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Jsnuff1 · Jan 3, 2002, 01:59 PM

Is the Ubero client altivec or MP aware?

How can you change the amount of work it downloads each time? right now its set on 2 so it has to connecte every 10 min to download more work.

Is there anyway to disable all the pretty usless information the client displayes while it crunching without disableing the GUI? It seems like thats a wast cpu cycles.

thanks for any help

Scotttheking · Jan 3, 2002, 03:29 PM

Originally posted by Jsnuff1:
Is the Ubero client altivec or MP aware?

No and no. For MP you run 2 instances of it.

How can you change the amount of work it downloads each time? right now its set on 2 so it has to connecte every 10 min to download more work.

You can't, yet. It always downloads one assignment, which has multiple tasks. They will have caching soon.

Is there anyway to disable all the pretty usless information the client displayes while it crunching without disableing the GUI? It seems like thats a wast cpu cycles.

Yep. Go into Terminal and go to the folder ubero is installed in.
Type (or paste) in this line:
<BLOCKQUOTE>code:<HR><pre>nohup java -cp Agent.jar ubero.agent.Agent -text >/dev/null &[/code]
You can also make a text file which looks like this:
<BLOCKQUOTE>code:<HR><pre>#!/bin/sh

cd /applications/ubero
nohup java -cp Agent.jar ubero.agent.Agent -text >/dev/null &[/code]
Change that path to where you have ubero, and if you have a dual, just duplicate the last two lines, with the 2nd copy pointing to the 2nd directory.
Save the file and type in chmod +x <filename> of the script to make it runnable.

thanks for any help

No problem, any more questions?

[ 01-03-2002: Message edited by: Scotttheking ]

kkneisley · Jan 3, 2002, 04:05 PM

code:
------------------------------------------------------------------------

nohup java -cp Agent.jar ubero.agent.Agent -text >/dev/null &
------------------------------------------------------------------------
You can also make a text file which looks like this:

code:
------------------------------------------------------------------------

#!/bin/sh

cd /applications/ubero
nohup java -cp Agent.jar ubero.agent.Agent -text >/dev/null &
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Change that path to where you have ubero, and if you have a dual, just duplicate the last two lines, with the 2nd copy pointing to the 2nd directory.
Save the file and type in chmod +x <filename> of the script to make it runnable.

Scott -

Could you parse the above commands for the non-terminal folk? I understand the no hang up, but what about the ">/dev/null &" ?

Thanks!

Anyone else reading -

I 've been running 2 agents via the java terminal for a week, and it is graceful enough to give CPU power to apps as they need it. the only app it bothers is Quake3

This is on a G4/800DP with 1.3 GB ram.

legacyb4 · Jan 3, 2002, 07:45 PM

I tried out Scott's instructions and got back a "[1] 1051" but I don't notice any changes in the program.

So the program is smart enough to understand that it should grab a whole CPU to itself? Any more than two agents and you start cutting into productivity, I imagine...

BTW, what % level are you running the Agent at? I've got mine detuned down to about 60% for the time being...

Cheers.

Originally posted by kkneisley:


Scott -

Could you parse the above commands for the non-terminal folk? I understand the no hang up, but what about the ">/dev/null &" ?

Thanks!

Anyone else reading -

I 've been running 2 agents via the java terminal for a week, and it is graceful enough to give CPU power to apps as they need it. the only app it bothers is Quake3

This is on a G4/800DP with 1.3 GB ram.

Scotttheking · Jan 3, 2002, 10:14 PM

ok, the > /dev/null redirects output to oblivion, and the & tells it to go back to the prompt.

after you run it it will give you a [1] and a number, then go back to the prompt.

then run 'top -u' and you should see 'java' running.
That's the agent.
When you quit terminal, just ignore the 'stuff is running' message.

--Scott

Telomar · Jan 3, 2002, 11:41 PM

Just to throw in another question. A couple day ago I regged Ubero however for whatever reason whenever I try to add the registration on opening the Ubero client it just seems to freeze after I click the first next. The app just seems to stop responding. It says Sending login information but never actually goes any further.

Any suggestions?

Edit: Just tried to make it a little clearer.

