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Citizen Cyberlab: a new project accepted by the European Union
Dear all,

A few months ago we asked you for opinions on ways to combine projects like T4T with online learning. Your feedback was really useful for preparing a funding proposal on this theme, and it's a pleasure to announce that the proposed project, called Citizen Cyberlab, has been accepted by the European Commission.

The project will involve a number of institutions in London, Paris and Geneva, including CERN – you can read more about it in the first comment of this post. A specific goal for CERN in the project will be to build an educational game based on LHC@home.

The project should start by the end of this year. However, we plan to start improving the links between LHC@home and online education already this summer, in a collaboration between Peer-to-Peer University (P2PU) and the Citizen Cyberscience Centre. I look forward to telling you more about that when the project kicks off in June.

Best Regards,

The team!

16 May 2012 | 7:24:56 UTC · Comment


New bug fix release for the virtual machine
Dear all,

We have just deployed a new revision of the current Virtual Machine 2.5.1-3-1.1 that should improve the stability of the system and reduce the errors with the floppy device.

The queue has right now new WUs with this VM, so you will get it in the next few days.

Best regards,

The team

24 Feb 2012 | 8:04:51 UTC · Comment


P2P University challenge
Dear all,

As a joint effort of the Test4Theory team and the P2P University, we are glad to announce that we have created the first challenge to help people to become a volunteer in scientific projects thanks to BOINC.

The challenge has three tasks, and gives the opportunity to everyone to learn how you can from your home be part of the scientific community, joining different projects and solving easy tasks (installing BOINC, posting your first credits, etc.)

This first challenge will help other people to join any BOINC project. The next step will be the creation of a specific challenge to join Test4Theory, as this research project is a bit more complicated due to we need to install VirtualBox.

If you want to help us in getting more people involved in this project, as well as in the BOINC community, don't hesitate and join the P2P Test4Theory study group, and help us creating new challenges, mentoring new users, etc.

As usual any comments and feedback are welcome!

Best regards,

The team!

Update: The P2PUniversity has a blog post about the challenge :)

21 Feb 2012 | 15:47:18 UTC · Comment


CernVM Wrapper 7.07 is out!!
Dear all,

Today we have released a new version of the wrapper, that restores the previous 7.05 version behavior for pausing/saving the VM.

This new release does not abort the VM after 10 failed tries to suspend or save the VM. The previous 7.05 behavior has been restored, but the log file will be populated with 7.06 messages.

If you were suffering errors from the previous wrapper, you should get the new one asking for a new WU.

Best regards,

The team

21 Feb 2012 | 10:41:02 UTC · Comment


The 2nd Citizen Cyberscience Summit: Feb 16 - 18, 2012
Dear all,

We are happy to announce that this week the project Test4Theory will be present in the 2nd Citizen Cyberscience Summit in London.

Dr. Ben Segal will be presenting the project and the status in a panel session about volunteer computing this Friday afternoon (check the details of the program!)

And on Saturday there will be a hackday around citizen cyberscience, with one special challenge for LHC@Home. As many of you know, we have created a study group in the P2P University, and we will be inviting people from the summit to join us to create some courses/challenges for this study group.

The first courses/challenges could be about how a person can join a BOINC project, with special focus for LHC@Home (Sixtrack and Test4Theory), the requirements, how you can check the results, etc. If you are in London and want to participate, just register (there are only 36 tickets left!) and join us to create some courses/challenges for LHC@Home study group.

Best regards,

The team!

UPDATE You can watch online the talks, check this broadcast tomorrow morning!.

13 Feb 2012 | 12:52:22 UTC · Comment


New wrapper bug fix released
Dear all,

We are happy to announce that thanks to your reports and feedback, you discovered a bug in the wrapper, and now has been fixed.

The bug was causing that some VMs were not paused or saved even though the command was issued.

The new bug fix released today should solve this problem, as it will check for 10 times if the VM is paused or saved before moving to the next step. If after 10 times it has not been possible to pause or save the VM, the WU will be aborted, as for some reason the VM is not responding.

You will get the new wrapper version when your computer finishes your current WU.

Best regards,

The team!

13 Feb 2012 | 12:38:33 UTC · Comment


Disruptions caused by weather
Dear all,

Yesterday and today we have had some power cuts at CERN caused in most cases by the bad weather that we are having these days.

The systems are back and running again normally, however, we may suffer again some disruptions due to the weather.

Just look at these photos from two days ago! (Thanks to the Flickr community)




Check the full album!! The photos are impressive!

Best Regards,

The Team!

10 Feb 2012 | 13:23:51 UTC · Comment


Power cuts affecting the project
Dear all,

There are some power cuts at CERN, and some of the servers are affected.

We will inform you when everything is back to normal operation.

Thanks for your understanding.

The team.

Update
Dear all,

The system is up and running again!

Thanks for your understanding.

The team!

Update 2
Dear all,

Unfortunately we are suffering today again some power cuts. We are working in the recovery of the systems. As soon as everything is back to normal, we will inform you.

Best regards,

The Team!

9 Feb 2012 | 14:57:15 UTC · Comment


New Virtual Machine released
Dear all,

We are very happy to announce that we have released today a new virtual machine (cernvm_2.5.1-3-1).

This new version has several improvements at the low level that will help to improve the number of returned successful jobs.

You will get the new virtual machine when all the jobs with the previous VM version have been processed.

Best regards,

The team.

2 Feb 2012 | 11:33:19 UTC · Comment


Web application not working
Dear all,

During this week you are going to experience some minor problems with the web application, as we are deploying it in your VMs. While the deployment is done, you will get the warning message from the web application, saying that your browser does not support HTML5 and Javascript, but giving you access to the figures and logs via two links.

This warning message will be removed, once we have finally done the deployment.

Sorry for the inconveniences.

Best regards,

The team.

UPDATE: The new web application has been deployed in our servers. In one hour you should be able to reboot the VM if you want to see the new application or wait until your WU finishes. The next WU will have the updated code.

30 Jan 2012 | 10:27:08 UTC · Comment


Video tutorial for the web application
Dear all,

Today you can test a new feature that we are developing for the web application: an HTML5 video-tutorial that interacts actively with your web application user interface.

For this development, we are using pure HTML5 + CSS3 + Javascript. The video tutorial uses the latest and open source code for video encoding from Google: Webm, so only modern web browsers like Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome will be able to play it (these browsers are free and open source!).

The result, well, I think it is better if you try it by yourself. Go to

http://www.citizencyberscience.net/t4t-webapp-help/

and leave a comment here if you like it or not ;) We would love your feedback!.


Enjoy!!!

20 Jan 2012 | 8:03:43 UTC · Comment


Multi-core disabled by default
Dear all,

Due to all the last problems that we are having with the latest wrapper, we decided to follow your advise and give you the opportunity to choose if you want to run or not multi-core work units.

