FredNotFred VM for -bigadv units [beta]

[fredfoobar]

Hello, fellow folders!

For those of you who are used to working with NotFred, I came up with a series of changes that allows NotFred to run -bigadv work units. I'm putting this up as an alternative to the virtual appliances mentioned here. Like a regular NotFred, FredNotFred is very lightweight - it can be run from a USB drive, a CD, or even a TFTP network boot - but unlike regular NotFred, FNF can run -bigadv units. Here are the changes I made from regular NotFred:

• Updated the client install to 6.24beta.
• Added in the drop-in client binary necessary to run -bigadv units.
• Added additional configuration options to the web interface:
  
  • Additional parameters (to pass to the client)
  • Hostname (the name of the VM on the network)
• Using the remote reboot script now backs up the WU data files before shutting down.

I'm looking for a few people willing to help me test this VM. You can find the *.vmx and *.vmdk files here:
http://www.blueshiftlabs.net/remote/downloads/folding/latest.zip

Give it a shot - try to break it. If you manage to get it to break, post about it here.

A few things to keep in mind:

• To run bigadv work units, put -bigadv in the additional parameters box. Also, make sure that the checkbox for advmethods units is turned OFF.
• The VM is configured to use 5GB of memory. If you have more memory to dedicate to folding, feel free to increase this number; likewise, if you don't plan on running -bigadv work units (for whatever reason), you can turn that value back down.
• You will need VMWare Player 3 to run this. DO NOT use VMWare Workstation - it chokes on anything above 4 processors. I haven't tried it in Server, but I imagine the results may be similar.
• As always when running -bigadv, keep an eye on your temperatures.

I'll keep this thread updated as I make updates to the VM. Let me know about any issues you encounter - be as specific as you can.

Update 2010/01/20: The VM has been updated. New features include a handful of bugfixes, removal of the quote requirement in the "additional parameters" box, and a working updater script. To update, wait for your current WU to finish, then shut down the VM, replace the .vmhd file with the replacement from the link, restart the VM, and rerun configuration. Future updates should be able to use the now-working updater client built into the VM.

Update 2010/01/21: Version 20100121 is now available. Please update your machines. I may post a manual-update script you can download and run with wget at some point later today. For now, please use the automatic updater (which is in an unknown working state) at http://YOUR.FNF.VM.IP/cgi-bin/update.cgi .

Thanks for taking part in my beta! Happy folding!

[7im]

Nice! You could call it "IsFred"

[stevehat1]

Link is not working for me

[weedacres]

Link is not working for me

Works for me.

[stevehat1]

Works now but files will not extract.....

[Spongebob25]

I get an error:

cp: cannot stat '/etc/folding/mpiexec': No Such file or directory

Login as "root" with no password required.
fold-3E2C login:

[fredfoobar]

I get an error:

cp: cannot stat '/etc/folding/mpiexec': No Such file or directory

Login as "root" with no password required.
fold-3E2C login:

Did you get any errors earlier about not being able to download the client software?

Also: Log in, then enter these commands at the prompt:

Code: Select all

# cd /etc/folding
# ls -l > /files.txt


Then go to \\fold-3e2c\C\files.txt (open it in WordPad so the line endings get fixed up), and paste the contents here.

Also: I'm currently fixing a rather showstopper error that causes your client.cfg file to not be generated properly. I'll let you know when the update is ready. You should be able to update from the web interface.

[fredfoobar]

Works now but files will not extract.....

Ahh, sorry about that. I tried a new compression method to keep the download sizes down and keep some load off my server, but it would seem that the Windows native ZIP handler doesn't like it too much. It should be fixed by the time you read this.

[hdr3]

how do you make a bootable iso from the vmdk?

[fredfoobar]

how do you make a bootable iso from the vmdk?

You'll need to load it up in VMware first. Then, if you go to http://YOUR.FNF.VM.IP/cd.html (replace the IP as necessary), it will let you generate a bootable CD. I haven't tested the CD generation functionality, so tell me if it works.

[hdr3]

that worked, will check tomorrow to see if it is crunching a bidadv wu

[tjmagneto]

I tried setting this up with VMWare Player 3.0 and ran into a RAM limit of 3600 MB when configuring the VM. How can I get to more than that? I edited the .vmx file but it did not help.

[stevehat1]

I tried setting this up with VMWare Player 3.0 and ran into a RAM limit of 3600 MB when configuring the VM. How can I get to more than that? I edited the .vmx file but it did not help.

Same here, also how can I clean out the -forceasm -smp 4 flags

[shdbcamping]

Wait
I've been running VM 3.0 for a while with the updated NotFred. Is something changed?

Oh, and yes it is with the -bigadv WU's. Occasionally i get a BAD WU that locks my system, but they are everywhere are they not? Are we saying that there will be NO bad WU's with this alternative?

Sean

[fredfoobar]

I tried setting this up with VMWare Player 3.0 and ran into a RAM limit of 3600 MB when configuring the VM. How can I get to more than that? I edited the .vmx file but it did not help.

Same here, also how can I clean out the -forceasm -smp 4 flags

As far as the RAM issue goes, that would be my mistake. Oops! I shipped the wrong version of the .vmx file, which used older virtual hardware that couldn't handle any more than 3600 MB. The newest release fixes this - you should be able to just replace the .vmx file. The default .vmx allocates 5GB to the VM - more than enough to run -bigadv units. If you are not running -bigadv, or have more memory, feel free to change this.

As far as cleaning out -forceasm goes, I removed that in this release. Not sure why it was there to begin with (that was NotFred's code, not mine), but it's gone now. As for the -smp 4, you can change the number of processors under the web reconfiguration interface (http://YOUR.FNF.VM.IP/, then scroll down to "Reconfigure"). If you want to run without SMP entirely, run the 32-bit kernel (which I haven't had the chance to test) by typing "fold" into the boot prompt. (Remember to turn down the RAM size if you do, otherwise you're just wasting RAM that the host OS could use.) Since you won't be using lots of memory without SMP running, running under 32bit isn't an issue.

Thanks for your interest!