Projects Tab
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[edit] General
The Projects Tab shows a list of the BOINC Powered Projects in which you are a Participant and are running on the computer that the BOINC Manager is currently monitoring, the Account Names that are in use and some summary information about your participation in each Project.
This is probably the third most heavily used of the information tabs. I usually use the Work Tab most, followed in short order by the Messages Tab, and then the Projects Tab.
The Projects Tab is the "central hub" of your interaction with the BOINC Powered Projects. Selecting a Project in the list in the Projects Tab allows you to "suspend", "activate", or contact the Project's Scheduling Server.
With some new features added in the late 4.4x Versions of the BOINC Client Software, the BOINC Powered Project can now set up additional buttons that directly connect you to various locations on their Web Site.
[edit] Content Overview
This tab, when selected, will display in the main pane, the names of the Projects that the Participant has "Attached" to this copy of the BOINC Client Software on the computer that the BOINC Manager is currently monitoring.
The number of rows in the display will be equal to all of the Projects that your have active on the computer that the BOINC Manager is monitoring.
The information shown for each BOINC Powered Project is:
- Project
- This column contains the name of the Project. This name can be short or long, but, gives you the indication of which Projects are Attached to this computer.
- Account
- This is the Account Name that has been established and is being used for this Project. In most cases this will be the Alias you have chosen for the Project, and for most people this will be the same for all of the Projects in which they participate.
- Team
- This column contains the name of the Team that you have joined, if any, for this Project. In the example shown, you can see that I am not on many Teams; this is because I need to quit and join teams so that I can document this stuff!
- You can join a team using the "Teams" Form, and quit the Team using the "Your Account" Page.
- Total Credit
- This column contains the value of the total number of Cobblestones of Credit you have earned for the Project. This number will only be current as of the last time that the BOINC Manager has contacted the Project's Scheduling Server and the amount of Credit that has been awarded to that point in time.
- Note:
- This value does not include Pending Credit
- Average Credit (Avg. Credit)
- This column contains the value of the Average Credit, A.K.A. Recent Average Credit. This is probably the worst understood aspect of the BOINC System, simply put, it is sort of a indication of the rate in which Credit is earned.
- My recommendation, ignore it. I certainly do!
- Resource Share
- This is the Resource Share assigned to the BOINC Powered Project on this computer. The Resource Share is set in the "Project Preferences" Page and is set as a number. My recommendation is to use a set of numbers that add up to 100 or 1,000 so that it reflects the percentages you want to use.
- In the example, it might show that I have selected the following Resource Shares for the Projects:
Project Resource Share Climateprediction.net 250 (25%) Einstein@Home 250 (25%) LHC@Home 250 (25%) Predictor@Home 150 (15%) SETI@Home 100 (10%)
- So, I am using numbers for Resource Shares that add up to 1,000; and the resulting allocations show up as the percentages that I desire. Keep in mind that if you have a Farm as I do, that these numbers may not work out perfectly across the entire set of computers. For example, the LHC@Home Project does not have a Science Application for the Macintosh, therefore, I cannot process work for them on my Macintosh computers.
- Status
BOINC Manager's "Projects" Tab - Project Suspended
- This column shows the current status of the Project. One or more of the following status indicators may be present in this column.
| Status | Description - Meaning |
|---|---|
| There is no special status. The BOINC Powered Project is operating normally. | |
| Communication Deferred hh:mm:ss | The BOINC Daemon has attempted to contact the Project's Scheduling Server and failed. Or although the contact was successful, the BOINC Daemon requested additional work and none was issued. In either case, a new Scheduler Request Message will be sent by the BOINC Daemon after the time period has passed. |
| Suspended by user | The Participant has halted work on this BOINC Powered Project by the use of the "Suspend" button in the "Tasks" pane. Work on this Project is enabled with the "Resume" button in the "Tasks" pane.
The most common usage of this feature will be to try to avoid having a Work Unit fail to complete before the Deadline. When you see that you have a Work Unit that you don't believe will be processed in time, you can suspend all other Projects so that the BOINC Daemon will only run the Science Application of the Projects not "suspended". |
| Won't get new work | The BOINC Daemon has been instructed to not fetch any new work from the BOINC Powered Project. This status is the result of the Participant activating the "No New Work" button in the "Tasks" pane. |
[edit] Tasks Overview - No Project Selected
When you have the Projects Tab open with no project selected, you have only one task that you can perform. And that is to "Attach" the BOINC Client Software to a BOINC Powered Project.