Right now the multi-core feature is disabled for everyone, so your next work unit will have only one core. If you want to run two core WUs, and you have enabled in your BIOS the virtualization extensions, go to the project preferences, and change the answer to this question from yes to no: Use only one single core?

If you were having problems with the multi-core feature this should fix your problems, as by default now you have to ask the project to give you jobs for two cores. This will help all the users with a multi-core processor but without the VT extensions or those with VT extensions but disabled in the BIOS.

As usual, let us know if this is failing for you.

Best regards,

The team!

18 Jan 2012 | 16:16:43 UTC · Comment


Multi-core, Headless mode and web application finally relased!
Dear all,

We are really happy to announce that we have finally released the "last" new version of our wrapper with a new virtual machine.

The new version finally enables all the following features:


As usual, you can get the latest version canceling the running WU or waiting for the new one. Remember that if you cancel the running WU you will lose the credit.

EDIT: 7.05 has been released as version 7.04 had some minor bugs. The fixes are:



Edit 2: In order to benefit from the Headless Mode in Windows machines, you need to have the latest available stable version of VirtualBox (Thanks to Kasuha for reminding me this issue!)

Best regards,

The team!

16 Jan 2012 | 13:51:57 UTC · Comment


Viewing the simulation output of your virtual machine
Dear all,

We have been working pretty hard to give you an interesting tool to see what is going on in your virtual machine. Nowadays everything is web based and with the introduction of HTML5, new exciting and high end applications are blooming every day.

In T4T we love these technologies as they are open source and widely spread in modern, free and open source web browsers like Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome.

For these reasons, we have created a web application that will be installed in the virtual machine BOINC_VM and that will allow you to see the progress of the experiments from the comfort of your web browser.

We have a demo and live site where you can see the web application, and play with it. As you will see the web application will give you direct access to the simulations, and also some information about your BOINC credit and stats. You will have access also to all the LOGs, so sharing feedback about bugs in Co-Pilot, the experiments, etc. it will be easier than ever: you will be able to copy and paste text directly from the VM, no more screenshots!

The application is open source, so feel free to download it, modify it, etc. and give us feedback in the issues repository or this thread.

We hope you like it, as we are really very happy with it.

Best Regards,

The team!

PS: next week you will see this in your next work unit, so stay tuned!!

13 Jan 2012 | 10:02:36 UTC · Comment


Evaluating and stimulating learning and creativity in projects like T4T
Hi!

I'd like your feedback on the following idea.

With colleagues at the Citizen Cyberscience Centre, we are preparing a proposal for an EC project to evaluate and stimulate learning and creativity in citizen cyberscience projects.

Basically, volunteers like you do a lot of great work in projects like T4T. Sometimes what you do is very creative. And by participating, some of you also learn new skills.

So the idea is to find ways to measure and validate your creative contributions and your learning, and improve the software that allows you to do that. For example, this could be by introducing transferable badges or other forms of 'education credit' that could be used more widely – maybe even transferred to University credits or used in CVs in some cases.

What do you think of that idea?

Just so you know, we'd like to include any useful feedback in the proposal, to illustrate that volunteers actually care about this sort of issue and have good ideas and suggestions about how to handle it.

Thanks in advance!

3 Jan 2012 | 13:26:28 UTC · Comment


CERN end of year shutdown
Starting tomorrow, December 22nd, CERN closes for the holiday period and reopens on January 5th, 2012. During this time, our project will operate on a "best-effort" basis. No special action is needed by volunteers but the flow of jobs may be interrupted and the T4T web site itself may not respond in the case of power cuts.

We send our holiday and New Year greetings to all our volunteers and thank everyone who contributed to T4T's very successful first year of growth and development. We have a New Year present ready to announce when we come back: a major T4T revision including much more detailed information for volunteers on the CERN jobs they are running.

See you next year,

The team!


21 Dec 2011 | 14:25:20 UTC · Comment


REMINDER: CERN Power cuts again this weekend
As we warned everyone recently, there are currently power cuts at CERN that may affect some of the services of our T4T project (Co-Pilot, web pages, etc.)

No special action is necessary for volunteers to take, but the flow of CERN jobs may be interrupted.

The reason for the power cuts is that every winter CERN makes a switch between French and Swiss electricity suppliers, and before the switch is made CERN engineering services perform a series of tests at weekends which involve power outages.

Thanks a lot for your understanding.

Best regards,

The team!

17 Dec 2011 | 17:16:59 UTC · Comment


Dr. Peter Skands, science project leader of T4T, is interviewed by the BBC
Dear all,

Dr. Peter Skands, the science project leader of the project, and the former CMS spokesman Jim Virdee have been interviewed by the BBC Radio 4. You can listen the interview in this link. Enjoy!

Regards,

The team!

16 Dec 2011 | 9:27:44 UTC · Comment


Google+ Hangout less than 2 hours
Dear all,

Update:

We are setting everything up!!! For the web chat, please, click in the following link and enter a username and a password (they can be fake, no problem ;)):

http://test4theory.talkerapp.com/r/7c57f6

For joining the Hangout, visit Daniel's Google Profile and click in join the hangout when available.

Cheers!!

The team!!

16 Dec 2011 | 9:21:43 UTC · Comment


CERN Power restored
Power is back and CoPilot is restarted - sorry for the alarm for such a short outage but we could not predict the time it would take as it was unscheduled.

All is back to happy crunching (:-))

14 Dec 2011 | 17:17:46 UTC · Comment


Unscheduled CERN Power Cut
Dear all,

There has just been an unannounced power cut at CERN affecting our CoPilot service. The supply of new jobs and uploading of completed job results will be delayed.

NOTE: no special action needs to be taken by volunteers. We will advise you when power gets restored.

14 Dec 2011 | 16:54:19 UTC · Comment


Power cuts affecting the project
Dear all,

The next two weekends (i.e. December 10-11 and 17-18) there will be power cuts at CERN that may affect some of the services of the project (Co-Pilot, web pages, etc.)

We will do our best to keep the services up and running, but no warranties, sorry.

The reason for the power cuts is that every winter CERN makes a switch between French and Swiss electricity suppliers, and before the switch is made CERN engineering services perform series of tests which involve power outages.

Thanks a lot for your understanding.

Best regards,

The team!

7 Dec 2011 | 14:13:50 UTC · Comment


Join us in a Google+ Hangout!
Dear all,

Write down the following date in your agenda: the 16th of December of 2011 at 12.00 noon (Geneva time) we will be hanging out with you using Google+ Hangouts.

Google+ Hangouts is a live video where 10 people can video-chat directly from their browsers. In this Google+ Hangout you will have the chance to meet some of the developers and researchers of the project in person and more importantly: to talk with them.