[ 01-04-2002: Message edited by: Telomar ]

legacyb4 · Jan 4, 2002, 02:55 AM

Scott,

Sorry for spacing...

I just realized what you were doing; those were instructions to install Ubero as a service to run in the background, right? Much like you can do with RC5 on a Windows machine, I assume.

Is that significantly different than the "Hide" setting used in the Ubero app?

Cheers.

Originally posted by Scotttheking:
ok, the > /dev/null redirects output to oblivion, and the & tells it to go back to the prompt.

after you run it it will give you a [1] and a number, then go back to the prompt.

then run 'top -u' and you should see 'java' running.
That's the agent.
When you quit terminal, just ignore the 'stuff is running' message.

--Scott

kkneisley · Jan 4, 2002, 09:55 AM

Originally posted by legacyb4:
I tried out Scott's instructions and got back a "[1] 1051" but I don't notice any changes in the program.

So the program is smart enough to understand that it should grab a whole CPU to itself? Any more than two agents and you start cutting into productivity, I imagine...

BTW, what % level are you running the Agent at? I've got mine detuned down to about 60% for the time being...

I don't recall a response upon running the script, etc. But the agents are running. You can also view their performance in Process Viewer, and check how much CPU they are snagging.

The agent plays nice, even at 100%. It will take whatever is available, but will allow higher priority threads play through. Only run 1 agent per processor! Otherwise they fight for cycles and both slow down. 2 agents on 1 proc will produce roughly the same as 1 agent on 1 proc.

All the timing does, accoring to Scott at Ubero, is put a brief timer between calcs.

Hope this helps!

The_Equivocator · Jan 6, 2002, 06:05 PM

Here's an Ubero question or two:

Is there a way to leave the Ubero client running at 100% aggressiveness but just put it's priority level down? This should make it run more like the dnet client, making my other running applications happier.

Also, is there a good way to hide Ubero in OS X so that you don't really know it's running? It would be nice to have it start on startup and then run without the icon being in the dock.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

kkneisley · Jan 7, 2002, 01:38 AM

Originally posted by The_Equivocator:
Here's an Ubero question or two:

Is there a way to leave the Ubero client running at 100% aggressiveness but just put it's priority level down? This should make it run more like the dnet client, making my other running applications happier.

All the "aggressiveness" or priority slider does is alter a time delay between calcs. Accordong to the ubero support site, you can run it with the "nice" command, setting it to the -19 priority. Check your local man pages.

Originally posted by The_Equivocator:

Also, is there a good way to hide Ubero in OS X so that you don't really know it's running? It would be nice to have it start on startup and then run without the icon being in the dock.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Use the above commands from the terminal. With nohup, it even survives logout/login as a different user. If you are comfy with cron, you may even be able set it up to exec automatically.

Post with more ????s

The_Equivocator · Jan 7, 2002, 05:03 PM

So if I set Ubero up with a crontab, will it launch another instance of itself every hour? Or is Ubero smart enough to know that it is already running, and thus, won't open another instance of itself.

Otherwise, crontabs won't really work since there isn't an option of having Ubero quit itself after 55 minutes.

kkneisley · Jan 8, 2002, 03:18 AM

Originally posted by The_Equivocator:
So if I set Ubero up with a crontab, will it launch another instance of itself every hour? Or is Ubero smart enough to know that it is already running, and thus, won't open another instance of itself.

Otherwise, crontabs won't really work since there isn't an option of having Ubero quit itself after 55 minutes.

For your first questions, no, it isn't.

I'm not sure if cron supports this, but maybe upon boot only? Is your machine(s) on 24/7, or off/on daily? If 24/7, just launch it and forget it

Anyone have a way to launch on boot up automatically?

legacyb4 · Jan 8, 2002, 11:33 AM

How do you install Ubero as an NT service so it runs even when a user is logged off? Or is it already doing that when you "hide" the agent?

Cheers.

Arkham_c · Jan 8, 2002, 11:38 AM

Originally posted by The_Equivocator:
So if I set Ubero up with a crontab, will it launch another instance of itself every hour? Or is Ubero smart enough to know that it is already running, and thus, won't open another instance of itself.

