----------------------- BUGS (arranged from high to low priority) ----------------------- - Suspend/resume not fully functional on Windows, no way to suspend/resume on UNIX - Currently, if there are multiple CPUs they work on the same result - "Show Graphics" menu item brings up minimized window, client does not remember window size/pos after close/reopen, window closes and does not reopen when workunit finishes and new workunit starts - No easy way to quit/add projects on UNIX - "ACTIVE_TASK.check_app_status_files: could not delete slots\0\fraction_done.xml: -110" appears in stderr.txt on Windows - "no work available" appears sporadically though work is eventually assigned, not sure if it is assigned immediately or on next RPC - Should include option in Windows client or installer whether to run client at startup or not - Scheduler reply includes blank lines that XML parser complains about - boinc_gui.exe priority should be lower (?), launched app priorities should be very low - on final panel of install, add checkbox to let user view readme - Time to completion isn't too accurate, this is more of an Astropulse problem involving fraction_done - Report problems page on maggie doesn't link to anything - Host stats incorrectly reports number of times connected with same ip (unconfirmed) - CPU time updates infrequently (every 10 seconds), should there be a user control for this? - Client treats URL "maggie/ap/" different than URL "maggie/ap", though this isn't really a bug it might be good to fix anyway - Astropulse uses a lot of memory (~70 MB) b/c of the dispersion table, should this be decreased? - CPU time for a completed workunit is incorrect (unconfirmed) - client died quickly on Mandrake 9.0 linux (unconfirmed) - make pie chart colors/labels easier to understand - need a way to refresh prefs from client - columns expand when window expands ----------------------- HIGH-PRIORITY (should do for beta test) ----------------------- make get_local_ip_addr() work in all cases est_time_to_completion doesn't work for non-running tasks run backend programs (validate/file_deleter/assimilate) from crontab; document Windows client make mini-logo fix "unable to calculate" completed results: show final CPU time Messages from core client decide what messages should be shown to user, and how log file? GUI? dialog? ----------------------- MEDIUM-PRIORITY (should do before public release) ----------------------- protect project admin web pages (htaccess) get timezone working on all platforms Deadline mechanism for results - use in result dispatching - use in file uploading (decide what to upload next) - use in deciding when to make scheduler RPC (done already?) Testing framework better mechanisms to model server/client/communication failure better mechanisms to simulate large load do client/server on separate hosts? Delete files if needed to honor disk usage constraint inform user if this happens implement max bytes/sec network preferences Global preferences implement disk usage prefs time-of-day prefs? test propagation mechanism set up multi-project, multi-host test; change global prefs at one web site, make sure they propagate to all hosts limit on frequency of disk writes? max net traffic per day? implement in client Per-project preferences test project-specific prefs make example web edit pages make app that uses them set up a test with multiple projects test "add project" feature, GUI and cmdline test resource share mechanism CPU benchmarking review CPU benchmarks - do they do what we want? what to do when tests show hardware problem? How should we weight factors for credit? run CPU tests unobtrusively, periodically check that on/conn/active fracs are maintainted correctly check that bandwidth is measured correctly measure disk/mem size on all platforms get timezone to work CPU accounting in the presence of checkpoint/restart test Test nslots > 1 Redundancy checking and validation test the validation mechanism make sure credit is granted correctly make sure average, total credit maintained correctly for user, host Windows screensaver functionality idle-only behavior without screensaver - test Data transfer make sure restart of downloads works make sure restart of uploads works test download/upload with multiple data servers make sure it tries servers in succession, does exponential backoff if all fail review and document prioritization of transfers review protocol; make sure error returns are possible and handled correctly Scheduler Should dispatch results based on deadline? test that scheduler estimates WU completion time correctly test that scheduler sends right amount of work test that client estimates remaining work correctly, requests correct # of seconds test that hi/low water mark system works test that scheduler sends only feasible WUs Scheduler RPC formalize notion of "permanent failure" (e.g. can't download file) report perm failures to scheduler, record in DB make sure RPC backoff is done for any perm failure (in general, should never make back-to-back RPCs to a project) make sure that client eventually reloads master URL Application graphics finish design, implementation, doc, testing size, frame rate, whether to generate Work generation generation of upload signature is very slow prevent file_xfer->req1 from overflowing. This problems seems to be happening when the file_upload_handler returnes a message to the client that is large. This causes project->parsefile to get wrong input and so on. test HTTP redirect mechanism for all types of ops Add batch features to ops web ----------------------- LONG-TERM IDEAS AND PROJECTS ----------------------- use https for login (don't sent account ID or password in clear) CPU benchmarking This should be done by a pseudo-application rather than by the core client. This would eliminate the GUI-starvation problem, and would make it possible to have architecture-specific benchmarking programs (e.g. for graphics coprocessor) or project-specific programs. investigate binary diff mechanism for updating persistent files verify support for > 4 GB files everywhere use FTP instead of HTTP for file xfer?? measure speed diff Local scheduling more intelligent decision about when/what to work on - monitor VM situation, run small-footprint programs even if user active - monitor network usage, do net xfers if network idle even if user active The following would require client to accept connections: - clients can act as proxy scheduling server - exiting client can pass work to another client - client can transfer files to other clients User/host "reputation" keep track of % results bad, %results claimed > 2x granted credit both per-host and per-user. Make these visible to project, to that user (only) Storage validation periodic rehash of persistent files; compare results between hosts Include account ID in URL for file xfers This would let you verify network xfers by scanning web logs (could use that to give credit for xfers) WU/result sequence mechanism design/implement/document Multiple application files document, test Versioning think through issues involved in: compatibility of core client and scheduling server compatibility of core client and data server compatibility of core client and app version compatibility of core client and client state file? Need version numbers for protocols/interfaces? What messages to show user? Project? Persistent files test design/implement test reporting, retrieval mechanisms (do this using WU/results with null application?) NET_XFER_SET review logic; prevent one stream for starving others