Serverless and Diskless folding machine?

[CupCak3]

Is there anyway for to modify any of the existing overclockix cds so I can use my own config but still not have to use a server or writeable drive? I would also like folding to be started as a service. I'm currently starting a farm and for me this would be the most effective way to impliment it w/ the least amount of upkeep.

If anyone has any other suggestion that would also be great.

Thanks!

 

[pik4chu]

I dont know linux well enough to specifiy an aacutal solution, but the equivilent of a ram drive would suite your neeeds... howeever you would want atleast on physical disk somewhere in your setup so that you do not lose WUs in the event of a power failure or system crash. so completely diskless/serverless isnt the best option.

 

[David]

Overclockix should boot and load into RAM - all you need is a decent amount of RAM (128-256MB probably) and a CDROM drive.

 

[CupCak3]

What I want to do is be able to modify one of the overclockix iso's so when I boot the cd, it will automattically start folding w/ my config without looking on a hard drive or over a network. What I think I need to do is edit the iso before I burn it to cd but I just don't know how to make folding start as a service and put on my own config.

I think this would come to great use to people (as well as myself) and I"m planning to write a tutorial over it when I'm finished.

Sorry, if I haven't explained it very well, sometimes things just sound better in my head than how they come out

Thanks for any help!

 

[AlabamaCajun]

What I want to do is be able to modify one of the overclockix iso's so when I boot the cd, it will automattically start folding w/ my config without looking on a hard drive or over a network. What I think I need to do is edit the iso before I burn it to cd but I just don't know how to make folding start as a service and put on my own config.

I think this would come to great use to people (as well as myself) and I"m planning to write a tutorial over it when I'm finished.

Sorry, if I haven't explained it very well, sometimes things just sound better in my head than how they come out

Thanks for any help!

First stop banginig your head against that wall and the sounds will go away! JK

I too am looking to do the same without video and using a USB jumpdrive or CD for boot. The problem I have is when anaconda probes my video card the hole thing locks up. I may try using Tiny Sofa and make "Folding Chair" or "Chase Loung" out of it just for a solid internet accessable w/firewall, ramdrive and diskless,headless booter.

 

[CupCak3]

First stop banginig your head against that wall and the sounds will go away! JK

I too am looking to do the same without video and using a USB jumpdrive or CD for boot. The problem I have is when anaconda probes my video card the hole thing locks up. I may try using Tiny Sofa and make "Folding Chair" or "Chase Loung" out of it just for a solid internet accessable w/firewall, ramdrive and diskless,headless booter.

well I think you can do what you'd like w/ overfoldix but I'm not sure if it has firewall support and it hasn't been updated for a while so drivers support seems a bit iffy to me (also old folding client) This is definately one of the big reasons why I'd like to use overclockix, updates drivers, firewall support, and I could do many pretty much whatever I'd like it on (browse web, yatta yatta)

 

[Arkaine23]

This is not so very hard. Folding runs as a service already in Overclockix, all you have to do is

1) edit the default client.cfg
or
2) use the persistent home feature (requires a HDD or usb pen)

Editing the default client.cfg is a simple matter if you remaster the CD, which requires booting in Overclockix, having 1GB of ram + swap, and a 3GB ext 3 partition on which to extract the CD contents. However, this is not the only way to go about it. I most versions of Overclockix the default client.cfg is outside of the compressed system, which means one can edit the file and rebuild the iso without having to "remaster" any of the compressed system.

There are a few ways to go about this, and a few pitfalls as well. One is to loopback mount the iso in linux and edit the file. This requires keeping the file the exact same size as it was originally. To do this, when changing username/or team #, one must keep the exact same # of characters in the file. There are blank spaces that were added to the client.cfg for this purpose which can be deleted if your username is longer than the default username for instance. Or one would have to add blank spaces to the client.cfg if one were shortnening the username compared to the default.

There is also software available in windows that allows editing of iso files. Most of it is not free.

Depending on the version of Overclockix, the client.cfg may be in a few different places. Please give me the version and I'll tell you where the file is.

 

[CupCak3]

This is not so very hard. Folding runs as a service already in Overclockix, all you have to do is

1) edit the default client.cfg
or
2) use the persistent home feature (requires a HDD or usb pen)

Editing the default client.cfg is a simple matter if you remaster the CD, which requires booting in Overclockix, having 1GB of ram + swap, and a 3GB ext 3 partition on which to extract the CD contents. However, this is not the only way to go about it. I most versions of Overclockix the default client.cfg is outside of the compressed system, which means one can edit the file and rebuild the iso without having to "remaster" any of the compressed system.

There are a few ways to go about this, and a few pitfalls as well. One is to loopback mount the iso in linux and edit the file. This requires keeping the file the exact same size as it was originally. To do this, when changing username/or team #, one must keep the exact same # of characters in the file. There are blank spaces that were added to the client.cfg for this purpose which can be deleted if your username is longer than the default username for instance. Or one would have to add blank spaces to the client.cfg if one were shortnening the username compared to the default.

