Multiple Computers - 1 Test

[CrackDaddy]

I'm an admin for several workstations and was considering having them run SoB during their down times, nights and weekends. From what i have read and a little testing that i have done it looks as though each cleint works on a seperate test. Is there a way to force them all to process blocks from the same test. The main reason for this is that whenever the machines get rebooted they are wiped clean which is the way that we want our systems to run. The app would be installed while the computer is locked down and run for 5 hrs a night weekdays and Friday from 3PM to Monday 3AM and on these machines they would not be able to complete a full test but if they worked on the same test i wouldn't have to worry about each of them starting several and never completing them.

CD

[hc_grove]

Originally posted by CrackDaddy
I'm an admin for several workstations and was considering having them run SoB during their down times, nights and weekends. From what i have read and a little testing that i have done it looks as though each cleint works on a seperate test. Is there a way to force them all to process blocks from the same test.


No, because that isn't possible. The calculations for one test must be done sequentially.

[wirthi]

What he means with other words is: is there a possibility to make transfer not-yet-completed tests from one computer to another and doing that automatically.

Well, there COULD be a possiblity to send back half finished workunits for another computer to continue them but that's not done right now since there is too mch data that would have to be transfered.

I know it's possible to transfer half finished workunits manually from one computer to another. AFAIK that's quite easy when you use the linux client but harder when using the windows client. You have to transfer the temporary files from the client directory and some registry keys (when using windows). There are already a few threads in this forums that will give you more details on this.

[CrackDaddy]

Actually the first reply was correct as to my goals i believe. I have a script that can install SoB as a service on the machines I control. It also starts the service I have the script set to run on a scheduled time. All of the machine run the same script. So far everything would work fine except for the problem of none of the work can be permenantly saved to the HD. The hard drives they are locked down such that on reboot all changes will be reverted to standard image. So all of the data as to which test and or wu I was on is lost. I would hate to check out 100+ tests per day only to not finish them.
Maybe there is a better project for my systems but i would prefer this one just because of compitition between a friend.
Currently i have 30 733P3's, 25 933P3's, 20 1.8P4's and twoards the end of this summer I will have an additional 60 2.6P4's.

CD

[Frodo42]

If the machines run Linux I would make a script that uploaded cache and z* to somewhere and then when I installed it next time I would download the files again to continue where I left of.
With windows and all the registration stuff I guess it's a little more complicated than that, but perhaps it could be done ...

Anyways sounds like a nice big park of boxes that could do this project some good.
Have you considered sieving or factoring as these can be distributed over computers.

[CrackDaddy]

Hadn't looked into it Sieving or Factoring quite yet but it was a consideration. I was hoping to get my machines working on finding primes. I was hoping that i would be able to distribute the wu from the same test to seperate machines. Because none of the full tests would be able to be saved nicely. The other option that i have not attempted was to write a windows script to copy the data to/from a folder based on machine name to a shared drive.

CD

[mastervince5]

Maybe you should consider some other similar projects, also in the quest of primes, and where with your resources, you most definitely will find one or more.

http://www.b2project.com

Here you will find 2 very interesting projects

The rieselsieve project with 91 primes waiting to be found (they found 2 primes in the last 3 days, both made it of course into the top 5000 of largest primes, one was a 260000 digit prime (place 50 in the list of largest primes ever).

And the prime sierpinski project (you could call it SB2), with 17 primes waiting to be discovered.

Both are fairly new projects, just starting to grow, you can check the forums for more info.

Good luck finding primes

[Keroberts1]

with resources that size you could distribute your machines over factoring and sieving and overtake the sieving stat single handed in a few days while helping the factoring team stay ahead of the PRP window. You would probably also eliminate several thousand tests that would have other wise taken your same machines many years to complete. However you will not find a prime which is a shame. If your eventual goal is to see this project completed then at this time sieving and factoring would be the best place for your machines. Not that I'm happy to say this because i rather enjoy my spot in the stats (5 right now and soon to be 4 if things go my way with another machine i hope to get) and I expect that I'll be bumped down quite quickly if you direct your computers towards our direction.