If you want to meet us, ask us questions about the future of the project, complain about why is failing so much (we are still in beta ;D ), etc. you will only need a Google+ account (they are free!) and visit Daniel Lombraña González profile page (he will be the host). Then the 16th of December you will see in your stream (if you have added him to your circles) or in Daniel's public profile that Daniel has started a hangout and that you can join it. Remember only the first 10 persons will be able to join (sorry, maximum capacity set by Google).

Regards,

The team!

29 Nov 2011 | 15:15:24 UTC · Comment


Upgrade BOINC client to version >= 6.12.34
In the last days we have upgraded the server to benefit from some of the new features related to virtual machines included in the BOINC server.

The BOINC client has been also improved with new features for virtual machines and we want to test them (detection of VirtualBox, installation, etc.), for this reason we want you to upgrade to the latest stable version of the BOINC client.

Meanwhile, we will add more WUs for the old BOINC clients, so you can keep working with the project. However, we will be moving forward gradually tothe latest stable versions of BOINC as this will help everyone to have a more stable work flow, so if you can, upgrade your BOINC client.

Regards,

The team

15 Nov 2011 | 9:48:01 UTC · Comment


Test4theory is fully opening up for new volunteers!
We have finally reached a point where the system seems to be very stable (thanks to all the volunteers that have collaborated!), so we are opening up Test4Theory again: the invitation code is no longer necessary for joining the project.

Please, remember that this project is still in beta, and we may close the registration if we detect a problem due to a large influx of new volunteers. Thanks for your understanding!

The Team!

14 Nov 2011 | 11:58:12 UTC · Comment


And now Facebook!
Dear all,

We have new Like buttons to share news content in your Facebook walls. If you like the posted new, click on the button and you will have helped to spread the word about Test4Theory in other social network.

Regards,

The team!

11 Nov 2011 | 16:15:20 UTC · Comment


Version 7.03 released!
Dear all,

We are very happy to announce a new release of the wrapper!

This new version has the following improvements:



As usual, any comments, failures, suggestions will be welcome!

Regards,

The team!!

31 Oct 2011 | 8:46:46 UTC · Comment


New navigation bar!
Dear all,

The server upgrade has been completed. With the upgrade, we have included a new navigation bar for the web, so it should be easier to browse the project.

If you think that something is missing, please, let us know!

Regards,

Daniel

27 Oct 2011 | 9:34:59 UTC · Comment


Upgrading the BOINC server
Dear all,

The 25th of October (7:00 am UTC) we will start to upgrade the BOINC server to the latest available version of BOINC.

The goal is to fix several errors of the server (i.e. credit cheating), as well as to benefit from new Virtual Machine features included in BOINC.

Therefore, since tomorrow morning 7:00 a.m. UTC the server will be in maintenance mode. Sorry for the inconveniences.

Regards,

The team!

24 Oct 2011 | 7:25:22 UTC · Comment


Introducing LHC@home 2.0 Test4Theory volunteers map
Dear Volunteers,

We have put together a map where one can see from where in the world did volunteers connect:



Click here to see the map

The slider on top of the page can be used to modify the length on the time frame for which the connections are displayed. The map is data is refreshed every 10 minutes.

Volunteers which are located close to each other are grouped into clusters, which are generated dynamically depending on the map zoom level. This is done in order not to overload the map, as well as to ensure fast loading of the page and the low response time. Clusters' icons are color coded (depending on the size of the cluster), and are labeled with the number which shows how many individual volunteers they contain.

The resolution of geographic coordinates is done based on volunteers' IP addresses, and since we use the free version of GeoIP database the location of the points on the map is not always very precise (for example CERN users end up somewhere in downtown Geneva). The volunteers whose location could not be determined are scattered around the center of the Bermuda Triangle.

Individual volunteers are displayed using the light blue icon. By hovering over the icon one can see the name of the place from which the connection was made, the Jabber ID of the Co-Pilot agent, as well as the time when the connection was made. The name of the location is also determined using GeoIP database, in case when it is not possible to resolve it the default value (NOVILLE) is used.

We hope you like it, and I will of course appreciate your feedback!

Artem,
on behalf oh LHC@home 2.0 Test4Theory team.

18 Oct 2011 | 14:29:37 UTC · Comment


Google+1 and Twitter buttons for news!!
Dear all,

Since yesterday we have included the Google +1 Button and the Twitter buttons to promote Test4theory in those social networks. Thus if you like one new, just click the button!

Regards,

The team!

18 Oct 2011 | 10:06:07 UTC · Comment


CernVM Wrapper 7.0 is out!!
Dear all,

We are very happy to announce that a new version of the wrapper has been released!!

The new version has several major improvements:



In order to get the new version you can wait until your running WU finishes or you cancel it and get the new one if you do not mind the credits.

Please, as usual, let us know any problems with this new version in the forums.

Regards,

The team!

17 Oct 2011 | 11:44:17 UTC · Comment


CERN at the Frankfurt Book Fair of 2011
Dear all,

If you have the chance to visit the 2011 Frankfurt Book Fair of 2011 this weekend, you will have the opportunity to visit the CERN stand (with information about LHC@Home) and attend a press conference about the Large Hadron Collider from the Director-General of CERN.


Regards,

The team!

12 Oct 2011 | 12:37:28 UTC · Comment


Graphics Application preview!!
Dear all,

We are very happy to show you the first working version of the graphics application that will show the progress of the simulations in the virtual machine.

In this Youtube video the graphics application shows live histograms from the running experiments within the virtual machine, so you can see the actual progress of the simulated events and how they look like.

We hope to have a stable version soon, so stay tuned!!

The team.

10 Oct 2011 | 10:59:54 UTC · Comment


URL change: lhcathome2.cern.ch
Please use the URL: http://lhcathome2.cern.ch/test4theory to connect to this project from now on.

The old link: http://boinc01.cern.ch/test4theory that has been used in the beta test phase will still work for a while, but you are recommended to change the to the new URL as the old one is to a test server and the old link will not be maintained.

Many thanks for your collaboration!

The team.

27 Sep 2011 | 11:27:50 UTC · Comment


Server intervention Tuesday 20/9 at 13:30 CET
The BOINC server hosting the Test4Theory project will be unavailable for about 1/2 hour tomorrow Tuesday 20/9 13:30 CET for an intervention on the server.

This implies that the forums and project web-site also will be unavailable during the intervention. Thanks for your understanding and welcome back soon!

Greetings, Nils [LHC@home server support team]

19 Sep 2011 | 14:09:04 UTC · Comment


New Virtual Machine released
Dear all,

We are very happy to announce a new version of the virtual machine: 2.4.0.

This new virtual machine comes with the new version of Co-Pilot plus some other enhancements that should improve the stability of the project.

In order to test the new virtual machine, you can cancel your running work unit or wait to its completion. Bear in mind that the queue had some work units with the old version, so you may not get the first time the new virtual machine.

Regards,

The Team!

