boinc

This container will run the boinc_client. It is built so that you can host all the project data external to the container, allowing you run the client on a host and have persistant data.

Preperation

Before running the container, you'll need to have the following directories predefined on the container host:

boinc

It will also need to be owned or read/writable by the user/group root as the boinc_client runs as root in the container. The boinc directory will hold all of your boinc data and make persistant. I used:

/data/boinc

for the instructions below. Just make sure you create it prior to starting the container.

Running:

docker run --name=boinc -h HOSTNAME -p 31416 -v /data/boinc:/var/lib/boinc-client bcleonard/boinc

Please see the Notes/Caveats/Issues below for more information.

Configuration:

As I said before, /data/boinc will hold all of your project data. You can prepopulate any files you need or let the client initialize it for you. You will need to configure the boinc_client before it can do any actual work. I recommend running the following:

docker exec boinc boinccmd --join_acct_mgr URL name passwd

which will attach the client to an account manager. This should initialize the client so it starts doing work.

For example, to link the container to boincstats:

docker exec boinc boinccmd --join_acct_mgr http://bam.boincstats.com <username> <password>

Alternative activation with preconfigured account

Example for the seti-project, others should work also but you may need to exchange URLs below.

In case you want the container immediately start working (maybe in preparation to run it in a kubernetes environment) all you need is to take your week account credentials (in case of seti) from https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/weak_auth.php , store the snipplet in a file named:

account_setiathome.berkeley.edu.xml

and place it into containers /var/lib/boinc-client directory. I do this by deriving from this container with a dockerfile like this:

FROM bcleonard/boinc:latest
ADD ./assets/bonicdata/account_setiathome.berkeley.edu.xml /var/lib/boinc-client
EXPOSE 31416

Once you run this container it will connect to your account and start working. Recommendation: If you plan to run the container only locally: forget above dockerfile use docker-compose instead and mount the volume which contains the account xml file.

Example of a suitable docker-compose.yml:

version: '3.7'
services:
  boinc:
    container_name: seti
    # https://hub.docker.com/r/bcleonard/boinc
    image: bcleonard/boinc:latest
    volumes:
      - ./assets/boincdata:/var/lib/boinc-client
    networks:
      - setinet
networks:
  setinet:
    driver: bridge

place this file in the same directory where you have also: assets/boincdata/account_setiathome.berkeley.edu.xml and just call:

docker-compose up -d

to see what is happening in the container you may check with

docker logs seti

afterwards.

Additional Configuration:

Since docker now has the exec command, you can now run commands inside the container. For this container, you can run the boinccmd and use it to configure the boinc_client. The following syntax works:

decker exec boinc boinccmd <boinccmd arguements>

Running the above command without any boinccmd arguements will show you what arguments you can use. For example, to get the state of the boinc client:

docker exec boinc boinccmd --get_state

Notes/Caveats/Issues:

-h HOSTNAME - I recommend that you use this option (choose your own hostname) so that your host id for boinc is not the container id. But not in the case you are targetting for kubernetes, in which case you should use a statefullSet deployment kind, which contains a
hostname: $(statefulset name)-$(ordinal)
I have installed the 32 bit binaries so that projects such as climateprediction will run. However, for some reason, the boinc_client doesn't see them, so 32 bit projects won't run. The same libraries work outside of a container, so I'm not sure whats going on. Its low on my list, but if somebody can point me in the right direction, I'd be grateful.
No GUI password. By default, I set a blank password. You can change this by prepopulating /data/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg. If somebody asks, I update the script to generate a randon password on initial startup.
After starting, I had to manually tell the client to start downloading work. I'm not sure why I had to do that, but I waited almost 8 hours and it still hadn't downloaded any work. After doing that, the work downloaded and it started doing work.
Some project have links to you boinc client settings. In case of seti it is: https://setiathome.berkeley.edu/prefs.php?subset=global These settings influence whether or not your boinc client starts working (e.g. powerplug connected, or running on battery etc.) So if nothing happens you may need to recheck your settings.