[Mystwalker]

Another (esp. a short-time solution) option would be running "supersecret" tests. These are double-checks (or maybe triple-checks) or past tests, which helps to avoid false test results.

They should be finishable within 5 hours at least for the P4s. The 933 MHz machines also most likely do the job. With 733 MHz, it's gets close to my knowledge. But I'm not completely sure...

[Nuri]

To run a supersecret test, all you have to do is to change your username to supersecret. That way, you'll get the lowest available n value tests for the project (which is around 650,000 currently).

Alternatively, you can also use secret account the same way. This time you'll be getting relatively larger, but still small tests (i.e. n @ 2,010,000 currently).


http://www.seventeenorbust.com/stats/users/user.mhtml?userID=3

http://www.seventeenorbust.com/stats/users/user.mhtml?userID=4

http://www.seventeenorbust.com/secret

[CrackDaddy]

Well the outlook is that i will try doing some sieving for a little while a most of my machines. Is there a good getting started doc somwhere. I've downloaded the proth_sieve with the sob.dat and sobistrator.exe for management. I haven't found a good doc with setup for the sobistrator. I'll probably start with info requests in the Seiving forum after a bit more searching.

CD

[Death]

you can done 17oB! as you wish not so easy but its possible.
you need to export\import some registry values every time you start\shutdown your clients. also you need file z??????? in a SB folder.
you can use regedit for this.

but remember you had to done single test at 30 days period or it will be expired.


http://techsupt.winbatch.com/TS/T000001029F18.html

Regedit Command Line Options

Note that some of these options may not apply to all Windows operating systems.
The syntax to follow is:

regedit.exe [options] [filename]

For example: regedit.exe /s myfile.reg
/s
Using this option(as in the example above) imports the reg file without any confirmation. It hides the dialog box stating that your file has been successfuly imported into the registry.
/e
This option is used to export the registry or part of it to a file. example: regedit.exe /e myfile.reg HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE
This would export the entire Software key to myfile.reg.

Note that it doesn't have to be a reg file you export to - it can be a text or document file, as well.

/L:system /R:user
This is to specify the location of the system.dat and user.dat files to use
Example:

regedit /l:c:\windows\system.dat /r:c:\windows\user.dat /e c:\windows\newreg.reg

This would be used in native dos to export the entire contents of system.dat and user.dat to newreg.dat
/c
This stands for create
Example:

regedit /l:c:\windows\system.dat /r:c:\windows\user.dat /c c:\windows\newreg.reg

This would create a new registry from the contents of "c:\windows\newreg.reg"and is normally used in conjunction with the previous example. Note - your current system.dat and user.dat are destroyed during this process. New dat files are built from the contents of newreg.reg
/d
This is to specify a key to delete and is available only in Win98\Me
Example:

regedit /l:c:\windows\system.dat /r:c:\windows\user.dat /d HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\McAfee

[Keroberts1]

how many machines are you devoting ot sieving crackdaddy? I was just curious because wiht the resources you named before you hould be completing around 180 G a night in the 5 hour window you named. You haven't been submitting that many factors though? are you running PRP tests too? maybe super secrets? How did oyu solve the problem of tests not being completed?

[CrackDaddy]

The lab of 1.8 P4's i'm sharing with another cruncher. All of the classes have been finished in that lab for a couple of weeks and the room locked up so I was able to run SoB on the lab without worries of losing tests. I've been experimentsing with proth sieve trying to get my script to copy and start the siever. Then to have sobistrator add blocks to the nextfact.txt. I've been rather busy managing the lab with finals so I haven't had a whole lot of time to test my scripts. During the summer I should be able to devote the machines pretty continuously to crunhing.

CD

[Keroberts1]

that would be wonderful do you mean full time as in not just 5 hours a day? if oyu had that many machines full time doing prps you'd probably be one of the biggest crunchers here if not the biggest. especially if oyu get those 60 P4's you menthion earlier the 2.6 G ones. The 933 adn the 733 should probably be left to sieving though because they would take almost a month to finish even a single tests right now and if oyu happened to have a prime in one of those machines then during that month hundreds of tests would be getting assigned needlesly.