13 Sep 2011 | 12:30:16 UTC · Comment


Reset the virtual machines
Dear all,

We have released a new Co-Pilot that can be tested by rebooting/resetting the virtual machine. This new version should improve the action of requesting an output directory, solving some of the issues reported by you (thanks for your help!!).

You can also help us debugging the new code reporting any error or issue related to the output request folder action on this thread, after rebooting/resetting the VM.

Thanks in advance,

The team!

12 Sep 2011 | 16:31:31 UTC · Comment


Test4theory is opening up for new volunteers!
We've recovered from the initial tsunami of volunteer support last month – thanks, everyone, for your enthusiasm and patience! So now Test4Theory is opening gradually to new volunteers using invitation codes.

If you want to test the project, please, sign up for an invite!

If the number of requests remains very high, we won't be able to accommodate everyone, so we'll be picking users randomly each week and sending them invitation codes – an invitation lottery. Thus, if you want to try the project and help debugging it sign up and good luck!

8 Sep 2011 | 8:07:54 UTC · Comment


Help us promoting the project - helfen Sie uns, bitte!
Dear all,

The 12th of October of 2011 T4T will be promoted in the international Frankfurt Book Fair, in connection with the launch of a major book about CERN.

We will have a booth with some computers showing the project, our new graphics application (it is on the testing phase right now!!) for showing the results, fliers, etc. However, we think that one of the most valuable items could be your collaboration, as you are the "power" in this project :)

The idea is the following: record yourself with a video camera and answer the following question, why do you participate in this project?

You can answer the question in your own language, making the video internationally available. We particularly want to make sure there are lots of German-language contributions, as most of the people visiting the book fair, especially on the public open days, are German.

We would love it if you also send us your answer in text, so we can add the subtitles to the video very easily. With all your videos, we will create a video collage with all of you explaining and promoting why the project is important for you.

The video should be short, 30 seconds or less, as we want a lot of people involved. Try to be creative!!! and the most important thing: try to have fun recording it!!!

The final video will be released with a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA), so everyone will be able to copy, tweak, distribute, translate it to their language, and add it to their blogs, theaters, schools, etc.

The deadline for submitting the videos is the 23rd of September. The videos can be in any format, but please use codecs like XVID or AVI and try to avoid if possible wmv. You can send us the videos via: dropbox links, free online storage services, e-mail if it is less than 5MB, etc.

Cheers and vielen Dank,

The team!!

8 Sep 2011 | 7:55:09 UTC · Comment


Server intervention Tue 6 Sept at 13:00 CET
The Boinc server hosting Test4Theory will be unavailable for a short time around 13:00 CET today due to a system update.

You should be able to reconnect again shortly after.

Sorry for the interruption caused by this intervention.

Best regards, Nils (on behalf of the CERN Boinc service team)

6 Sep 2011 | 7:56:32 UTC · Comment


Version 6.05 released
Dear all,

Some of you can be running right now the cernvm wrapper 6.04. This version has a bug in it, so we have downgrade it to the previous version (which works well), renaming it to 6.05. Thus, if you are running a task with that version, please, cancel the WU and get the new wrapper.

The bug does not store correctly the data in the Progress File, causing to finish the WU in less than a second in Windows platforms (in GNU/Linux and Mac OS X works well). We are trying to fix this error, in order to give you the new wrapper as soon as possible.

Regards,

The team!

22 Aug 2011 | 10:52:48 UTC · Comment


WOW!
We are flabbergasted! Interest in LHC@home 2.0 has exceeded our wildest dreams, following the huge press coverage that a brief mention in a CERN press release got us. Thank you, everyone!

Yesterday we reached nearly 8000 registered volunteers, which pushed the number of computers simultaneously connected to our server well over 1000. To give you an idea, with just 100 simultaneous connections we had already reached the equivalent of all the computing power at CERN that Test4Theory project physicists have access to. So getting more than 10x that in just a few days boggled our minds - and also bogged down our servers!

Since yesterday, we had to put further eager participants on hold while we sort out how to handle this huge amount of support. You can read a more detailed technical summary of the problems we encountered - and how we are fixing them - here. We're going to open gradually to more participants in the near future. We'll then stabilize for a while before further increases.

This was announced as a beta-test to explore the limitations of our system, and we certainly succeeded in doing that, thanks to your support. Particular thanks to all our experienced BOINC users in the forums who have been patiently explaining to newcomers that this sort of thing is normal in a beta-test. And hats off to our technical crew (which is basically just Artem and Anton in Geneva and Daniel in Madrid) who have been working literally around the clock to get the system running smoothly again.

In the meantime, if you are new to the field of volunteer computing, we warmly encourage you to browse here some of the many other exciting science projects you can contribute to, using the same BOINC platform that LHC@home is running on. And if you'd like to be kept up to date on LHC@home 2.0 progress, so you can be first in line when we are ready to accept more volunteers, just subscribe to the RSS feed for this News list.

The LHC@home 2.0 Team



12 Aug 2011 | 18:25:22 UTC · Comment


Postmortem report: technical summary of problems encountered on 11.08.2011
Dear All,

Following unexpected posts on major news sites on 11th of August we have started seeing the exponential growth of number of connected virtual machines. Every minute several new virtual machines were popped up. Just to give you a rough idea, before, when we were only on major tech blogs and news sites the shape of the curve which was showing the number of active virtual machines looked like this, after BBC and MSNBC wrote about LHC@home the shape of the curve in no time became like this.

Some of connected virtual machines apparently had problems with the application software (causes are still under investigation), and so they were getting jobs from our queues, were failing to run them, were reporting them back and were asking for more jobs. CernVM Co-Pilot (the framework that we use to distribute jobs from CERN into Virtual Machines and gather the results back) normally takes about a couple of seconds to generate a job request in a Virtual Machine, send it over to the server, pick the waiting job from the queue, prepare it, send it for execution, and start running it in the Virtual Machine. So, as you can imagine, with about 1000 active virtual machines, out of which several were 'rogue' and were basically doing nothing but draining the job server, our queues became empty very fast. We quickly ended up with queues, which were draining faster than our scripts could possibly feed them.

Normally, this would not have not been a problem at all: Virtual Machines were not supposed to jump on servers all at once when the queues were empty. There is a built-in mechanism which would make them exponentially back off, precisely for the reason of not overloading our servers. Everything would have been good, if we did not have a bug which prevented our exponential back off algorithm from working, and instead turned all our virtual machines into cannons which were firing at our server hundreds of requests in a second. Because of that we had to turn our servers down and empty the BOINC server queue (has nothing to do with the Co-Pilot queue). This meant that BOINC clients would not pop up new Virtual Machines anymore.

