Raspberry Pi BOINC Project

This project aims to have the Raspberry Pi running a BOINC project. Raspberry Pi runs an ARMv6 processor, which makes it difficult to cleanly run BOINC as there is little support for the platform.

I want to point out that you no longer need to build the client yourself. The project files I provide work directly with the currently available 7.0.27 BOINC package from the Raspbian repos. Jump to the Quickstart section for details.


Quickstart

This is for users that want to get going quickly with the project binaries I've made available below.

    theSkyNetPOGS
    Project files: https://github.com/dcarrion87/boinc-rpi/raw/master/bin/pogs-armv6l.tar.gz
    Project site: http://ec2-23-23-126-96.compute-1.amazonaws.com/pogs/

    SETI@Home NEW v7 Client
    Project files: https://github.com/dcarrion87/boinc-rpi/raw/master/bin/setiathomev7-armv6l.tar.gz
    Project site: http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/

    MilkyWay@Home 
    Project files: https://github.com/dcarrion87/boinc-rpi/raw/master/bin/milkyway-armv6l.tar.gz
    Project site: http://milkyway.cs.rpi.edu/milkyway/

    Einstein@Home (BRP)
    Project files: Removed link as http://albert.phys.uwm.edu supports natively.
    Project site: ...

    WUProp@Home (waiting for response from project admins)
    Project files: https://github.com/dcarrion87/boinc-rpi/raw/master/bin/wuprop-armv6l.tar.gz
    Project site: http://wuprop.boinc-af.org/

    OProject@Home (ALX)
    Project files: https://github.com/dcarrion87/boinc-rpi/raw/master/bin/oprojectalx-armv6l.tar.gz
    Project site: http://oproject.info

    SubsetSum@Home
    Project files: https://github.com/dcarrion87/boinc-rpi/raw/master/bin/subsetsum-armv6l.tar.gz
    Project site: http://volunteer.cs.und.edu/subset_sum/

Instructions - from the command line:

NOTE: Make sure you're root before you do this. Otherwise prefix appropriate commands with sudo.

1. Get the BOINC packages. This will vary depending on if you want graphical or not.

# apt-get install boinc 

2. Download one of the above project archives inside /var/lib/boinc-client.

# cd /var/lib/boinc-client
# wget https://github.com/dcarrion87/boinc-rpi/raw/master/bin/setiathomev7-armv6l.tar.gz

3. Extract the files.

# tar xfz setiathomev7-armv6l.tar.gz

4. Change permissions on the project folder to the "boinc" user that exists.

# chown -R boinc:boinc projects/

5. Start the client (if not already started). Adjust computing settings as required. E.g. "Run whilst in use".

NOTE: Add "ENABLED = 1" to /etc/init.d/boinc-client if you want to run as a service.

6. Attach the project. For command line users:

# boinccmd --lookup_account http://setiathome.berkeley.edu <your_email> <your_password>
status: Success
poll status: operation in progress
account key: <your_account_key>
# boinccmd --project_attach http://setiathome.berkeley.edu <your_account_key>

NOTE: Make sure that you're in the /var/lib/boinc-client folder when you do this ^.

After a while you should see jobs starting to kick off. Force update the project if this is not the case. Review /var/lib/boinc-client/stdoutdae.txt if you have problems.

To attach other projects, repeat from step 2, changing necessary URLs.

Old documentation follows....

Build Summary

Here's the basic summary of the "BOINC" build for the Raspberry Pi we’ll be working with

• Raspberry Pi Model B (512MB)
• 4GB SanDisk Extreme SDHC UHS-1 SD card
• Raspbian "wheezy" operating system
• BOINC version 6.12.34

For those that want to skip the instructional compilation part, here are some tarballs that you might find useful.

BOINC Starting Package

This contains BOINC + SETI + projects folder. You'll just need to install and run BOINC, get the project folder over, and attach to SETI. You can also recompile if you want.
    setiboincpi.tar.gz

Getting it ready

I assume you've already downloaded and configured your Raspberry Pi system to the point where you can login remotely. Go to http://www.raspberrypi.org/downloads if you haven't done so yet. You'll need Raspbian "wheezy". This should work on any Linux version, however, this instruction was completed on Raspbian.

Although BAD practice, everything from now on is being done as root (for simplicity).