There is also software available in windows that allows editing of iso files. Most of it is not free.

Depending on the version of Overclockix, the client.cfg may be in a few different places. Please give me the version and I'll tell you where the file is.

wow that's alot easier than what I thought it to be... thanks alot Arkaine23!

i'll either be using the 2.4_3 or the 3.79 versions



Also, I have a question which is a bit OT... If i have a couple boxes where I need "no frills" like no GUI, media player, and things of that type so I can my maximize my folding power by just running off command line, what would be the best route to go?


Thanks!!!!

 

[Arkaine23]

When you boot you can enter codes that alter the default behavior of the system.

For example:

knoppix26 2

Will boot the system in text mode with no GUI.

knoppix26 desktop=fluxbox screen=800x600

Will boot the system into the minimalist window manager fluxbox at a low resolution.

There are perhaps 60 codes in all and they can be mixed and matched. Pressing F2 or F3 at the boot prompt displays a list of many of the available boot codes. So as you can see, there's no need to run X or operate in the full KDE desktop if you don't want to. Running in text mode the system should be using less than 40MB ram not including folding@home. In fluxbox less than 50MB would be my guess. There's also icewm and xfce. All of these are less bloated than kde. For that matter there is some configuarion editing you could do if you wanted to run VNC. Setting vnc configs permanently would take remastering.... if you wanted to graphically control an Overclockix box from another workstation. Of course ssh is probably good enough to manage folding.

 

[CupCak3]

You are just the bearer of good news today Arkaine23

Now for this remastering biz, I should be able to do w/ no problems w/ a win32 program like ultraiso, correct?


Pretty much for these boxes, all i'd want to do when the cd boots, have it start system on cmd, autologin, and start a vnc and folding service. Is there some sort of startup script I could write to accomplish this and master it onto the cd?

Thanks for all the help!!!!

 

[Arkaine23]

Ahah!

Well let me make sure we're clear on the difference between "rebuilding an iso" and "remastering an iso". The first process can be done in windows or linux and will allow for only minimal changes because the vast majority of overclockix is contained inside a cloop-compressed file called KNOPPIX. When rebuilding an iso, all you can edit is stuff outside of the cloop. That would be client.cfg, the boot codes used by default, and the bootup splashscreen.

To change what stuff runs as the system is starting via init... for instance vnc, for presetting a vnc password so you don't have to set it while the system is booting, and for let's say changing the GUI vnc uses (set to kde by default currently), that would take remastering the iso.

Remastering takes about an hour or so. You have to have a linux partition large enough to hold the uncompressed contents of the CD. You'd boot from the CD, extract the contents, alter the things that need altering, such as default configurations found in /etc/skel, or init scripts. Then you'd have to make a brand new cloop which takes a lot of ram and swap (1GB+) and anywhere from 25 minutes to an hour of processing, and from that build a new iso, which takes a minute or two. There are VERY good guides to remastering at www.knoppix.net/docs

In particular setting vnc to run at startup would take-

Soft-linking one of the handy vncserver scripts already included in the distro into the default runlevel's run control directory. Editing /etc/skel/.vnc/xstartup if you wanted vnc to run something besides KDE on the remote system. And writing your own script to take a vnc password file and place it where it needs to go so that the password is preset when vnc starts, rather than have it ask you to set one while its booting up. I'd have to play a bit to figure it out. I used to have vnc run by default and just have the user set the password during bootup.


So how much effort is this worth to you?

You can always bootup and then from your windows box use putty to ssh into the overclockix box, startvnc and set the password. You could even edit /home/knoppix/.vnc/xstartup
to change to fluxbox or icewm if you don't want vnc using KDE.

FYI there are scripts vnc800, vnc1024, and vnc1280 which start vnc servers at various resolutions. These are available as if they were system commands.

 

[CupCak3]

well, sounds like a have some work to do in front of me...

From what you describe, as of right now SSH should be fine for me. I'm going to read up on the remastering part and let my fedora or gentoo box fold away until i'm ready to remaster

Also, sorry for me being so retarded... I've been looking around the iso and I've came across set_FAH_username_b4_burning_how_to Maybe i should have poked around a bit b/f opening my big mouth

But I do have one final question, I'm looking in the isolinux.cfg and on the first line

DEFAULT linux24

when I change this to the startup to cmd line, do I need to do anything w/ these lines of code, or do I just leave them be?