It took a while to figure the problem out, the updated code was pushed into CernVM File System repository about 2AM on August 12th (GMT +2), and the server was configured to prevent agents with the buggy code from connecting at about 10 AM on August 12th (because the bug is still there and they would still be flooding us). We put an announcement on the forums asking users to reboot (to make sure they pick up the updated code). After that the system started working again. Currently there are about 300 concurrently active machines. These are the users who got virtual machines before we emptied BOINC server queue and who rebooted them after our announcement. We are currently planning to slowly start adding new Work Units to BOINC server queue (100 at a time), which means that virtual machines should start to pop up on registered users' machines soon.

Our initial goal was to recruit about 2,000 volunteers (remember, we just wanted to do a Beta test) so that several hundreds of them would be active all the time. We carried out alpha tests with about 300 registered volunteers (which would peak up to 100 online volunteers). As you will soon read in the other, more general announcement that we are about to publish on our main page, we are already very close to having 8,000 registered volunteers. We will try to slowly ramp that number up to 10,000 after which we plan to stabilize for a while before future increases.

We would like to ask everyone to remember that we are still in Beta testing phase. Which means that outages like this are likely to happen again, in fact we do expect them to happen again. To discover and eliminate bugs we together with you are intentionally pushing the system well beyond its limits.

Last but not least, we would like to thank you all of you again, for your enthusiasm, help, patience and understanding!!!

Artem,
on behalf of LHC@home 2.0 Team.

12 Aug 2011 | 18:07:08 UTC · Comment


PLEASE REBOOT YOUR VM NOW
We are working hard to understand and fix our job supply problem. We have made some code changes which will be automatically activated if you please REBOOT YOUR VM.

To do this, using the VirtualBoxVM Manager, select the tab "Machine" and do a Reset. This should be done with the BOINC T4T task running (not suspended) so the VM is running, not Saved or Powered Down.

Results may be slow to appear so please be patient once the reboot is done. "Resending 'want_getJob'.." messages may last for a while.

We will continue to give information as we have it. We are very sorry that the extremely fast ramp-up of users under Beta test has over-stressed our system for now.

12 Aug 2011 | 3:16:13 UTC · Comment


PROBLEM WITH JOB SUPPLY FROM CERN
WE HAVE A PROBLEM. WE BELIEVE SOME "ROGUE" SYSTEMS ARE SUCKING OUR QUEUES DRY AND THUS OVERLOADING THE SUPPLY OF JOBS TO EVERYONE ELSE.

Please be patient - we will try and fix this as soon as possible.

Until this problem is understood, we have disabled the creation of new jobs and users for the moment. As soon as the system is recovered, the work units flow will be restored.


LHC@home 2.0 team

11 Aug 2011 | 16:54:42 UTC · Comment


FAQ
Please, visit the official FAQ section if you have problems with the project.

Regards,

The team.

11 Aug 2011 | 9:27:23 UTC · Comment


Version 6.03 released
Dear all,

We are very happy to announce a new version of the wrapper. This new version has two new improvements:


The first item fixes a performance issue reported by several volunteers in the Windows platform, and the second one, adds a new preference to the project.

We have included a specific project preference to set up how much CPU time will be used by the VM. This will allow you to choose how much CPU the VM should use in your computer without affecting at all your other BOINC projects (this was the previous behavior).

In order to change this preference, go to your account, and change the Preferences for the project. The item is called: Maximum CPU % for Virtual Machine below Maximum CPU % for graphics.

After changing the value, you have to update the project, and restart BOINC.

As usual any comments, suggestions, bug reports, etc. will be welcome!!

Regards,

The Team

9 Aug 2011 | 9:06:17 UTC · Comment


Test4Theory goes BETA today !!
We are very happy to announce our advance from Alpha-test level to Beta.

This means no more need for an invitation code to join the project, so please tell your friends that we are now open to everyone. We aim to accept about 1000 active Beta testers, with about 2000 PC's running.

During the Beta period we will be introducing a graphic display to show volunteers what is happening with the CERN jobs that their Virtual Machine is running.

We are also working on a longer-term enhancement to allow volunteers to get more directly engaged with the science - stay tuned!

Congratulations and thanks to all our Alpha testers for your patience and help, and welcome to Beta...

The LHC@home 2.0 team

1 Aug 2011 | 7:58:16 UTC · Comment


Virtual atom smasher in LHC@Home 2.0
Dear all,

We would like to share with you a press release in the International Science Grid this Week, a weekly online publication that provides international coverage of distributed computing and the research it supports.

The report: Virtual atom smasher in LHC@Home 2.0 summarizes the origins of the project in October of 2010, and explains the goals of the project.

Read the report, share it if you like it (Twitter, Facebook, Google+, etc.), and use the comments to let us know what do you think about it.

Regards,

The team


28 Jul 2011 | 7:43:50 UTC · Comment


Version 6.02 released
Dear all,

We are pleased to announce that a new version of the wrapper has been released!

This new version uses again the command:

VBoxManage unregistervm BOINC_VM --delete

That was not working on Windows 64 bits versions. Thanks to the great community of T4T we have tested that command successfully, so we wanted to test it with the wrapper.

In order to get the new version you only have to wait to finish your running WU and the next one will get it. If you want to test it immediately: cancel the WU and update the project.

VirtualBox 4.1 is required for running this wrapper, so please, upgrade first VirtualBox.

As usual any comments, suggestions, etc. are welcome!

Regards,

The Team!!

27 Jul 2011 | 9:11:35 UTC · Comment


New Virtual Machine released
Dear all,

Thanks to your feedback, the team has fixed the problem of the file system corruption and a new virtual machine has been released.

This new version is a downgrade but with some of the new features of the latest VM. The goal is to keep the system as stable as possible, while we benefit from the last changes in the Co-Pilot and CernVM file system software.

As the previous version was failing for several people, we decided to cancel all the running WU as they were no longer usable due to this bug.

Your running WU will be aborted automatically and a new one will be assigned to you in the next update of your BOINC client (if you don't want to wait, just update it manually).

As usual, any comments, suggestions, feedback, etc. are welcome.

Best regards,

The Team

21 Jul 2011 | 7:25:21 UTC · Comment


Help testing VirtualBox 4.1
Dear all,

Oracle has released a new major upgrade of VirtualBox, and we wanted to test if this new version fixes the problem of removing virtual machines in Windows 64 bit platforms.

Therefore, we would love to know if by running the following command:

VBoxManage unregistervm <name> --delete

The VM is completely removed from VirtualBox or if it fails as in previous releases.

You do not need to remove the BOINC_VM virtual machine, you can create a VM just for this purpose (you don't need to install any OS in it either) with a virtual hard disk, and then run the command and see what happens.

It is important that you access the folder where VirtualBox is installed for running the command, as by default is not included in the Windows path.

If you test this, please, let us know the output and if the VM and most importantly the virtual hard disk is completely removed.

Regards,

The team.



20 Jul 2011 | 9:03:51 UTC · Comment


New Virtual Machine released
Dear all,

We are happy to announce that we have released a new version of the virtual machine (2.3.3) with several improvements!!

