Problems running Boinc

[NudgeyNR]

Recently installed Kubuntu as a VM and then installed Boinc through a package manager.

When i run boinc i get a chdir error, i proceeded to investigate and discovered that it needs to be run with sudo privileges.

Why is it not doing this itself ?

How do i make it run with sudo privileges ?

Also been trying to get it to autorun on startup.

[Dark Angel]

By rights it should have started automatically once you installed it, then you manage it using the Boinc Manager application (boincmgr).  The client should start automatically as a service on boot.

[Dingo]

I had problems as well with privileges.  This fixed the problem for me.

Run these commands from a Terminal window

sudo systemctl start boinc-client  // This just starts boinc

top  // this will show the running processes to see if tasks are running.

If they are then you should be able to run BOINC Manager from the gui but if it does not start use the following.


cd /usr/bin

./boincmgr

When running these command note any error messages.  If all went well and no error messages on reboot just run sudo systemctl start boinc-client

I still run mine manually as it does not start on reboot.  Should look into it but it is in a VirtualBox and I start that up manually so just one more step to start BOINC.

Let me know how you go.

[NudgeyNR]

I had problems as well with privileges.  This fixed the problem for me.

Run these commands from a Terminal window

sudo systemctl start boinc-client  // This just starts boinc

top  // this will show the running processes to see if tasks are running.

If they are then you should be able to run BOINC Manager from the gui but if it does not start use the following.


cd /usr/bin

./boincmgr

When running these command note any error messages.  If all went well and no error messages on reboot just run sudo systemctl start boinc-client

I still run mine manually as it does not start on reboot.  Should look into it but it is in a VirtualBox and I start that up manually so just one more step to start BOINC.

Let me know how you go.

Boinc runs but no wu's start when i start the service.

Boincmgr needs sudo to run aswell

Boinc does not run automatically after being installed.

[Dark Angel]

What command did you use to install?

Sudo apt-get install boinc boinc-client boinc-manager ?

[tazzduke]

Hi NudgeyNR

Might I suggest you spin up a VM running Linux Mint 20.2, here is the download link

https://linuxmint.com/download_all.php

I installed it via the Synaptic program.

Either that, can you please tell us

Kubuntu Version
Kernel Version
Boinc Version

Also can you tell us the owner and group, do a ll command on /var/lib/boinc, which will give you all the details

[NudgeyNR]

Hi NudgeyNR

Might I suggest you spin up a VM running Linux Mint 20.2, here is the download link

https://linuxmint.com/download_all.php

I installed it via the Synaptic program.

Either that, can you please tell us

Kubuntu Version
Kernel Version
Boinc Version

Also can you tell us the owner and group, do a ll command on /var/lib/boinc, which will give you all the details

I used Discover Software Center on Kubuntu 21.10.

Kernel versiio - 5.19.0-38-generic.

Boinc version - 7.20.5

ll - lrwxrwxrwx 1 boinc boinc 12 Sep 13  2022 /var/lib/boinc -> boinc-client/

I hope that is everything.

[ryzenmulti]

Maybe it is where you are installing it from (the folder you run from when installing boinc). Is it desktop or some other? Where you a user or admin/root when you installed it?

I know on Manjaro Linux it matters where I installed Boinc from (arch linux uses pacman package manager) and make sure I am the user, not root. For simplicity I use the user home folder (cd ~) when I run 'sudo pacman -S boinc' and boinc project folders all get installed from there. If I installed from the desktop folder, then I'd have to run it from there. If you were the root user then there are issues with file ownership.

Always running from the folder I installed from creates no issues on arch.

[tazzduke]

Hi NudgeyNR

Thats a start, will do some further digging and see what I can come up with for you.

Cheers

[tazzduke]

Good Evening NudgeyNR

Well I went and spun up a Kubuntu 22.10
Completed the updates,
I installed the boinc software, using the muon package manager.

Need to add the normal user to the sudoers file, before it can do sudo commands.
To do this
Open up a Konsole and switch to root by doing the following.
Type in SU and press enter
It will ask for a password, this is normally the same one that you log in with.
Then enter the follwoing command
usermod -aG sudo username (username is the name of the normal user for the machine)
Once this has been done, reboot the machine.

Now you should be able to complete the following successfully.

Then you will need to do the following - in a normal user console.

1. start boinc service

sudo systemctl start boinc-client.service

2. to add user to boinc group

sudo /usr/sbin/usermod -G boinc -a $(whoami)

3. add read/write permission to

sudo chmod g+rw /var/lib/boinc

4.  symlink as per Berkeley

ln -s /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg /home/username/gui_rpc_auth.cfg

"Where username is the actual username for the user of that machine"

Logout (or reboot) and log back in.

5.  Start Client Service

sudo systemctl start boinc-client.service

6. Auto start the service on boot

sudo systemctl enable boinc-client.service.

FInd your BOINC shortcut in the menu and double click on it.

Hope this got you going, as it worked for me.

Oops forgot to add, if this has worked for you, next is to get the actual boinc-client to autostart on boot

goto application launcher
goto settings
goto system settings
select startup and shutdown
select autostart
select add (to add an application)
select system
select boinc
select ok

Now we should be all good and up and running.

Let me know how it goes. also allow for a bit of time difference and work schedule.

Regards

PS.  Edited due spelling errors and also we were dealing with Kubuntu 22.10 which is different to Kubuntu 22.04.

[ryzenmulti]

Quick question - is a shortcut to enable a service to start on boot the following?
sudo systemctl enable boinc

[tazzduke]

Quick question - is a shortcut to enable a service to start on boot the following?
sudo systemctl enable boinc

This is the command to autostart the boinc service on boot (not the client though)
sudo systemctl enable boinc-client.service

[NudgeyNR]

Everything works with no errors until i try and create the symlink.

I get the error - ln: failed to create symbolic link '/home/boinc-4/gui_rpc_auth.cfg': File exists

I haven't gone any further that that as yet.

[NudgeyNR]

Also he is a link to Kubuntu 22.10.

https://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/22.10/release/kubuntu-22.10-desktop-amd64.iso

[tazzduke]

Okay, error is saying link exists, try going on with the next steps.