Hello!

I runing BOINC under Linux without any installation and encountered with incorrect detection of volume size and free space. BOINC reports that total disk space is 6 Gbytes only but real size of volumes much bigger.

Output from terminal:

-sh-4.1$ ./boinccmd --version
boinccmd, built from BOINC 6.12.22

-sh-4.1$ ./boinccmd --get_disk_usage
======== Disk usage ========
total: 6442450944.000000
free: 420397056.000000
1) -----------
master URL: http://sat.isa.ru/pdsat/
disk usage: 14.88MB
2) -----------
master URL: http://szdg.lpds.sztaki.hu/szdg/
disk usage: 4.08MB
3) -----------
master URL: http://home.edges-grid.eu/home/
disk usage: 4.01MB
4) -----------
master URL: http://lhcathomeclassic.cern.ch/sixtrack/
disk usage: 245.68MB

-sh-4.1$ df -k
Filesystem 1K-blocks Used Available Use% Mounted on
/dev/sda1 114347624 3122416 105416620 3% /
tmpfs 32934468 0 32934468 0% /dev/shm
10.64.0.1:/common 459399312 362799568 73263616 84% /common
10.64.0.1:/opt/software 459400192 362800128 73264128 84% /opt/software
10.62.12.3:/vol/home1 857315744 334678384 522637360 40% /home1
10.67.0.1:/opt/basis 459400192 362800128 73264128 84% /opt/basis
10.62.12.4:/vol/home2 10737418240 7004095616 3733322624 66% /home2
10.62.12.4:/vol/home3 2113929216 1730030368 383898848 82% /home3
10.62.12.6:/ 19456 64 19392 1% /home4
-sh-4.1$

BOINC directory located on /home2 with ~10 Tbytes of total space and ~3.5 Tbytes free. Why BOINC detect disk size as only 6 Gbytes? Can i change this behavior?

Incorrect detection of drive space does not allow me consume of computing resources of host.

Output from terminal:

-sh-4.1$ ./boinccmd --version
boinccmd, built from BOINC 6.12.22

BOINC directory located on /home2 with ~10 Tbytes of total space and ~3.5 Tbytes free. Why BOINC detect disk size as only 6 Gbytes? Can i change this behavior?

That is an almost three year old Alpha version, as in a work in progress, the recommended version was around the Boinc 6.12.34/.35 area,
why even use that recommended version when you could use Boinc 7.2.33 the latest recommended, there have been a huge amount of fixes since April 2011.

Claggy

6.12.22 is quite old. Could you try a newer version in case this is fixed already?

For a temporary workaround you could allow BOINC to use 100% of disk space. I would expect BOINC to use up to 6 GB in that case.

6.12.22 is quite old. Could you try a newer version in case this is fixed already?

A command line version only is need for me, because, for example, "my host" does not have a usual user PC libraries - libXss.so for example.

For a temporary workaround you could allow BOINC to use 100% of disk space. I would expect BOINC to use up to 6 GB in that case.

Now is 95% and 100% doesn't solve the problem...

6.12.22 is quite old. Could you try a newer version in case this is fixed already?

A command line version only is need for me, because, for example, "my host" does not have a usual user PC libraries - libXss.so for example.

Even if you don't run X is installing the libraries completely out of question? If yes, I suppose the only option you have is to compile your own client.

What distro is this anyway?

For a temporary workaround you could allow BOINC to use 100% of disk space. I would expect BOINC to use up to 6 GB in that case.

Now is 95% and 100% doesn't solve the problem...

Yeah I didn't think it would. I just figured 6 GB ought to be enough...

Some past fixes:

Preliminary Change Log 7.0.44 --> 7.0.45:

- client: show available disk space correctly on startup.

Preliminary Change Log 7.0.47 --> 7.0.48:

- client: check return value of the function (statfs or statvfs) used to find disk space and usage. This may be failing for in-memory filesystems on Linux.


Is the 6 GB limit enforced or is just a cosmetic bug?

Yeah I didn't think it would. I just figured 6 GB ought to be enough...

Volume - 10 Tbytes, Free - 3 Tbytes, BOINC catalogue ~190 Мbytes.
But BOINC client reports that disk space is only 6 Gbytes and free - 400 Mbytes.
I don't understand from where it takes this number. Chaos.

BOINC without usage of any external libraries and packages with only command-line interface and without any "intelligent features" - is a strongly needed...

Is the 6 GB limit enforced or is just a cosmetic bug?

No disk quotas. No RAM drives. BOINC starts from huge volume.

6.12.22 is quite old. Could you try a newer version in case this is fixed already?

A command line version only is need for me, because, for example, "my host" does not have a usual user PC libraries - libXss.so for example.