Otherwise, crontabs won't really work since there isn't an option of having Ubero quit itself after 55 minutes.

If you want to have Ubero-auto-launch only if no other app is running, you have to wrap it in a shell script, and run that script from a cron job. Something like this would work (not really tested, but it should work):

<BLOCKQUOTE>code:<HR><pre>
#!/bin/sh

ubero_running=`ps -auxww | grep -i ubero | grep -v grep`

if [ "$ubero_running" == "" ]; then
cd /Applications/ubero
nohup java -cp Agent.jar ubero.agent.Agent -text > /dev/null 2>&1 &
fi

[/code]

Run THAT script from cron (be sure to do a chmod a+x scriptname before you try to cron-ify it so it is executable.

kkneisley · Jan 8, 2002, 12:11 PM

Arkham - nice, simple and elegant!

But one flaw exists, but only for DP machines: Is there a way to check for 2 instances running, and appropriately launch the non-running agent? It is above my scope.

Personally, I run 24/7 at home on a single G4/500; and at work I run 2 agents at 100% on a G4/800DP for biz hours only (we shutdown all machines when we leave). Basically, I launch everything on boot by hand.

It works.

The_Equivocator · Jan 8, 2002, 01:46 PM

Ok, sorry about all of the questions, but I'm a newbie when it comes to crontab...

So I made the following text file:

----------------
#!/bin/sh

ubero_running=`ps -auxww | grep -i ubero | grep -v grep`

00 * * * *
if [ "$ubero_running" == "" ]; then
cd /Ubero
nice 19 nohup java -cp Agent.jar ubero.agent.Agent -text > /dev/null 2>&1 &
fi
----------------

I then saved it as "crontab" with Unix line breaks and as a simple text file in BBEdit. Going to the terminal, I typed "chmod a+x crontab", which worked fine. Then I typed "crontab crontab", upon which I got the following error message:

"crontab":5: bad minute
crontab: errors in crontab file, can't install

I know that means I have the
00 * * * *
in the wrong place. Can anyone help me?

Thanks!

Arkham_c · Jan 8, 2002, 01:52 PM

Ok kkneisley, this is a little more complicated, but it should be easy to understand, and it works

<BLOCKQUOTE>code:<HR><pre>
#!/bin/sh

# set this to the number of simultaneous clients you want
num_processes=2

function setUberoCount() {
uberos_running=`ps -auxww | grep -i ubero | grep -v grep | wc -l`
}

function startUberoClient() {
cd /Applications/ubero
nohup java -cp Agent.jar ubero.agent.Agent -text > /dev/null 2>&1 &
}

setUberoCount

while [ $uberos_running -lt $num_processes ]; do
echo "$uberos_running running, starting another one"
startUberoClient
setUberoCount
done

[/code]

I will handle the cron question in a separate post if no one has beaten me to it.

Arkham_c · Jan 8, 2002, 02:01 PM

Originally posted by The_Equivocator:
Ok, sorry about all of the questions, but I'm a newbie when it comes to crontab...

So I made the following text file:
(stuff deleted)
I then saved it as "crontab" with Unix line breaks and as a simple text file in BBEdit. Going to the terminal, I typed "chmod a+x crontab", which worked fine. Then I typed "crontab crontab", upon which I got the following error message:

"crontab":5: bad minute
crontab: errors in crontab file, can't install

I know that means I have the
00 * * * *
in the wrong place. Can anyone help me?

Thanks!

The problem is that the script itself cannot live in the crontab unless you're a real masochist and can get it on one line while maintaining syntax. There is a better way. Do this:

1) Put the script in /Users/yourusername/bin/ubero.sh
2) do chmod u+x /Users/yourusername/bin/ubero.sh
3) make your crontab file look like this (UNIX line breaks are good, but it does not need to be executable):

<BLOCKQUOTE>code:<HR><pre>
0 * * * * /Users/yourusername/bin/ubero.sh > /dev/null 2>&1
[/code]

4) Install the crontab with crontab crontab and you should be good. If you want to watch the output instead of discarding it, redirect standard out and standard error to a log file in the crontab like this:

<BLOCKQUOTE>code:<HR><pre>
0 * * * * /Users/yourusername/bin/ubero.sh > /Users/yourusername/Documents/uberoStart.log 2>&1
[/code]

Hope that helps.

