We have a lots PCs which havn't Internet connections. How to running compute program on these PCs with BOINC?
Anyone could offer more detail operate infomations on it. thanks a lot.

If one machine has a broadband connection, then you might try an inexpensive router or router switch combo to hook them up.

I don't think there's a sneakernet guide for BOINC - not one that I know of anyway, but if you let us know your setup then I'm sure we can work something out.

Do the offline computers have access to a folder than an online machine also has access to? Or are they completely isolated? If this is the case then running offline will require the jobs to be moved to a PC with internet access via a USB drive.

I guess this is what would be useful:
1. How many offline PCs are there?
2. Can any of them access the internet?
3. If 2=No, Can any of them access a folder on a machine that can access the internet?
4. What OS are they running?

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In your general Boinc settings (here on the rosetta site) you have to set the "Connect to network about every XX" value to a high value, like 4, which means that it will only connect to the internet every 4 days and will download enough work to assure it won't run out of work during the 4 days.

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A lots of not powerful PCs , and some powerful servers(Intel Xeon MP 3.66G * 8, 12G Memory). All these computers are isolated, which cannot access Internet directly and indirectly. The only way exchanging data is USB device.

Now I feel like it is impractical to run BOINC on these PCs. But do these servers can be any use? Because there's few applications running on it, and the usage of all CPUs is close to 0%. I think it is wasteful.

thanks for answering my questions.

If the computers could be hooked up via a network to a router/switch connected to a computer/server that had access to the net at least every 4 to 5 days then all the other computers could register with the selected project, download and upload work while the connection was inplace.
The network could then be isolated from the net again till the next connection time.

Boinc needs a connection to the net to upload and download work from a project.
Boinc itself is not a project just the platform used to talk back to the projects.

Projects like ClimatePrediction.net have workunits that run for months so it maybe a better choice as you would only need the ititial connection to register and download work then only have to connect again once a week or so to upload data trickles till the WU is finished.

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Tasks need to run months maybe fit my server. :)

I run BOINC from a USB memory device, but it is a relatively fast one and when i tried it on a slower one the CPU experienced drops in usage (like 100% to 20% every 5 seconds) so it's not entirely practical. Just an idea though.

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"The Mastergee" were you running Rosetta? Since it does so little access to "disk", I would have expected only very rare reduction in CPU time, like as a model is reaching a checkpoint, or getting started.

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Rosetta Moderator: Mod.Sense

Actually the CPU reduction was with Seti@home, so I think that the USB idea would work with Rosetta, but with many machines this would require investment in many USB devices. And I'm not sure if crunching results on many machines and recording the results onto USB devices, then reporting them from a single internet connected computer would work. Because doesn't BOINC have an annoying function that stops work being sent until a certain time after the last request?

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If the machines are networked together and so can all access a single shared folder, a single USB flash drive could be used to import/export the jobs to that folder. I think the best way to do it would be to have one boinc installation per machine, and a batch file that copies the folders to the shared drive, and then starts boinc.exe on each of the machines (I believe 'net start' can be used to start services on remote machines?). Net stop could then be used to stop boinc before the folders are copied back to the flash drive and taken to an internet connected computer. I don't think a couple of batch files to automate all this would be difficult...

opernal - could a usb drive be updated every 2 weeks? If so, rosetta could return jobs before they exire.

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