Even if you don't run X is installing the libraries completely out of question? If yes, I suppose the only option you have is to compile your own client.

What distro is this anyway?

The OP needs to think through the client-manager duality of BOINC.

The client always runs in the background, with no user interface whatsoever - neither X nor command line (except for initial startup). So at that level, every client release should meet his requirements: if any dependencies on libX.. have crept into the client, they should be found and eradicated.

And the design philosophy of BOINC has always been that any management tool - command line or graphical, from BOINC or a third party - will be compatible with any version of the client. Some quirks have crept in over the years, and (perhaps inevitably) older managers can't cope fully with newer features: but the basic functions have remained intact.

So updating the client to bring over the bug fixes shouldn't be a problem, even if he retains his old command line management tool.

Yeah I didn't think it would. I just figured 6 GB ought to be enough...

Volume - 10 Tbytes, Free - 3 Tbytes, BOINC catalogue ~190 Мbytes.
But BOINC client reports that disk space is only 6 Gbytes and free - 400 Mbytes.

Does this large volume span multiple physical disks?

Edit - BOINC does talk about 'disk' space, rather than 'volume' space - though I don't know whether that distinction was intended to be semantically significant.

Volume - 10 Tbytes, Free - 3 Tbytes, BOINC catalogue ~190 Мbytes.
But BOINC client reports that disk space is only 6 Gbytes and free - 400 Mbytes.
I don't understand from where it takes this number. Chaos.

Probably overflow somewhere.

Is the 6 GB limit enforced or is just a cosmetic bug?

No disk quotas. No RAM drives. BOINC starts from huge volume.

I meant, does BOINC enforce the limit. Has BOINC ever told you it needs more disk space?

Open the latest sched_request_*.xml and find <d_total> and <d_free> tags. Does the numbers there match what the client is telling you?

The client always runs in the background, with no user interface whatsoever - neither X nor command line (except for initial startup). So at that level, every client release should meet his requirements: if any dependencies on libX.. have crept into the client, they should be found and eradicated.

It does depend on X libraries. It needs those to detect how long the user has been idle.

edit: That's the stock Berkeley version. The client can be compiled without X libraries but since everybody runs with X these days I'd say Berkeley is distributing the right version.

It might be possible to dynamically load the libraries if they exist but it's a nightmare to figure out where they are in the 100+ different distros.

Is the 6 GB limit enforced or is just a cosmetic bug?

No disk quotas. No RAM drives. BOINC starts from huge volume.

Now, I've done this on my Windows box, where the programs directory lives on a whole different drive, let alone partition, from the actual data directory.

The Programs directory lives on a 984.50GB partition on a 2TB drive.
The Data directory lives on a 244.14GB partition on a 1TB drive.

Output of boinccmd --get_disk_usage:
======== Disk usage ========
total: 262147145728.000000
free: 150990749696.000000

Now, depending on how you installed BOINC (Berkeley installer, repositories, or self-built), you'll have to check whether the data directory (/home/boinc/, /var/lib/boinc-client/, /var/lib/boinc, or elsewhere) doesn't live on a partition that's 6GB big that sits on /vol/home2

So on /vol/home2 do fdisk -l (explanation command) (manpage fdisk)(that's an 'el', not a 'one').

---

Yeah I didn't think it would. I just figured 6 GB ought to be enough...

Volume - 10 Tbytes, Free - 3 Tbytes, BOINC catalogue ~190 Мbytes.
But BOINC client reports that disk space is only 6 Gbytes and free - 400 Mbytes.

Does this large volume span multiple physical disks?

Yes. It is the "network volume" shared by several hosts.

I meant, does BOINC enforce the limit. Has BOINC ever told you it needs more disk space?

Yes. For example:

01-Feb-2014 18:30:15 [LHC@home 1.0] Computation for task sd_sixt33_390_1.8_6D_err_cc__1__s__62.31_60.32__4_6__6__25_1_sixvf_boinc22_1 finished
01-Feb-2014 18:44:42 [LHC@home 1.0] Sending scheduler request: To fetch work.
01-Feb-2014 18:44:42 [LHC@home 1.0] Requesting new tasks for CPU
01-Feb-2014 18:44:48 [LHC@home 1.0] Scheduler request completed: got 0 new tasks
01-Feb-2014 18:44:48 [LHC@home 1.0] No tasks sent
01-Feb-2014 18:44:48 [LHC@home 1.0] SixTrack needs 6.50MB more disk space. You currently have 184.23 MB available and it needs 190.73 MB.
01-Feb-2014 19:00:36 [LHC@home 1.0] Started upload of sd_sixt33_190_2.2_4D_err_cc__1__s__62.31_60.32__2_4__6__85_1_sixvf_boinc17_1_0
01-Feb-2014 19:00:36 [LHC@home 1.0] Started upload of sd_sixt33_490_1.6_4D_err_cc__2__s__62.31_60.32__6_8__6__60_1_sixvf_boinc131_1_0

Open the latest sched_request_*.xml and find <d_total> and <d_free> tags. Does the numbers there match what the client is telling you?