The main changes are:



The new virtual machine has been deployed, however you will only get the new version when all the old WUs have been processed, so the upgrade will be done slowly in your computers.

If you find a bug, have a comment, or suggestion, please, use the forums!

Regards,

The Team.

12 Jul 2011 | 9:10:31 UTC · Comment


Version 6.01 released
Dear all,

We have just released a few minutes ago the new version 6.01.

This version fixes the pausing-save-stage bug.

Please, cancel your running WU and update to the latest version as soon as possible.

As usual, comments, bugs, etc, will be welcomed!

Regards,

Daniel

17 Jun 2011 | 8:15:09 UTC · Comment


New version released!
Dear all,

We are really happy to announce a new version of the wrapper, the 6.00 branch. This new version supports the BOINC CPU usage preferences, throttling the CPU usage of the VM accordingly.

By default the VM runs 100% of CPU time, but if you change this parameter in your BOINC preferences, the next time you start BOINC, the VM will have the same CPU usage as the one specified in BOINC.

You can upgrade to the new version, once you have finished your currently running WU. If you want to test it as soon as possible, just cancel the WU and update the project.

As usual, any comments, suggestions, bugs, etc. are welcomed!

Regards,

The team.

9 Jun 2011 | 10:55:17 UTC · Comment


Version 5.10 minor release
Dear all,

Today we have released a new version of the wrapper. This version addresses a problem when the computer had an unexpected reboot or a power surge. The new wrapper flushes the content in memory of the running time of the VM into the hard disk each five minutes, minimizing in this way the impact of a power surge or a unexpected reboot.

It is not necessary to update right now, as the next WU will do it, so if you want, you can wait until your running WU finishes.

Regards,

The team.

6 Jun 2011 | 11:18:50 UTC · Comment


Code of Conduct
Dear all,

T4T community is growing, and we wanted to keep the good atmosphere of collaboration, work, etc. that we already have. For this reason, we have decided to publish a Code of Conduct for the old and new members of this incredible community.

The goal is to have a set of rules for interacting with each other respectfully, and pursuing a good environment for enjoining, sharing ideas, comments and working together in this project.

The Code of Conduct is published here, and we hope that you like it as much as we do.

Regards,

The team!

2 Jun 2011 | 12:34:14 UTC · Comment


News from the project in your BOINC client
Dear all,

The latest version of BOINC 6.12.26 enables to get News directly in your BOINC client, showing a pop up balloon in Windows Systems (in GNU/Linux and Mac OS X does not show the pop-up, you have to check it in the manager).

You will get notices from the News feed, private messages sent directly to you and also message board threads that you are subscribed to. Hence, you will have more information without visiting the web.

Enjoy this new and interesting feature from the BOINC community!

Regards,

The team!

19 May 2011 | 8:37:45 UTC · Comment


New VirtualBox version released
Dear all,

The 16th of May Oracle released a new version of VirtualBox: 4.0.8. The new version has several patches that can improve the behavior of our project, so please upgrade when you can.

Additionally, we have increased the maximum disk space of WUs to 8GB, after asking for this information in the forums. With this new bound, the WU should not be canceled, however if you have an error like this, please send us an e-mail or create a thread in the message boards.

Regards,

The team!

18 May 2011 | 8:24:28 UTC · Comment


Version 5.09 minor release
Dear all,

A new version has been released. This new version adds more control for the debugging output (removing user names, so now privacy is respected ).

These changes add more information to the log, so we can check why is failing the wrapper in your computers more easily.

Additionally, when creating a new VM, the wrapper tries also to release previous hard disks, removing another possible point of failure.

Please, if you find an error, let us know in the forums.

Regards,

The team.

UPDATE: the version 5.08 didn't work in Windows machines due to a bug in the code. Your machines should update to 5.09 right now, and everything should be working again.

13 May 2011 | 9:06:30 UTC · Comment


Version 5.07 minor release
Dear all,

We have released the version 5.07 of the wrapper, which fixes the problem of the large times reported by Windows computers. Additionally, we have increased the maximum space that the VM can grow, so your BOINC client should not cancel the running WU anymore because of this reason.

As usual, comments, reports, problems, etc. about this version in the forums.

Thanks a lot for your support!

Regards,

The team.

12 May 2011 | 13:13:06 UTC · Comment


Version 5.05 released
Dear all,

Today we have released a new version of the wrapper. This version finally solves the problem of tracking the running time of the WU. Thus, if you quit BOINC after one hour, the next time you launch BOINC, the wrapper will not start from zero the T4T WU (please, report any problems in this new feature). The wrapper has also been improved from the point of view of running critical sections of the VM. From now on, those sections should not crash anymore.

Additionally, we have updated the cernvm.vmdk.gz VM. This version solves several issues related to the network and Co-Pilot. We have included in this new version a new system that should auto-fill the queues, so you will never should see again the ACK message.


Finally, the update process has been improved too. You only have to click in Update Status in BOINC Manager and the new VM as well as the new wrapper will download (check that the new cernvm.vmdk.gz includes now the version 2.3.0).

As usual, report any problem in the forums!

Regards,

The team.

PS: You can have a look at the source code in Google Code and also in the BOINC SVN repository.

10 May 2011 | 12:35:24 UTC · Comment


VirtualBox 4.0.6 released!
Dear all,

Oracle has released a new version of VirtualBox with several fixes.

You can upgrade to this version if you want.

Regards,

The team.

29 Apr 2011 | 11:40:36 UTC · Comment


Limited support for next two weeks
Dear all,

The next two weeks the project will be semi-paused due to several of the members of the development team of the project are participating the first week of May in a international conference where the project will be presented.

Even though we will not be active 100% of the time, we will try to answer your questions, issues, etc. as soon as possible, but please, be patient if you see that we do not refill the queues as fast as usual, or the question is not answered. If you want, you can pause the project until the 9th of May, when we will be back.

Best regards,

Daniel

21 Apr 2011 | 9:54:59 UTC · Comment


Version 5.04 released
Dear users,

Today we have released a new version of the wrapper, that hopefully it will fix the problem of removing virtual machines (VMs) from VirtualBox in all the systems.

The new version only uses system commands for deleting the VMs, and cleaning the environment for registering a new VM, so VirtualBox problems and internal bugs should not affect this new version.

By default, the wrapper checks if there is a registered VM, consulting the VirtualBox.xml file. If the wrapper finds the BOINC_VM, it will get the path of where it is installed, and it will delete it, else, it will clean standard places where VirtualBox by default store them (VirtualBox VMs folder since version 4.x).

Please, update the project in your BOINC clients, and let us know if this new version fixes the problem for all of you.

You can also check the new code, here.

Regards,

The team!

