Benchmarks

[Bryan]

I found an interesting problem today. I have 6 identical machines running VMs on Edges and 1 is getting significantly less credits. I checked the time to finish a WU and it is identical to the other 5 machines.

What I found was that when I look at the "details" on that machine it has MUCH lower benchmark results than the other machines. So while it crunches a WU in the same amount of time it is REQUESTING less credits .... 2.3 versus 3.5 / WU. I reran the benchmarks but it didn't update what is shown on the project. I uninstalled BOINC w/ Edges suspended and reinstalled the same version of BOINC. Once again nothing changed on the project.

On Sztaki, which also runs Zeta, it benchmarks at 3993 FP and 14000 integer. On Edges it is 2854 FP and 9168 Integer.

It is possible I had the host running almost full bore when I attached to the project in the VM .... I don't know I'm just guessing at this point.

So, when does the project get the benchmark results passed to it and once it has them is it possible to make them change?

I'm not in a position to do a clean uninstall/reinstall or to detach/reattach until after the Edges challenge. It is too hard to get the cache full!

[Mumps]

It has to pass them back occassionally. Otherwise there would be no reason to run them every now and then. I thought it was part of the Update request. Or maybe included in the sched_request when work is asked for. After you manually had them run (making sure to do it while the host is idle) the local numbers should get updated. Then I would have guessed the server should have been updated at the next update. It may not be reflected on the Project pages for a bit longer though. Most projects cache many of the user pages, so once you've visited it, it may take over an hour before the project server will check the database again and give you the fresh numbers.

[Bryan]

It has been 7 1/2 hours and the project hasn't changed. I ran 3 manual benchmark tests early this afternoon on that machine. It is still requesting 2/3 the credit of the other machines

I ran benchmarks on this Win laptop and in the message log it shows "Running CPU benchmarks" and then immediately following it shows the results. I did the same thing on VM on this machine and the one I'm having problems with. The message log shows the same "Running CPU Benchmarks" followed by 80 lines with nothing but timestamp and then no results at the end. I don't know if that is normal for Linux or whether that is a function of the VM.

[Mumps]

That would not be normal. What version of client are you running on that Linux VM?

Mon 05 Jan 2015 09:44:20 PM CST | | Running CPU benchmarks
Mon 05 Jan 2015 09:44:45 PM CST | | [cpu_sched_debug] Request CPU reschedule: Idle state change
Mon 05 Jan 2015 09:44:51 PM CST | | Benchmark results:
Mon 05 Jan 2015 09:44:51 PM CST | | Number of CPUs: 2
Mon 05 Jan 2015 09:44:51 PM CST | | 1924 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
Mon 05 Jan 2015 09:44:51 PM CST | | 11129 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU
Mon 05 Jan 2015 09:44:52 PM CST | | [cpu_sched_debug] Request CPU reschedule: Resuming computation
Mon 05 Jan 2015 09:44:52 PM CST | | [cpu_sched_debug] Request CPU reschedule: periodic CPU scheduling
Mon 05 Jan 2015 09:44:52 PM CST | | [cpu_sched_debug] schedule_cpus(): start

Mon 05 Jan 2015 09:49:59 PM CST | | Running CPU benchmarks
Mon 05 Jan 2015 09:50:00 PM CST | | Suspending computation - CPU benchmarks in progress
Mon 05 Jan 2015 09:50:31 PM CST | | Benchmark results:
Mon 05 Jan 2015 09:50:31 PM CST | | Number of CPUs: 3
Mon 05 Jan 2015 09:50:31 PM CST | | 2317 floating point MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
Mon 05 Jan 2015 09:50:31 PM CST | | 11867 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU
Mon 05 Jan 2015 09:50:32 PM CST | | Resuming computation

[Bryan]

7.2.42 .... what is in the Mint repository.

[Mumps]

Booo!

Go to http://boinc.berkeley.edu/dl/?C=M;O=D and download the current release for Linux. boinc_7.4.25_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu.sh

I haven't installed boinc from the repository lately though, so I'll have to confirm how to replace your current install with the current release. I normally have it running from a folder named "BOINC" in my home directory. So from your home dir you simply execute that file you downloaded to create that BOINC folder and extract the client.

cd ~
bash Downloads/boinc_7.4.25_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu.sh

It should reply that you can:

use /home/boinc/BOINC/run_manager to start BOINC

As long as the repository had installed it there (which it most likely doesn't) all your cache should be seen by the new client right away. I've also got some scripts lifted from Dotsch Linux that auto start BOINC on boot. Only drawback to that is some GPU drivers don't like interacting with the start up script, so I have to remember to restart the client from a console login on those hosts if they get rebooted.

Maybe try these instructions. http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/...ely-site-Linux

[Bryan]

I'll have to wait until after the Edges challenge ... I can't risk losing my cache

I was hoping they would come out with version 27 which supports the project_max_concurrent command. Really simply to do app_configs on projects like MindModeling that have boatloads of subprojects. I'm using in Windows.

[zombie67]

FWIW, the rules for when BOINC runs benchmarks has changed a couple time recently. I don't recall the reasons or the versions. But I do recall the discussion on the mail lists.