Network SETI

[Teacher_Doug]

I'm a teacher in a school in scotland. We have about 340 pc, from PII 166 to PIIII 1.7s. All on a novell network. Many of these machines are left idle for up to 6 hours/day. Is there any way I can safely install SETI to use all that spare capacity.

I can't promise I can do this, but I would like to help if possible.

If it works, there are another 2000 pc in the WAN

 

[TC]

First and foremost you need to obtain written permission from whom ever is in charge of the IT department before you install anything. If you're able to get permission there are a few different ways to administer the client. You can do it manaully through a console such as VNC, or ideally you could install it as a service. The only problem with the latter is it will be running all the time instead of only when the computer is idle. As much as I hate to say it, it sounds like the easiest option for you would be the screen saver client. If you take that route be sure to disable the graphics because it adds a considerable amount of processing overhead and slows down completion times. Let us know if we can help - we'd love to have you on the team.

 

[bbdd]

in environments where people need to use the machines during certain hours (work or school), i have had success running the clc using the windows task scheduler to only run s@h when the machine is idle. you can set it up to run s@h after "x" minutes of inactivity on the computer, and then to shut off automatically when the machine starts being used again (it senses activity as the keyboard or mouse being used).

the bigger problem is how to remotely install the s@h client on so many machines. you definately dont want to have to visit each one and install by hand.

 

[Mictlan]

As Tim said, you better have an written permit of the Network Administrator (or your inmidate superior if you are the network Admin).....there was a news of some guy taht was sued by his school because he installed another distribute-computing program (just like SETI).....the owners of the network sued this poor fellow for the loss of bandwidth that summed for a considerable amount of money.....

 

[bbdd]

As Tim said, you better have an written permit of the Network Administrator (or your inmidate superior if you are the network Admin).....there was a news of some guy taht was sued by his school because he installed another distribute-computing program (just like SETI).....the owners of the network sued this poor fellow for the loss of bandwidth that summed for a considerable amount of money.....

the points that tc and mictlan have made are good ones. more info can be found here:

http://news.com.com/2100-1023-270939.html?legacy=cnet

fortunately, for the guy, he and the state reached an agreement and the case has been dropped, but it will still cost him $2,100 and 80 hours of community service :

http://news.com.com/2110-1023-817875.html

his website has more as well:

http://www.mcowen.com/

 

[Teacher_Doug]

Thanks for the heads up regarding the legal aspects. I would of course get permission from the Rector of my school (he's an ex-computer teacher, so no real problem) I will however check with the local council regarding posible extra charges for bandwith use!!! No way can I afford being fined.

BTW the pcs run on win95 , with about 100 on win2k..would this be a problem?

 

[zangler]

the os will not be a problem

 

[TC]

Thanks for the heads up regarding the legal aspects. I would of course get permission from the Rector of my school (he's an ex-computer teacher, so no real problem) I will however check with the local council regarding posible extra charges for bandwith use!!! No way can I afford being fined.

BTW the pcs run on win95 , with about 100 on win2k..would this be a problem?

Not a problem, but I believe 95 requires a winsock update to work correctly. If anybody remembers please chime in here. I can't remember if 95 has a task scheduler. If not that limits you to using the screensaver client unless you want to manually admin those boxen.

 

[JigPu]

OK... Call me stupid, but just why do you want SETI to run only when people aren't on?? It takes up only idle time (as everyone should know) so I don't see the deal with it eating up unused CPU time... Also, if he used a proxy caching program (like SETI Queue or SETI Gate) then he wouldn't have to worry about it ever popping up even for an instant (except durring boot...)

Now onto the Win95 thing. Yes, Win95 requires a Winsock update for SETI to connect. The update can be found here.

JigPu

 

[lonewolf1983]

my university network also runs novell netware for logging in and file serving
all pcs are now running winXP

i will be interested in if you get it working,then ill email the network admin to talk to him

my network requires the user to ctrl-alt-del and log in before any apps are run,would this be a problem??

 

[Basher]

I'm a teacher in a school in scotland. We have about 340 pc, from PII 166 to PIIII 1.7s. All on a novell network. Many of these machines are left idle for up to 6 hours/day. Is there any way I can safely install SETI to use all that spare capacity.

I can't promise I can do this, but I would like to help if possible.

If it works, there are another 2000 pc in the WAN

Good luck that would be sweet.

 

[bbdd]

OK... Call me stupid, but just why do you want SETI to run only when people aren't on?? It takes up only idle time (as everyone should know) so I don't see the deal with it eating up unused CPU time

on today's faster machines, no one will notice it running in the background. there is plenty of horsepower to run foreground and background tasks smoothly for the average user.

but, for some of us using hardware that is less than up-to-date, seti processing in the background does affect the "reaction time" of the machine. we have several older machines at work and when seti is running on them while you are trying to work on something in the foreground, they are obviously sluggish.

in the environments we are talking about (work and school, mostly), the work that the people need to get done is priority to the seti processing, so they should get first crack at the full capabilities of the machines they are using.

i believe that if the owners of the machines are nice enough to let us process seti on them in the off-time, they ought to be able to use the full capabilities of the machine when they need it.

 

[lonewolf1983]

theres no doubt that the normal workload of the pc's takes priority over seti.

but at my university,most labs are full of people surfing the web,and typing documents,with a few labs for programming.
not particularly stressful applications.
Not to mention the fact that these pcs are on 24/7,and only get used for 7 hours a day on average

recently all pcs were upgraded to p4 1.7ghz's with 256mb of ram
all that cpu power going to waste!!