Update: The version 5.03 had a small minor bug, just only when resetting the project. I have released a new version, 5.04, that should solve it, so please, again, cancel the WU, and get the new version, and let me know if it works well or not.

Regards!

14 Apr 2011 | 9:42:58 UTC · Comment


New version released!
A new version of the wrapper has been released. This version, v5.02, tries to address the 64 Windows system problems when deleting the virtual machine.

The new version handles it by removing directly the BOINC_VM folder from your systems. This is working well on GNU/Linux, Windows 32 and Mac OS X. However, there is one step that stills relying on VBoxManage command.

Even though the wrapper deletes the folder, the VM has to be unregistered, so the VBoxManage command is used for this purpose. If this command also fails on 64 bit Windows systems, this version will not fix the problem. However, we have in mind the next steps to solve this problem, if this version does not completely solve it.

Additionally, we want to announce that the source code of the wrapper is publicly available in Google's repository. You can find there other projects, as well as specific documentation of the CernVMwrapper application. Thanks to this publication, you will be able to find more bugs in the code, send patches, and trust the application you are running, as the source code is available. Patches, comments, suggestions are welcomed!

In the repository you can also add bugs, or issues, so we can centralized the wrapper problems, bugs, patches, etc. in a bug track system. This will make easier to follow the evolution of the problems, bugs, patches to volunteers and developers.

You can still free to report about bugs, suggestions, comments, etc. on the forums, but we encourage you to use the issue system if you have found a bug.

Enjoy the new version and happy testing!!

6 Apr 2011 | 13:20:37 UTC · Comment


OK to crunch more now...
The queues are refilled - some of us even work weekends (:-)) ...

3 Apr 2011 | 14:00:10 UTC · Comment


Crunching too fast?
Sorry, all the work has been done and the job queue is empty. We will notify you when it is refilled. Have a restful Sunday...

3 Apr 2011 | 6:54:56 UTC · Comment


CERN problem resolved
The CERN problem this morning was only a network glitch.

Please reboot your VM to restore job flows. No need to touch BOINC.


31 Mar 2011 | 6:41:37 UTC · Comment


CERN problem again, no jobs for now
Unfortunately CernVM and Co-Pilot are down.

News will follow... but no more jobs for now.

(This is unrelated to the upgrade of wrapper software yesterday)

Ben

31 Mar 2011 | 4:39:49 UTC · Comment


New version released!
Dear all,

Today we have released the version 5.01 of the CernVMwrapper. This new version has several improvements/fixes that should provide a better user experience.

The new features are:

1.- The credit system is completely based on BOINC mechanisms, not using any more the the trickle messages.
2.- The running time for obtaining credit has been reduce to 12 hours, so your progress bar should be updated faster.
3.- The time to complete the WU has been extended to one month, so the WU should not be running in high priority mode, unless you have a really old machine.
4.- The VM->poll() function has been removed, providing a better user experience by not polling each 5 seconds the Virtual Machine (additionally this change should fix some problems with some users).
5.- The previous versions did not cleanly removed the VM when canceling the WU through BOINC manager. This new version has fixed this bug too.

Please, wait until the running WU finishes, or if you are experiencing problems, cancel the WU, remove the BOINC_VM by hand using VirtualBox Manager, and ask for new work in BOINC.

If you have any problems, let us know.

Regards,

The team.

30 Mar 2011 | 13:40:08 UTC · Comment


Power restored
Co-Pilot servers are up and running again. Please, reboot your virtual machines, so the process can start again without problems.



29 Mar 2011 | 12:16:59 UTC · Comment


CERN POWER CUT - NO MORE JOBS FOR NOW
Unfortunately CERN has had a power cut (!!) so CernVM and Co-Pilot are down.

News will follow... but no more jobs for now.

Ben


29 Mar 2011 | 9:58:25 UTC · Comment


JOB QUEUES REFILLED AGAIN, PLEASE REBOOT YOUR VM


We ran out of jobs from CERN again this morning, and have just refilled the queues. Your system(s) may now be waiting for new jobs. Sorry, but to restart your job flow, you will need to reboot the VM on each of your machine(s). You do not need to restart BOINC tasks.

(We will fix this restart bug in the next CernVM release).



27 Mar 2011 | 14:07:45 UTC · Comment

JOB QUEUES EMPTIED AGAIN, PLEASE REBOOT YOUR VM

We ran out of jobs from CERN again last night, and have just refilled the queues. Your system(s) may now be waiting for new jobs. Sorry, but to restart your job flow, you will need to reboot the VM on each of your machine(s). You do not need to restart BOINC tasks.

(We will fix this restart bug in the next CernVM release).

We are working on an automatic job generator which should be ready soon and will also avoid this problem.



25 Mar 2011 | 5:35:47 UTC · Comment


RAN OUT OF JOBS AGAIN, SORRY, PLEASE REBOOT YOUR VM


We ran out of jobs from CERN again last night, and have just refilled the queues. Your system(s) may now be waiting for new jobs. Sorry, but to restart your job flow, you will need to reboot the VM on each of your machine(s). You do not need to restart BOINC tasks.

(We will fix this restart bug in the next CernVM release).

We think perhaps some people are accidentally draining the job queue by letting failing tasks run too long - please check that events are being processed in your VM.



21 Mar 2011 | 10:42:06 UTC · Comment

Presentation of the project at Asia@Home workshop
The 20 of March, the project has been presented in the workshop Asia@Home in Taipei, Taiwan.

You can find the slides of the presentation here. A similar hackfest will be also held in Beijing, China, where hackers and scientists will try to solve different challenges.

20 Mar 2011 | 6:40:30 UTC · Comment


PLEASE REBOOT YOUR VM IF JOBS ARE NOT COMING

We ran out of jobs from CERN last night, and have just refilled the queues. Your system(s) may now be waiting for new jobs. Sorry, but to restart your job flow, you will need to reboot the VM on each of your your machine(s). You do not need to restart BOINC tasks.

We will fix this restart bug in the next CernVM release.



17 Mar 2011 | 13:51:04 UTC · Comment


CernVMwrapper 4.7 released
Today a new version of the CernVMwrapper has been released.

This new version addresses the problem of suspending a task, as in the previous versions this feature didn't work very well. The VM was paused, but the wrapper was using the CPU. The new version solves this problem, so please if you find that this feature is not working for you, let us know in this thread.

Additionally, the ethernet card of the server has been changed, so the download rate problem should be gone, as the new card supports at CERN gigabit connections.

To update to the newer version, you have to cancel the running WU of your client, then BOINC will download the newer version.

14 Mar 2011 | 11:12:15 UTC · Comment


VirtualBox in 64 bits Windows 7/XP
Dear users,

According to VirtualBox bug system, there is a bug in VirtualBox 4.0.4 that does not allow to cleanly delete the BOINC_VM virtual machine.

