Common question that most SETI users will ask about rc5

[Robor]

How do you monitor your herd? Is it possible to monitor the progress/status of your clients from a central machine on the network? In SETI I use SetiWatch and I can tell if a client is down, stalled, waiting, etc. How do you do it with the rc5 client?

Thanks!

Rob

 

[alpha7x]

What worked best for me was to set up a pproxy on one network machine and have all machines flush to it. Then you can monitor the logs, or better yet, if you are using Windows or NT, download Personal Proxy Analyzer from www.netsec.ch. It will give you graphs, tell you each machines output (both how much and how long it has been) and other details. There are other programs available as well.

 

[Robor]

^ BUMP ^

I downloaded pproxy and the analyzer. Can anyone help with the pproxy setup? This is a bit confusing. I'm having trouble with the proper settings for the proxyper.ini file. What are the important settings that need modified from default? Should I comment out everything but the rc5 related lines? Help! 🙂

Rob

 

[Robor]

^^^^^ Bump ^^^^^

Rob

 

[TwoFace]

Robor:

You shouldn't have to modify the proxyper.ini to much, there are really just a couple of places that are interesting to modify:

1. The IP address to flush to, I've got it like this: ipaddress=proxy.teamanandtech.com (this will utilize the RR thus allowing you to track stats on Mika's and always get a connection to another proxy)
   
2. Then there's the buffer sizes I'll write what I've got there

<< [rc564]
logfilekeyblock=keylogs/pproxyrc5
logfilekeyblockrotation=daily
minkeysready=2000
maxkeysready=15000
maxkeysdone=500
expertmode=0

[ogr]
logfilekeyblock=keylogs/pproxyogr
logfilekeyblockrotation=daily
minkeysready=0
maxkeysready=0
maxkeysdone=1
contestclosed=0 >>



What this does is set a minimum of 2000 blocks in the input buffer and a maximum of 15000, this will start out at 1000 and after about 30 mins will be autoadjusted to what you need for ca 4 days cracking. Another nice thing is that this way I don't have to modify my clients not to do any OGR since my pproxy don't have any OGR stubs... 😎

If you've checked Mika's and seen the stats there, I can help you setup the same thing for your herd. It's made using a perl script that's freeware...

Just holler if you need more help!

With love and respect your fellow TA member

Two-Face

 

[TwoFace]

Oh and another thing suggested by osmo:

If you don't like the autoadjust thing or are worried you'll not get enough blocks just switch expertmode to 1 and then set the minimum to whatever you think you'll need, base this on how much you put out in a 24 hour period and then multiply by number of days you want buffered. Also remember to set the maximum to somthing higher than the minimum 😛

With love and respect your fellow TA member

Two-Face

 

[Robor]

TwoFace: Okay, I made your suggested changes to the .ini and I think I've got it working. I pointed my clients to it and they downloaded and flushed through it. So far so good...

Do I need to do anything to the proxy itself or will it work on it's own?

I tried using the pproxy analyzer. I put it into the same directory as the pproxy file and when I ran the analyzer and hit &quot;load&quot; it said &quot;no pproxy analyzer log files found&quot;. Weird because I can see the log in the same directory. Am I doing something wrong or do I have to wait longer?

Oh yeah, I'm interested in keeping track of my stuff like on Mika's. What do I need to do?

Thanks!

Rob

 

[TwoFace]

Robor:

First things first, I need to know what OS you're running this pproxy on... if you're running it on a win9x box I hope you do have something with another OS! WinNT (4 or 2000) is fine, as is linux or other *nix'es... the problem with running the pproxy under win9x is that it won't run as a service and it'll bother you by being in a window... What all of this amounts to is relevant to how you operate your pproxy... you've got several options for how the pproxy connects to the RoundRobin or Mika's dialup-detection is one, normal (for always on connections) is another... I'll not go more into that before I know what you've got since that would be a whole tutorial in this message alone... 😛

Anyway that analyzer is one thing I don't know how works, but that's not relevant for making stats like Mika's 😉

What you need to do is this:

1. Be sure to have PERL installed (*nix OSs usually comes with this and you can get Active Perl for win32 here)
2. Then go here to find ppstats that is the perl script used to create the stats on Mika's. Download the script for RC5.
3. You'll need to configure the perl script a little, this is done in the file called ppstats-rc5.ini... most of it is pretty self explanatory, but if you run into any issues (I know I did) I'll provide more assistance at that time

This should be enough to get you started 😉

Lemme know when you need more 😎

With love and respect your fellow TA member

Two-Face

 

[Robor]

TwoFace: I'm running 3 Win98SE boxes and a WinMe box. The pproxy is on a Win98SE box. All are behind a Linksys Cable/DSL router connected to Roadrunner cable. All boxes stay on 24/7. The box that has the pproxy running on it isn't my main box so I'm not worried about it being in a DOS windows. Will it cause other problems running it in Win9x?