Firstly, make sure you’re up to date:

# apt-get update ; apt-get upgrade

You’ll then need to get a few packages that are required for building BOINC:

# apt-get install libfftw3-dev m4 autoconf libcurl4-openssl-dev subversion

Building BOINC

We’re going to grab BOINC from the SVN repo. We’ll be using version 6.12.34 as there is some heartbeat/timer problems with 7.X version and SETI@home that I still haven’t worked out how to fix.

Let’s prepare BOINC:

# mkdir /usr/local/src

# cd /usr/local/src

# svn co http://boinc.berkeley.edu/svn/tags/boinc_core_release_6_12_34 boinc

# cd boinc

# ./_autosetup

# ./configure --disable-server

# make

# make install

# mkdir /var/lib/boinc

# /usr/local/bin/boinc --daemon --redirectio --dir /var/lib/boinc

You should now have a functioning BOINC client you can control with boinccmd. I will post back here with an init script you can use. I assume you know how to create a separate boinc user account for running it as a non-root user.

Adding a Project (SETI@Home Enhanced)

We’ll need to compile a version of SETI that will work with our ARM platform. I’ll be using the original source for 6.12 from the Ubuntu launchpad site. Feel free to get it from SETIs SVN repo site (rev 316 I think). I just used this particular version as there seems to be some success with it on UNIX platforms.

Let’s prepare SETI:

           

# cd /usr/local/src

# wget https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/+archive/primary/+files/boinc-app-seti_6.12~svn1305.orig.tar.gz

# tar xf boinc-app-seti_6.12~svn1305.orig.tar.gz

# mv boinc-app-seti-SNAPSHOT seti_boinc

# cd seti_boinc

# ./_autosetup

# ./configure –disable-server

# make

           

You’ll now have a file called setiathome-6.12.armv6l-unknown-linux-gnu under the client directory. It’s time to setup the anonymous platform project for SETI.

# mkdir -p /var/lib/boinc/projects/setiathome.berkeley.edu

# cd /var/lib/boinc/projects/setiathome.berkeley.edu

# cp /usr/local/src/seti_boinc/client/setiathome-6.12.armv6l-unknown-linux-gnu setiathome_enhanced

# vi app_info.xml

You'll need something like this in the app_info.xml file:

<app_info>

    <app>

        <name>setiathome_enhanced</name>

    </app>

    <file_info>

        <name>setiathome_enhanced</name>

        <executable/>

    </file_info>

    <app_version>

        <app_name>setiathome_enhanced</app_name>

        <version_num>603</version_num>

        <file_ref>

            <file_name>setiathome_enhanced</file_name>

            <main_program/>

        </file_ref>

    </app_version>

</app_info>

It’s now time to add your SETI@home project under your account key:

# boinccmd --project_attach http://setiathome.berkeley.edu 123abc

You'll need to change the key to your own. You can find this out using:

# boinccmd --lookup_account http://setiathome.berkeley.edu my@email.com password

That’s it! You should soon get tasks assigned to you. You can always force an update via boinccmd if you’re impatient.

Give it a bit more grunt!

Well not a lot more, but you can overclock these little Pi’s.

WARNING: Overclocking can cause serious damage to your board components. By doing this you are risking damage to your board. I will not provide warranty for you. Do this at your own risk.

Your first option is to just to "sudo raspi-config". It gives you a text ui to navigate to the over-clocking options. For those that want to manually edit the config, here's where you go:

# vi /boot/config.txt

Add these lines:

arm_freq=950

core_freq=250

sdram_freq=450

over_voltage=6

force_turbo=1

This will take your board up to 950MHz (constant). The force_turbo option overrides the scaling governor. I found the scaling governor to take too long in upping the frequency automatically. Even though it's not stock, you'll probably want to get some heatsinks for those 3 little chips that tend to heat up on the board. They're not expensive.

You’ll want to reboot the machine and re-run BOINC benchmarks:

# boinccmd --run_benchmarks

Lets have a look at what sort of MIPS we're pushing:

# grep MIPS /var/lib/boinc/stdoutdae.txt
23-Nov-2012 00:40:23 [---]    323 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
23-Nov-2012 00:40:23 [---]    1275 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU

Fairly poor really. However, we're in it for the low wattage.

Now what?

Now you wait patiently as your Raspberry Pi crunches away. You can keep track of tasks by running:


# boinccmd --get_tasks


I suggest you familiarize yourself with some of the commands at http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Boinccmd_tool as you'll be using these to control your boinc client.

Have a look at configuring remote RPC if you have a frontend tool you want to use. You can find information about this at http://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Controlling_BOINC_remotely.