Yes:

<host_info>
...
<p_fpops>1748298479.863674</p_fpops>
<p_iops>3630814941.150429</p_iops>
<p_membw>1000000000.000000</p_membw>
<p_calculated>1391034088.919318</p_calculated>
<m_nbytes>67449794560.000000</m_nbytes>
<m_cache>20971520.000000</m_cache>
<m_swap>1072685056.000000</m_swap>
<d_total>6442450944.000000</d_total>
<d_free>407928832.000000</d_free>
<os_name>Linux</os_name>
...
</host_info>

Now, depending on how you installed BOINC (Berkeley installer, repositories, or self-built), you'll have to check whether the data directory (/home/boinc/, /var/lib/boinc-client/, /var/lib/boinc, or elsewhere) doesn't live on a partition that's 6GB big that sits on /vol/home2

BOINC is not installed. "BOINC instance" copied to network storage and runs from cataloge /home2/<user>/.../ . I have a permission to run BOINC on host, but I cannot install any software.

So on /vol/home2 do fdisk -l (explanation command) (manpage fdisk)(that's an 'el', not a 'one').

No any output...

So the 10TB drive is a network storage, not a local one?

---

So the 10TB drive is a network storage, not a local one?

Yes. It's true. Most volumes "visible" through network.

Ok. I made a 10 TB sparse file, created ext4 filesystem in the file and dropped 6.12.22 "compat", 6.12.22 x86_64 "ubuntu" and 7.2.33 x86_64 versions in there.

All reported the filesystem size correctly. Sooo, NFS?

Sooo, NFS?

Volume, from which I start BOINC "attached" to several hosts in the network. I think that is "NFS volume".

Back to this one.

The size of the volume reported by BOINC is a bit odd. It's not about 6 GB, it's exactly 6 GB. Also the percentage of free space is different, 33% vs 6%. I'm having trouble coming up with an explanation for these.

Are you sure there isn't any quotas in place? If you have it installed, what "quota" says? Or actually, can you create a large file, say 10 GB, there? (If you can create that file please tell me BOINC then reports negative free space :P )

Anyway. The version of BOINC you are using is a 32-bit binary. I'm guessing there's some kind of bug in the 64->32 bit conversion. The best way to get BOINC working would be compiling it for your system.

Another option might be creating a file system image in a smaller 1-2 GB file and running BOINC from there. Drawback is that mounting the image requires root privileges or FUSE and suitable FUSE-filesystem (like ntfs-3g) installed.

Back to this one.

Thank you!

Are you sure there isn't any quotas in place? If you have it installed, what "quota" says? Or actually, can you create a large file, say 10 GB, there? (If you can create that file please tell me BOINC then reports negative free space :P )

No quotas. I simply operate files with total size of tens of gigabytes.

Anyway. The version of BOINC you are using is a 32-bit binary. I'm guessing there's some kind of bug in the 64->32 bit conversion. The best way to get BOINC working would be compiling it for your system.

It is compiled on the same server that runs and...

Another option might be creating a file system image in a smaller 1-2 GB file and running BOINC from there. Drawback is that mounting the image requires root privileges or FUSE and suitable FUSE-filesystem (like ntfs-3g) installed.

I have no privileges for administrative actions. Resource owner allows me to run BOINC but only as standalone application.

No quotas. I simply operate files with total size of tens of gigabytes.

Ok. Does creating/deleting large files show in any way in BOINC's disk space report?

Anyway. The version of BOINC you are using is a 32-bit binary. I'm guessing there's some kind of bug in the 64->32 bit conversion. The best way to get BOINC working would be compiling it for your system.

It is compiled on the same server that runs and...

Wait what? I thought you were running the version you downloaded from here. If you compiled it yourself you can compile any version, including the latest recommended.

And if you can compile it yourself you can simply hardcode BOINC to report 10 PB of free disk space... (get_filesystem_info(), at the end of lib/filesys.cpp)

Another option might be creating a file system image in a smaller 1-2 GB file and running BOINC from there. Drawback is that mounting the image requires root privileges or FUSE and suitable FUSE-filesystem (like ntfs-3g) installed.

I have no privileges for administrative actions. Resource owner allows me to run BOINC but only as standalone application.

Ok, that rules out more native filesystems and I can't get FUSE to actually mount an NTFS image without root privileges :(