Operational Tools: Applications and Versions

BOINC provides a few tools for creating and operating projects:

• Utility programs (such as add and create_work). These can be run manually or invoked from scripts.
• C++ functions (such as create_work()).
• Web interfaces (currently these provide only read access).

The Add utility program

The program add performs various types of initialization:

add app -app_name name

Create a new application (just creates a DB record).

add platform name -platform_name name

Create a platform record (just creates a DB record);

add app_version

-app_name x

-platform_name y

-version a

-download_dir d

-url_base e

-exec_dir b

[ -message x ]

[ -message_priority y ]

[ -code_sign_keyfile x -exec_files file1 file2 ... ]

[ -signed_exec_files file1 sign1 file2 sign2 ... ]

Create an app_version record. Copy the executable file(s) from the compilation directory (-exec_dir) to the download directory. If -exec_files is used, each executable file is signed using the given private key; this should be used only for test/debug purposes. If -signed_exec_files is used, the signatures are passed explicitly; this should be used for production purposes, where the signatures are generated on an offline computer. If -message is used, the version is tagged with the given message and optional priority.

add user -email_addr x -name y -web_password z -authenticator a

Create a user record.

add prefs -email_addr x -prefs_file y

Create a preference set, and make it the default preferences for the given user.

Web Interfaces

The file show_db.php in the operational web site directory displays the contents of the BOINC DB.