- Note:
- A detailed process to perform this task is contained within the BOINC "How-To" Guide "Attaching The BOINC Client Software To A BOINC Powered Project".
See the "Attach to Project" task below.
[edit] Tasks Overview - A Project Selected
If a project is selected, as shown in the second example, we have an increased number of Tasks that can be performed.
[edit] Update (Project)
- The "Update" option on the pop-up menu allows you to "force" a a communication with the project's Scheduling Server or Data Server to return Results and to obtain new Work Units, or to update the Preferences that you may have changed on the Project's Web Site or the BOINC Web Site.
Tip:
- The process to return results is a two stage process with the first stage being the return to the project of the Result Data File which contains the actual information that has been derived from the processing of the Work Unit on the Participant's computer.
- The second stage occurs when the BOINC Manager contacts the Scheduling Server to "report" the result. At this point the Work Unit is removed from the Work Tab.
[edit] Suspend (Project)
- When this link is clicked, the currently selected Project is placed into a "suspend" state. This means that the BOINC Daemon will no longer allocate any CPU Time towards any Work Units from that Project. There are several possible uses for this feature including:
- Forcing a temporary halt so that more time is allocated to a Project where work is possibly not going to be finished before the Deadline.
- My mind went blank …
[edit] No New Work (From Project)
This button allows you to "drain" your Work Buffer of the work on hand. Even if your Resource Share and Long Term Debt should require that work be downloaded, the BOINC Client Software will not obtain any new work from this Project. Work that has been committed to the client will finish downloading, processing, upload and report.
Using this button, for example, I drained my SETI@Home work before I installed the "Optimized" executable programs (explained in the BOINC "How-To" Guide "Installing an "Optimized" SETI@Home Science Application - Microsoft Windows®").
[edit] Reset Project
The last option on the pop-up menu on the Projects Tab in the BOINC Manager is the "Reset …" option. When this option is selected the dialog box asking for confirmation will appear. If you select "Yes" then you are going to force an action to clear the Work Units that are in the Work Manager's Queue and to reload the project's Science Application and restart processing. If you are having problems with processing, such as:
- Work Units never completing
- Work Units completing but failing to upload
The project may recommend that you perform a Project Reset. You should make sure that this is a desirable action and that it is the only way that you will be able to continue to process work for that project. I recommend though that you carefully check the Project's Web Site, Message Boards, FAQ, etc. before performing a project reset.
Like the "Detach" option, this is a fairly drastic step and once you press "Yes" the project is reset and there is no going back.
Double-Check that the project that is listed in the dialog window is the one that you want to reset.
[edit] Detach (From Project)
This option is to "Detach" from a Project. This will sever the connection between your computer and the Project's Data Servers. You will no longer be participating in that project, you will not process Work Units for that Project, and you will gain no additional Credit for processing Work Units for that Project.
This is a an option to quit working on that Project's data. Because this is such a drastic action, you will be presented with a confirmation dialog that asks you if you are sure. If you click "Yes" there is no turning back. You have just quit the Project.
What happens to your Project Account and to the work that you have done and all of the other myriad ways that you interacted with the project are subject to the Project's Policies. In most cases, my suspicion is that they will have a very liberal policy, and will welcome you back with open arms. They truly do want your participation.
But it is possible that the Project Account will be closed and you will have to open a new account. So, if the project has some milestone Badges, you may be starting at zero again. So, check the project's policies first before you detach from a project.
The "Detach …" option is a fairly drastic step and once you press "Yes" the Project and you are going your separate ways and there is no going back.
- Note:
- Detaching the computer that the BOINC Manager is monitoring only affects the one computer. If you have other computers doing work for this Project, they are not affected in any way by this action.
Double-Check that the project that is listed in the dialog window is the one that you no longer want to be a participant in.