LABEL knoppix
KERNEL linux24
APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi vga=791 initrd=minirt24.gz nomce quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix
LABEL linux26
KERNEL linux26
APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi vga=791 initrd=minirt26.gz nomce BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix
LABEL expert26
KERNEL linux26
APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi vga=791 initrd=minirt26.gz nomce BOOT_IMAGE=expert
LABEL knoppix26
KERNEL linux26
APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi vga=791 initrd=minirt26.gz nomce BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix
LABEL memtest
KERNEL memtest
APPEND initrd=
LABEL knoppix-txt
KERNEL linux24
APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi vga=normal initrd=minirt24.gz nomce quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix
LABEL expert
KERNEL linux24
APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi vga=791 initrd=minirt24.gz nomce BOOT_IMAGE=expert
LABEL fb1280x1024
KERNEL linux24
APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi vga=794 xmodule=fbdev initrd=minirt24.gz nomce quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix
LABEL fb1024x768
KERNEL linux24
APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi vga=791 xmodule=fbdev initrd=minirt24.gz nomce quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix
LABEL fb800x600
KERNEL linux24
APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi vga=788 xmodule=fbdev initrd=minirt24.gz nomce quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix
LABEL failsafe
KERNEL linux24
APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us vga=normal nosound noapic noacpi noscsi nodma noapm nousb nopcmcia nofirewire noagp nomce nodhcp xmodule=vesa initrd=minirt24.gz BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix
LABEL userdef
KERNEL linux24

I've looked around the docs and faq's on knoppix's website, so if I missed something that should have explained this, I appologize.



Thanks again!!!

 

[Arkaine23]

That file is where the default bootcodes are set. There's no need to make changes there unless you want to say have it automatically boot in text mode instead of in KDE without having to type the codes in when you're booting. As it is now, its all on-the-fly, where you specify what you want or else it just does the default graphical boot w/ KDE at the best resolution the hardware detection can figure out.

If for instance you want it to boot straight to text-mode everytime. Change the line in isolinux.cfg to

Default linux26
APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi vga=791 initrd=minirt26.gz nomce quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix26 2


Since you've got linux systems, I'd recommend not following the change client.cfg instructions on the CD (which are theoretical at best). Instead do the first few steps and very last step of remastering:

Boot your linux system from the Overclockix CD. Mount a Hard drive partition where you have a few GB of space to spare (ex is a /mnt/hda1):
mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/hda1

Make some space for the stuff on the CD:
mkdir -p /mnt/hda1/knx/master/KNOPPIX

Copy the stuff on CD to the hard drive space:
cp -Rp /cdrom/* /mnt/hda1/knx/master/KNOPPIX

Edit the client.cfg with your favorite text editor.

Then make a new iso.

mkisofs -pad -l -r -J -v -V "KNOPPIX" -no-emul-boot -boot-load-size 4 \
-boot-info-table -b boot/isolinux/isolinux.bin -c boot/isolinux/boot.cat \
-hide-rr-moved -o /mnt/hda1/knx/MyOverclockix.iso /mnt/hda1/knx/master

This will take about 10 minutes in total, most of it copying the files from CD to hard drive.


-Taken directly from the Remastering How-to on knoppix.net, with irrelevant steps skipped.



*Overclockix 3.79 is a slightly different animal. It has 2 folding services. One of them uses the client.cfg outside of cloop, the other does not. If you desire to personalize OCix 3.79, you'll have to do a full remaster of the clooped system to either (a) switch to the linux-client folding service or (b) edit the client.cfg the wine folding service uses. Either way, you have to extract and rebuild the cloop, aka full remastering. I can probably do a quick update and have this fixed, but that may take 48 hours or so for the iso to be available for download. 3.79's default wine folding service uses one that's in the compressed system, /usr/share/knoppix/profile/Fold/client.cfg. You can still skip a lot of the remastering steps... like no need to chroot or mount /proc or any of that.

**Overclockix 3.7 and LTSP 2.1 both use client.cfg's stored outside of cloop at the top of the CD for easy editing. Hmmm, but these have their own quirks. 3.7 runs 2 folding@home clients by default.

 

[CupCak3]

wow, you are awsome dude, that is exactly what i needed Hopefully when I get home tonight I'll be able to try my first hand at remastering and ftp it over to my xp box to burn.


I've been buying up good but cheap parts on some F/s forums to get a nice farm together...mostly athlonxp's and semprons. In the end i'll probably just put together the boxes w/ cpu, 256-768 RAM(depending on proc speed), mobo and cdrom. I'll probably end up w/ two different iso's... one booting to cmd line and other booting to fluxbox from your advice and from what I've read around,its pretty much the least cpu intensive of the GUI's Its really nice how much money you can save when you don't needs HDDs or vid cards. .... and all for a good cause to boot My next fun project will probably be doing network installs so i won't have to worry about the cd-roms


You've definately done some excellent work and are a great help Arkaine23... props to you!

 

[AlabamaCajun]

Arkaine, This is close to what I need, I'm going to try this out with my XP system using FD4 to do all the steps up to the point of burning the new master.