There is a fix, but Oracle has not yet published it, so until a new major update, users running a 64 bit Windows 7 system have to delete the VMs by hand, using the VirtualBox Media Manager.

However, this bug may be also affecting the Media Manager, so if you cannot delete the VM using the Media Manager you have to do it by hand. The VM usually is stored in

C:\users\'your name'\VirtualBox VMs

under a folder called BOINC_VM. Please delete it if you cannot remove the VM using the Media Manager. If after that you are still having problems, please delete the VirtualBox VMs as well as .VirtualBox folders.

14 Mar 2011 | 9:34:34 UTC · Comment


New Virtual Machine released
A new version of the Virtual Machine has been released today. This new version solves the problems that we already have during this week, so the new version should work fine with your computers.

The MD5SUM of the new cernvm.vmdk.gz file is:

ba78022f562c65e8f57d205c56e14263 cernvm.vmdk.gz

In order to upgrade it, you have two options:


It is also recommendable that you cancel your running tasks of T4T before resetting the project, so everything is properly cleaned up. The CernVMwrapper 4.6 should be able to remove any old BOINC_VM instance (VirtualBox 4.0.4 required), so everything should start and work well.

If you have any problems, please report them here.

Regards,

Artem, Ben and Daniel

11 Mar 2011 | 11:14:40 UTC · Comment


BREAKING NEWS
We seem to have solved our serious problems of the last 2 days.

Most people now should just find their systems running decently again, and if this is not the case then a simple reboot of your VM should help you.

Tomorrow we will be issuing an updated wrapper-task and an improved cernvm image to consolidate things.

Artem, Daniel and Ben

10 Mar 2011 | 17:14:03 UTC · Comment


CernVMwrapper 4.6 released
A new version of the CernVMwrapper has been released for all platforms. This new version fixes a bug preventing the VM from being started or registered on Windows machines.

Additionally, this version is adopting VirtualBox 4.x as the default hypervisor, so if you are using an old version, please upgrade to the latest available VirtualBox version.

To update the wrapper you only have to cancel the running work unit, and update the project, so you can get the newer version.

If you have any problem, please report it here.

Regards,

Daniel

10 Mar 2011 | 13:02:54 UTC · Comment


CernVMwrapper 4.5 released
Today a new version of the CernVMwrapper has been released. The new changes are:



Please upgrade, so you can have the latest version.[/list]

Warning: We are still working in fixing the problems with Co-Pilot job scheduler. Please be patient.

9 Mar 2011 | 10:07:05 UTC · Comment


New Virtual Machine released
Dear users,

Today we have released a new version of the virtual machine. The new VM can be downloaded by resetting the project twice.

The MD5SUM of the new VM is:

6d1d764d5a95b83e718ac2e3c22970ec cernvm.vmdk.gz

Please reset the project. This new version should fix the problems that the last days you were reporting (network problems and the Error 1 issue).

If you have any problems, please, report them in the forums as usual.

Regards,

Daniel

8 Mar 2011 | 8:05:38 UTC · Comment


UPDATE: Major upgrade
UPDATE: A new VM has been released again to address some minor bugs. Please, if you have followed the below instructions, you have to reset the project again two times, else follow them.

Dear users,

We are happy to announce that a new major update has been released. Today, the CernVMwrapper, the Virtual Machine and VirtualBox can be upgraded.

The new release addresses the problems related to network connectivity in the VM, the Windows progress bar bug and several fixes in Co-pilot's client and server. Additionally this release supports the latest version of VirtualBox 4.0.4.

To start using this new release, you have to:



After all those steps have been completed, you should have a running BOINC project with the latest versions of VirtualBox, the VM and CernVMwrapper.

The new VM has changed the default terminal that you will when booting the VM. Instead of the log in terminal, you will see the output of the Co-Pilot daemon, so the terminals have changed to this new set up:



If you have problem, please report it so we can help you.

3 Mar 2011 | 12:17:20 UTC · Comment


UPDATE!!!!: CERN server scheduled downtime
UPDATE!!!: the downtime will be extended to 12 am UTC time.

Dear users, tomorrow 2nd of March of 2011, the CERN server that communicates with your Virtual Machines will be upgraded at 8 am UTC time. The CERN server will be down two hours, so at 10 am UTC your clients should be able to get new jobs.

At 10 am UTC you should reboot the virtual machine, so all the communications will be reseted and started again. In order to reboot the virtual machine you should click in the menu of the virtual machine:

VM->Reboot

Alternatively you can press the following keyboard shortcut:

Host key + R

Sorry for the inconveniences.

1 Mar 2011 | 16:27:29 UTC · Comment


Work Generator for running jobs
Since a few minutes ago, the project is using a work generator to have the queue always full with new jobs to process. Additionally, some parameters have been tuned in the WUs, so volunteers should have a better experience.

28 Feb 2011 | 11:32:39 UTC · Comment


New version released!
Today a new released of the CernVMwrapper has been released. This new version has changed how the WU is treated in the clients.

The new version reduces the delay bound to 14 days instead of one year. Additionally, the VM will be closed when the week has been completed, uploading an input file to the BOINC server, completing the normal task handling in any BOINC project.

Update your projects, and if you have problems, please, remove the BOINC_VM by hand in VirtualBox as well as the cernvm.vmdk hard disk in the Media Manager.

24 Feb 2011 | 11:57:01 UTC · Comment


Debugging the application
If you want to know what is going on within the virtual machine, please,visit the debugging web page.

22 Feb 2011 | 8:45:39 UTC · Comment


CernVMwrapper v4.0
A new version of the wrapper that sets up the virtual machine for running the experiments has been released.

In order to get everything working, you have to reset the project in your BOINC client, and then remove from VirtualBox the previous virtual machine:

BOINC_VM_yearmonthdayhourminuteseconds

You should also remove the associated hard disk: cernvm.vmdk through the VirtualBox Virtual Media
Manager. Please, delete the disk as a new one will be created.

If you have any problems, please report it in the forums or Q&A boards.

7 Feb 2011 | 13:08:53 UTC · Comment


New work unit released
In our effort to test the system with new users, we have cancelled the prueba05 work unit, creating a new one called test06 that substitutes the old one. If you have any problem with the process, let us know.

1 Feb 2011 | 11:41:48 UTC · Comment


Alpha-testers forum available now
As of today we have 25 alpha testers, on a variety of Windows, Linux and (just beginning) MacOSX platforms. We would like you to share your experiences on the "Questions and Answers" forum. We welcome your bug reports as well as news of your success or failure in testing the system. Daniel and myself, as well as some of our more experienced testers, are available to try and answer your questions...

31 Jan 2011 | 14:18:51 UTC · Comment


Are you having problems with the project?
If you are having problems with the project, please use the help desk forums for posting your problems. If you want to know more details about the project, just go to the forum index and post your doubts, comments and suggestions.

31 Jan 2011 | 12:33:06 UTC · Comment




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