[edit] Attach to New Project
This menu option, when selected, will open a modal dialog window that will allow you to "Attach" the BOINC Client Software to a specific BOINC Powered Project (in essence you inform the BOINC Client Software of your desire to participate in a BOINC Powered Project). For each project that you decide to participate in, you will have to use this menu option to tell the BOINC Manager where to go, and how to start processing Work Units for a specific BOINC Powered Project.
In general, the process to start participating in a BOINC Powered Project goes something like this:
- You hear about a "cool" Project from a friend, you stumble across one while surfing the web, or you used the resources on the BOINC Web Site to locate a project you are intrigued sufficiently that you decide that you want to participate in this project.
- Especially if this is your first project, I am going to recommend a couple things:
- Do a little research before embarking on your first project.
- Carefully review the project's recommendations on the minimum system requirements.
- Especially if this is your first project, I am going to recommend a couple things:
- You create and activate an Account, if you have not already done so.
- You will get an e-Mail from the project in reply to your account creation submission, with two things; a long string of stuff, this is your Account Key for the project, and along with the Account Key you will get a Project Master URL.
- You do want to safeguard this Account Key as you will need it on the off chance you have problems. If you have problems with your Account and need to re-activate it, well, you need this Account Key. Otherwise, you will have to create a new Account and all the Credit gained with the prior Account will not be transferable to the new Account (at this time we do not know of any project that will transfer Credit; since this is a Project Policy, well, you might luck out and find a project that will. I doubt it, but it could happen).
- You finish creating your Project Account by doing the Project Account Activation process using the Project Account Key sent to you by the e-Mail sent by the Project's Web Server.
- Now you download and install the BOINC Software (if this is your second project or later, of course this step is not required).
- At this point your are ready to connect to your project.
- You select the "Settings" menu and then the "Attach to Project …"
- You copy the information from the project's e-Mail into the two fields of this window.
- I strongly suggest that you use "cut and paste" to move the data from the e-Mail into the correct fields.
- Be careful that you do not accidentally include leading or trailing spaces in either the Account Key or Project Master URL they can cause severe problems in addition to not being able to attach to the project.
- After making sure you put the correct stuff into the correct fields, click "Ok".
- If you make a mistake, no one is looking (trust me, we aren't looking; and if you have any doubts about the truth, I know you sitting so maybe I am fibbing), click "cancel" and reopen the dialog box and entering the correct information.
- At this point, the BOINC Manager should contact the Data Server of the chosen project and it will download a project's Science Application (the project may have more than one science application) and some initial Work Units for you to start processing.
- If this is not your first project you must keep in mind that the BOINC Manager may not immediately connect to the project to obtain work.
- If the BOINC Manager is unable to contact the web site, the attempt to attach will fail and the usual error message says something like: "Master file fetch failed". If that happens, try it again. If it still fails, try the Project Master URL in your web browser.
- By trying the Project Master URL in the browser you are making sure your computer can reach that web site. Note that it is possible for security settings on your computer or network (assuming you are having the trouble at school or work) may be such that you cannot reach that web site.
- If you think that you have made a mistake, or want to exit without saving changes you can, of course, always click on the "Cancel" button and try again.
[edit] Web Sites
This block on the Projects Tab contains one or more buttons that will enable you to pull-up the web page on the Project's Web Site. The number and content of the buttons is Project specific.
[edit] "Web Sites" Climateprediction.net
[edit] "Web Sites" Einstein@Home
[edit] "Web Sites" SETI@Home
Web Site: BOINC
- When you click on the link named "BOINC"; one of the options for the "Web Site" pane, the computer's default browser will open to the first page of the BOINC Web Site. This allows you to jump quickly to the BOINC Project's Web Site; this is the location of the "official" documentation for the BOINC Software.
Web Site: "Project"
- When you click on the link named "Project"; one of the options for the "Web Site" pane, the computer's default browser will open to the first page of that Project's Web Site. This allows you to jump quickly to a Project's Web Site for the latest news, up-coming events, settings, etc. that are accessible through that Web Site.
If you have not selected a Project, this link will not be present.
[edit] Summary
The Projects Tab is the central place for working with the Projects that you are participating in, for the most part the main action here will be to use the "Update" option to force a connection to the Project to change the Preference Settings you have for one of the BOINC Powered Projects.