How much work would it be to ad a script to attemp mounting a USB jumpdrive at boot time and if it is there to do the following.
a) Use a config file to finish booting GUI and other options.
b) Run the folding client on and configurations.

This would allow the CD to remain virgin to the download. If it discovers the USB-JD then it uses information their. Now all I have to do to change something is to pull the JD, put it in my Fedora rig, Load F@H, edit configs, add tools etc. Then reboot the OCIX rig with the JD and let it Fold!

 

[Arkaine23]

Please if you are changing anything inside the cloop, remaster overclockix while booted in the same version of overclockix. Cloop is highly version dependent and kernel version-dependent. You must build it with the same modules that will be used to boot it later on the CD.

As for setting default cheatcodes and making it use a customized configuartion, in /boot/isolinux/isolinux.cfg

Default linux26
APPEND ramdisk_size=100000 init=/etc/init lang=us apm=power-off hda=scsi hdb=scsi hdc=scsi hdd=scsi hde=scsi hdf=scsi hdg=scsi hdh=scsi vga=791 initrd=minirt26.gz nomce quiet BOOT_IMAGE=knoppix26 home=scan and any other cheatcodes go here

home=scan activates the persistent home feature at boot. You can use this code from the CD as it is when you boot, but editing isolinux.cfg will make it automatic with the default boot options. Generally set this already, but I see browsing v3.79 that it's not there. I think that's because I chose to edit some other things which may have left persistent home broken or partially broken.

Persistent Home- You activate this feature when booted into the live environment. What it does is create an ext3 image of the /home/knoppix directory (which is where folding@home lives) onto a permanent writeable medium of your choice such as a hard drive partition or USB key. You will choose the size of this image when you create it. It will need to be on a fs type linux can read and write, so you can't put it on NTFS, but FAT32 is perfectly fine.

It's not merely a snapshot of /home/knoppix either. It is contstantly rsynced as the contents of /home/knoppix (which is a ramdisk) change. By using the cheatcode you're telling Overclockix to ignore the version of /home/knoppix which is on CD and scan all hard drives and usb drives for a previously saved version. The folding scripts are smart enough to realize when a persistent home is being used and will not overwrite the client.cfg or flags file with their defaults.

At least that is ideally how it works. As I said in 3.79 I made a compromise involving how the /home/knoppix default configurations are generated which might have broken persistent home. And the folding services in all currently available versions of Overclockix are radically different from each other.

Summary-
3.7 uses wine and runs 2 clients by deault, no LTSP. As far as I know this will work with persistent home no problem.
LTSP uses wine, creates one or 2 clients, LTSP capable. Should work with persistent home no problem.
3.79 uses wine, LTSP capable, might overwrite client.cfg if persistent home used, persistent home itself might be broken. It does come with an alternate folding service which is persistent home freindly, but would take remastering to switch it out with the default folding service.

In v3.79 it is line 1187 of /etc/init.d/knoppix-autoconfig which overwrites a lot of /home/knoppix with default configurations, whether or not persistent home is being used. Additionally some editing of /etc/X11/Xsession.d/45xsession may also contribute to persistent home not behaving as it was meant to.

These were design compromises because it can be very difficult to remaster Knoppix have have it actually use changes made to the KDE menu, kicker quicklaunch, and other customized desktop settings, because these things exist in multiple places and are called mulitple times by the 45xsession script while the system is booting and creating /home/knoppix.

 

[AlabamaCajun]

I will leave CD Mastering for a later date when I can free up a drive for an ext. I found that the standard CD boots on my new layer a PIII 800. The only caveat so far is the CD default boot wants to start two F@Hs so I will have to see if I can use one of the boot selectors and start it with a single. The other issue is I will have to use the console version as I only have 256M of ram. I do have 512M in my larger systems and the 754 Mobo in the plans for later. I was able to recognize the JumpDrive in KDE so I should be able to persist F@H with no problem. The next task is going to be getting use to the system and getting around. Thanks for the heads up.

 

[CupCak3]

AlabamaCajun

which cd are you using? i believe the new 3.4 cd only has one instance of folding auto-start. Besides that, I don't know the other differences.

 

[Arkaine23]

Sounds like you've got either v 3.7 or v LTSP 2.1. For 3.7 you can-

sudo foldoff
rm -rf /home/knoppix/fold2
sudo foldon

And it'll only be using one instance.


For LTSP 2.1, you can edit the /home/knoppix/Fold2/flags

add "-nofold" to that file as if it were a folding@home client flag. Then restart the folding service by clicking the foldservice.exe icon in /home/knoppix/Fold and choosing restart..

 

[Arkaine23]

3.4 is an older release and has not been updated in awhile. It autoruns 1 linux folding client and that's it. Should be fine as far as persitent home goes. Also its the only Overclockix that has gnome as an available desktop environment.