The_Equivocator · Jan 8, 2002, 02:39 PM

One more question...

Could I just drop the script somewhere where it would only launch on startup as opposed to every hour?

Thanks again!

Arkham_c · Jan 8, 2002, 03:18 PM

Certainly.

The obvious place for it is /Library/StartupItems, although in order to get it to work there you have to jump through some hoops. I am going to explain what to do below, but you may find it complicated.

First, in a terminal do this:

sudo -s ( put in your password when it asks)

cd /Library/StartupItems
mkdir ubero
cd ubero


Next, create a file called StartupParameters.plist and put it in that folder. Make the linebreaks UNIX, and put this inside it:

<BLOCKQUOTE>code:<HR><pre>
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist SYSTEM "file://localhost/System/Library/DTDs/PropertyList.dtd">
<plist version="0.9">
<dict>
<key>Description</key>
<string>ubero Client</string>
<key>Messages</key>
<dict>
<key>start</key>
<string>Starting ubero Client</string>
<key>stop</key>
<string>Stopping ubero Client</string>
</dict>
<key>OrderPreference</key>
<string>Last</string>
<key>Provides</key>
<array>
<string>ubero</string>
</array>
<key>Requires</key>
<array>
<string>Resolver</string>
<string>Network</string>
</array>
</dict>
</plist>
[/code]

Put that file into /Library/StartupItems/ubero/

Then, create a file inside that folder called ubero.

Inside it, put the script from earlier discussions. Make it and the plist file owned and executable by root.

When you are done, reboot. As OSX boots, you will see "Starting ubero Client" zip by as it configures OSX.

I hope that is clear enough. It's not as complicated as it sounds.

[ 01-08-2002: Message edited by: Arkham_c ]

kkneisley · Jan 8, 2002, 04:02 PM

Arkham:

DUDE! YOU F'ING ROCK!

You can tell that you are a programmer. You know what it takes. I used to know my way around IRIX in the mid-90's, but lack of use makes one's mind soft. OS X has rekindled the flame, but I am no where up to speed.

I am on my knees in honor... (but nothing kinky, ok?)

Arkham_c · Jan 8, 2002, 04:14 PM

Glad to be of help.

I live for this UNIX stuff. I'm the geek that all my geek friends call for UNIX help

My wife just zones out when I get one of those calls.

The_Equivocator · Jan 8, 2002, 04:20 PM

First off, thank you so much for all of your help. I think I finally got it working, but I had to change just a couple of things to make it work on my system. Here is the way I did it, please tell me if I need to fix any of it.

Thanks again... you rock.

1) I went to the terminal, and logged in as root with
 sudo -s 
and then input my admin password.

2) I typed
 cd /System/Library/StartupItems/ 
 mkdir ubero 
 cd ubero 

(Your post said the above without the /System, but I assumed that you meant in the system folder since there is no StartupItems folder in the user's Library folder.)

3) I created a file called StartupParameters.plist and put it in the ubero folder I just created. Using UNIX linebreaks, I put the following inside of the file:
<BLOCKQUOTE>code:<HR><pre> <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<!DOCTYPE plist SYSTEM "file://localhost/System/Library/DTDs/PropertyList.dtd">
<plist version="0.9">
<dict>
<key>Description</key>
<string>ubero Client</string>
<key>Messages</key>
<dict>
<key>start</key>
<string>Starting ubero Client</string>
<key>stop</key>
<string>Stopping ubero Client</string>
</dict>
<key>OrderPreference</key>
<string>Last</string>
<key>Provides</key>
<array>
<string>ubero</string>
</array>
<key>Requires</key>
<array>
<string>Resolver</string>
<string>Network</string>
</array>
</dict>
</plist> [/code]

4) I created another file inside of the ubero folder called ubero. Again, using UNIX linebreaks I put the following code into the file:
<BLOCKQUOTE>code:<HR><pre> #!/bin/sh

cd /Applications/Ubero
nice -19 nohup java -cp Agent.jar ubero.agent.Agent -text > /dev/null & [/code]

As you can see, I had to change some of this. I added the nice command, with -19 after this to make it Ubero run with a lower priority. Am I correct in thinking that this is the right way to do it? man nice seemed to think I should use a -n in there and that I need a negative 19. Does the above use a negative 19? Or does it use the dash as a sign to take the number after it (i.e. a positive 19)?

