Can someone tell me what "idle" or "not in use" means to boinc? Does it mean no one is on the console -- no keystrokes or mouse movement? Or does it mean the CPU is relatively idle?

I am running boinc on 20, 8 core headless servers (Dell 1950s) under Debian. These servers are only used about 20% of the time, but when they are in use I need all of them and would like boinc to suspend and unload its jobs and get out of the way until the system is idle for 5 minutes.

According to the docs that look possible, but that is not how its working on my systems. I never see boinc suspend or stop running jobs on any of the cores when the machine is under load. Is this because boinc is determining idle by keystroke and mouse movement and not CPU? If so, is there anyway to make it work on a headless machine?

For the record, I am running 5.4.11 client on Debian 3.1. In all respects boinc works flawlessly.

Thanks,

Mark

Idle means no keyboard or mouse activity.
Although on some older versions of BOINC, including yours, it can also mean that when the embedded graphics chip is taking up too many CPU cycles, that BOINC won't allow applications to run.

---

If so, is there anyway to make it work on a headless machine?

You could write a script that monitors the server for whatever activity you want and then suspends all attached projects. When the script detects 5 minutes of inactivity it resumes all the projects. The script would communicate with BOINC client via the BOINC RPC interface. I can give you some Python functions that will show you how the interface works. It's easy.

If that idea appeals to you but you prefer Java over Python then see this thread.

Simpler would be to just tell BOINC to suspend processing instead of suspending all projects.

---

BOINC WIKI

The script would communicate with BOINC client via the BOINC RPC interface. I can give you some Python functions that will show you how the interface works. It's easy.

If that idea appeals to you but you prefer Java over Python then see this thread.

Or just use "boinc_cmd --set_run_mode never" (and "always" to turn it back on).

---