How it works
It's easy to participate in a BOINC project:
download and install BOINC.
You will be asked to enter the project's URL, your email address,
and a password.
That's it!
When you run BOINC on your PC, it does the following:
- Your PC gets a set of instructions from the project's
scheduling server.
The instructions depend on your PC: for example,
the server won't give it work that requires more RAM than you have.
The instructions may include many multiple pieces of work.
Projects can support several applications,
and the server may send you work from any of them.
-
Your PC downloads executable and input files
from the project's data server.
If the project releases new versions of its applications,
the executable files are downloaded automatically to your PC.
- Your PC runs the application programs, producing output files.
- Your PC uploads the output files to the data server.
-
Later (up to several days later, depending on your
preferences)
your PC reports the completed results to the scheduling server,
and gets instructions for more work.
This cycle is repeated indefinitely.
BOINC does this all automatically; you don't have to do anything.
Credit
The project's server keeps track of how much work
your computer has done; this is called credit.
To ensure that credit is granted fairly,
most BOINC projects work as follows:
- Each work unit may be sent to several computers.
- When a computer reports a result,
it claims a certain amount of credit,
based on how much CPU time was used.
- When at least two results have been returned,
the server compares them.
If the results agree, then users are granted
the smaller of the claimed credits.
Please keep in mind:
-
There may be a delay of several days between
when your computer reports a result
and when it is granted credit for the result.
Your User page shows you how much credit is 'pending'
(claimed but not granted).
-
The credit-granting process starts when your computer reports
a result to the server
(not when it finishes computing the result
or uploading the output files).
-
In rare cases (e.g. if errors occur on one or more computers)
you may never receive credit for a computation.
How the software works
The BOINC client software looks and acts like a single program,
but it's actually made up of several separate programs :
- The core client (named boinc.exe on Windows) communicates
with external servers to get and report work.
It runs and controls applications.
- Applications are the programs that do scientific computing.
Several of them may run at the same time on a computer
with more than one CPU.
- The BOINC Manager, or GUI, (named boincmgr.exe on Windows)
provides a graphical interface that lets you control the core client -
for example, by telling it to suspend and resume applications.
The GUI communicates with the core client by a TCP connection.
Normally this is a local connection;
however, it's possible to control a core client remotely.
- The screensaver runs when you're away from the computer.
It communicates with the core client by local TCP,
instructing it to tell one of the applications to generate
screensaver graphics.
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