There were also some characters between the /dev/null and the ampersand that the computer didn't seem to like. I deleted those, and it worked.

I also removed the part of the code that checked to see if Ubero was already running. Since this script only runs once on startup, I am assuming that Ubero is not yet running. I am guessing that this is the way it should be done...

Now, when running top, I see "java" taking up my spare CPU cycles, so I assume it worked. I guess my only question is: did the nice command work out as I hoped?

Again, thank you so much.

[ 01-08-2002: Message edited by: The_Equivocator ]

legacyb4 · Jan 8, 2002, 10:12 PM

I installed another copy (instance) of the Ubero client, gave it a different port number and agent name, and launched both. (Is that all I really have to do to take advantage of multiple CPUs? No other settings that I have to muck with?)

If anything, I'm seeing a slight hit in crunch rate although I'll have to wait a day to see how numbers work out for the daily average.

Currently running as a standard double-click application but will probably switch over to running as a CLI client once I'm happy with the way things are set up.

Cheers.

Originally posted by legacyb4:
So the program is smart enough to understand that it should grab a whole CPU to itself? Any more than two agents and you start cutting into productivity, I imagine...

doggkruse · Jan 9, 2002, 11:31 PM

I have a double clickable script that starts ubero with no dock icon or window, you can add it to the startup at login items. It works great. e-mail me if you want a copy [email protected]
Geoff

The_Equivocator · Jan 17, 2002, 12:58 PM

All right, I have access to a lot of computer labs on campus, but I think it would be difficult to convince any of the system admins to let me install anything on their machines.

I was thinking... is it possible for Ubero to start up on a system running Linux or Windows before the user logs in, and then have Ubero quit when someone actually does log in? Then, when the user logs out, another script could be launched to re-launch Ubero. This way, it would only be running when someone wasn't using the computer for educational purposes.

If anyone has any ideas, please let me know. I might be able to pull in some major power for the team.

Arkham_c · Jan 17, 2002, 01:29 PM

I'm sure it could be done with the login and logout scripts. I couldn't begin to tell you how to do it without some knowledge of the specific setup of the machine. You could hack something together with a cron job that checks who is online and if the count is > 0 it kills the clients if they're running, and if not starts however many you want started.

This is untested, but might work:

<BLOCKQUOTE>code:<HR><pre>
$!/bin/sh

usercount=`who | wc -l`

if [ $usercount -gt 0 ]; then
killAllUberos
else
startUberosAsNeeded
fi
[/code]

I posted code to start ubero clients earlier. Let me know if you can't find it. Killing the ubero clients would depend on the OS. The easiest way to kill them is to iterate until a full-viewed ps command doesn't find any, awk'ing out the process ids to kill as you go. I'd write an exmaple, but I don't know if you're on System5 or BSD. The flags for ps are different on the different systems ( -ef versus -auxww ).

[edit: I actually called System5 "linux". Shows how long I've been away from commercial UNIX]

[ 01-17-2002: Message edited by: Arkham_c ]

doggkruse · Jan 17, 2002, 03:19 PM

You would probably have to make a separate account for the school, A lot of schools have problems for using school equipment for "Personal Gain". Also they may have a problem with the amount of bandwidth that it uses, bandwidth is expensive. Lastly if you do get permission, get it in written form. Read this. Is Distributed Computing a Crime?

Jan 17, 2002, 04:51 PM

So because of all the stalling, and no solution at hand, I think we need a shell script that will check to see if the agent(s) CPU utilization has gone to 0 and if so quit and restart the agent(s).
This would help greatly.
I noticed that when the agent stalls the CPU utilization via ps -u drops to single digits and then stabilizes at 0.0 at some point.
Anyone want to try shell scripting something to monitor and relaunch agents based on that?