, and in that way personalize it.

And all the wonderful software it comes with.

[markodude]

Yeah what I really need is a linux server and then all of the PC's to boot over LAN (they have WOL NICs) from a directory on it which contains a linux environment pre-configured to run SETI, its a bit of work IMO..
I d/loaded the file from the mirror and it was only small and seemed to contain only a few files not a whole distro, do I have to add the data to my knoppix distro then reburn it>? Cheers

[Andy71600]

downloading this as i speak! Hope it wrks

[Arkaine23]

It's a 686mb iso file. You need to burn an image of it with nero or winiso. I recommend using the ocfoldingteam mirror because its very fast.


In Nero:

Close the wizards. Go to the "File" dropdown menu and choose "burn image". Then browse for the Overclockix_ColdFusion.iso file and burn it.

At startup, you'll want to press F2. YOu can set the resolution by typing:
knoppix screen=1280x1024

(or whatever res you like) There are other cheatcodes listed on that help menu to help if the autodetection has trouble with your video card or monitor. I can help out if you have trouble booting. To open a terminal, click the icon of a monitor with a shell by it in the taskbar.

In a terminal, run the commands:

foldoff
sudo cfgseti

and you'll be set. You can verify that its running by using these commands:
top
grkrellm

or by clicking the karamba icon on the desktop. top is like a task manager. The other two will show cpu useage.

setioff (will turn it off)
setion (will turn it back on without the config menu)
viewseti (displays the state.sah file)


Warning, when booting into graphical mode (KDE, fluxbox, or icewm), logging out = reboot. You will lose your current work unit if you logout. I wrote some scripts to save the work_unit automatically every 30 miniutes, but I don't know if they work. You have to make a text file that defines the save location in order to activate them. Instructions are in the Info folder on the desktop.

[THAWA]

So does this save the info to a floppy disk while its working on a protien? or does it go to the ram? If it only saves to ram maybe you should post this on the folding community forums and see if they can help you figure out a way to get it to save to floppy or something like that. If it does save to a physical place I would love to use it.

[Arkaine23]

savewu- here's how it works...

This script is scheduled to run every 30 minutes. It searches for a file in /home/knoppix called "save". If this file does not exist, the script quits and does nothing. If that file exists, it will read what is in the file and use that as the save location. Assuming the work_unit is not locked while seti is running, it would copy the work_unit to the location defined by the save file.

The user must create the save file in order to activate this feature. It's just a simpe text file that defines the location to save to.

For example-

If you wanted to have it save the WU to a floppy, you would make a file called "save" in /home/knoppix. Inside this file would be:

/mnt/floppy

For a usb pen drive:

/mnt/sda1

for a local hard drive:

/mnt/hda1 or /mnt/hda4 or /mnt/hdb2 (there are many possibilites depending on how the hdd is partioned)

for a network hdd shared by samba:

/mnt/win

Samba-
There's a simliar script to automount a samba-shared drive a couple of minutes before this script runs. It works in a similar way- you create a file that defines the hostname and sahred driectory of the netowrk share in the file in /home/knoppix/ called "smbshare". In this way, you can save a wu to your windows machine (a FAT32 partition, or floppy drive) by just making two little text files.

Unfortunately, I think samba is broken currently. I've tried to get it working with only partial success. I think it can mount shares from your network, but your network cannot access the ramdisk of the overclockix box. I'm working to correct this.


This script also requires that the save location is mounted and writeable. HDD's and Floppy are on the desktop as icons. Right-click them and choose mount to mount them. Then right-click again and choose change read/write mode. I've never used a usb pen drive in linux, so I'm not sure how they work, but I would guess they are the same as floppies and hard drives.





To restore a saved WU-

You would likely have rebooted. So you will have to stop the folding that runs at startup and run a script before starting seti:

foldoff
restorewu seti
sudo cfgseti



I have not tested this yet, but will do so at the earliest opportunity. A new version of overclockix is coming soon which will have fixes for any little bugs. This feature is very important to me, as is samba functionality, because it allows overclockix to work like a regular hdd installed OS where DC apps are concerned rather than just as an OS that simply runs out of a ramdisk.

I aim to please.

[TC]

I don't see any local shares using smbclient -L

[Arkaine23]

Samba- I moved and symlinked smb.conf to /home/knoppix/Desktop/Info/symlinked-configs/smb.conf

It seems the knoppix scripts inside overclockix have ingnored this entirely and made a default smb.conf in /etc/samba. Its in ram, so you can edit it. Best I've been able to do from a win box is see the overclockix box, but not connect to it. It may only work for mounting windows shares and not the other way around. I am working on it though...

some useful stuff-

default hostname is knoppix
you can change it by editing, /home/knoppix/Desktop/Info/symlinked_configs/hostname
and then running:
/etc/init.d/hostname.sh


It will casue some weird errors when you switch between knoppix and root though....
smbpasswd -a knoppix

sets the samba passwd. I did this before burning the cd, so the samba user is knoppix, and the password is oclinux.

Other stuff:

cfgsamba -spits out instructions for how samba should have been able to work
sambastart -starts the samba daemons (they should run at startup anyway)
reloadsamba -restarts the samba daemons to implement any changes to made to relevant config files

smbmount -this scirpt is scheduled to run ever 30 minutes. It does nothing unless you make a file for it to read that tells it the hostanme and sharename for a samba share. I mentioned it in my last post.

If you know how to read shell scripts, by all means examine the ones I worte. they are in /usr/local/bin

[TC]

I think I've run into some permission or ownership problems. I tried to mount a widows share from the knoppix box to my laptop. I added my laptop ip to lmhosts. I ran this:
smbmount //laptop/c$ /laptop -o username=Tim and it gave me permission denied. Never been denied that while root so I'm kinda puzzled course it's late and I'm cross eyed *edit* it didn't even ask for password, so it's not a problem with encrypted passwords, etc.

[Arkaine23]

TC, I'm on a crappy k6-2 box with dialup tonight. I have no access to an overclockix CD, nor any of my own machines. If you want to help me figure out what's wrong with samba, we can chat on an aim client. My SN is Rkaine23

What I usually do is:

make the samba user and password exist on a windows box I want to share to/with. In this case knoppix/oclinux

Also make sure they're on the same workgroup (though that's not really necessary). I do that to make mapping drives simple.


The script sambamount needs testing, so try to run it as root. First make a file in /home/knoppix called smbshare. Define your share in that file. //hostname/sharename

let me know if it works. There's also the smbmount command. I haven't really dealt much with samba besides making EM3 be able to read shared /home driectories, where I keep folding on linux boxes. And knoppix works in an odd way since it auto-configures things via scripts. miniroot.gz and /etc/X11/Xsession.d/45xsession are where most of that sort of magic happens.

I'm betting if I put my smb.conf back where it belongs in /etc/samba, that that will fix things.

You can do that booted from the CD, since both locations are in ram.

cp /home/knoppix/Desktop/Info/symlinked_configs/smb.conf /etc/samba
chown root /etc/samba/smb.conf (I'm betting that its been chowned to knoppix by some knoppix script)
then run reloadsamba

thats sets the config I made back- readable and writeable /home, publicly viewable /home, default workgroup= WORKGROUP.
sambauser knoppix, samba password oclinux