I do have a copy of Advanced Server 2000 that I was going to install but I want to dual boot it and need a larger hard drive to do so. Would this be better? If the only issue is the annoying DOS window don't worry. This box does nothing but sit and do crack.

Thanks for the help! 🙂

Rob

 

[TwoFace]

Robor:

Sorry for the late reply, but I'm not in the US and I had to go to bed last night 😛

Well if your box just sits there and cracks (I like that 😉) then you shouldn't have to worry... There are advantages and disadvantages to running the pproxy in a window, the main advantage would be that you can force the pproxy to update it's buffers whenever you feel like it. I don't remember now how this is done, but I'll find out once I'm back home (I'm at work now). The main disadvantage is that running in a window the pproxy requires manual shut down before you can reboot, and of course the added unstability of win9x 😉

Advanced server would definitly be better, but don't bother until you can afford a larger HD... btw: hope you have lots of ram (at least 384) since win2k Adv.Server is even more of a memory hog than win2k Prof. and Server... 😉

More when I get home...

With love and respect your fellow TA member

Two-Face

 

[LeBlatt]

<< you can force the pproxy to update it's buffers whenever you feel like it >>



...by pressing Ctrl+pause




<< when I ran the analyzer and hit &quot;load&quot; it said &quot;no pproxy analyzer log files found&quot;. >>



were you looking at &quot;PP-yyyymmdd.log&quot; files ? those are proxy logs. when the proxy receives blocks from clients it generates &quot;pproxyrc5yyyymmdd.log&quot; files. those are the logs that analyzer looks for.

I tried analyzer yesterday. nice proggy but for 1 week history it ate 45 MB or my ram cuz it does all the data job in memory. I'll need a try of ppstats. If I read you correctly TwoFace, active perl will allow me to run it in win32 ? (I dont have *nix knowledge)

 

[Robor]

TwoFace: Yes, this box is just going to sit there and crack. Every once in a while I have friends over and we play some LAN games on it but 99.9% of it's time is for DC. I wasn't aware that Advanced Server needs so much RAM. I've only got 128MB in this box. I think I'll stick with Win98SE until I can afford some more RAM and a larger HD. Honestly, I don't have stability problems with any of my Win9x boxes. I get the rare lockup but it only happens on my BP6/C366 system that doesn't like running at 92FSB. I'm one of the unlucky people who has a C366 that isn't very good at overclocking.

Anyway, right now I've got the pproxy running and I think it's working. My clients are uploading and downling through it. I've got the files downloaded but haven't tried using them yet. I'll have to give it a try after work.

were you looking at &quot;PP-yyyymmdd.log&quot; files ? those are proxy logs. when the proxy receives blocks from clients it generates &quot;pproxyrc5yyyymmdd.log&quot; files. those are the logs that analyzer looks for.

I'm not sure. I'll have to check later today.

I'm not sure if I'm looking for the right thing here though. I'm a SETI users and many of us use a program called SetiWatch. I can run it on a PC on the network and monitor all of the SETI clients in real-time. I can see the progress of clients every minute if I want. Will either of these programs we're talking about here do that? If not, is there a program that will monitor rc5 clients in real-time? I'd like to be able to track my own total stats and monitor clients over the network.

Thanks!!

Rob

 

[TwoFace]

Robor:

There is in fact a program that does what you want, it's called CowControl and can be found here. It requires you to have logging enabled, and that you've got access to the log file (ordinary windows filesharing) and it'll allow you to see how all your cows are doing. I just downloaded it and took it for a test spin and it was real easy to use! 🙂

The RAM needs of win2k Adv. Serv. is of course dependant on how many things you're gonna have running on it... if you're gonna run a webserver, ftpserver +++ you'll probably need more than just 128 ... but if the only thing it will be is a gateway you shouldn't have any problems at all...

As for the different log files, there are the two LeBlatt listed, some are the console logs that has all the info you see in the pproxy window, the other kind are the keylogs that has all the info about work submitted through the pproxy. The keylogs usually come in the format you listed &quot;pproxyrc5yyyymmdd.log&quot;.

LeBlatt:

Yes ActivePerl will allow you to run perl scripts in win32, thus enabling you to make the same kinda stats that Mika's has 😎

I'll be gone from tomorrow until tuesday... so if there's anything else I can help you with be sure to ask today 😛

With love and respect your fellow TA member

Two-Face

 

[Robor]

TwoFace: I will download CowControl and give it a try. Also will see about the analyzer and those log files. Thanks!!

Rob

 

[Robor]

I ran the analyzer from my pproxy directory and still got an error when I hit &quot;load&quot;. Do I need to modify the proxy .ini file for it to create these needed log files?

Rob

 

[jinsonxu]

Urgent question, i have to get the proxy setup as soon as i can. Does running my machine as a proxy for my clients to fetch and flush through require alot of memory?

I've only 64MB.

 

[jinsonxu]

Also, what setting must my clients have to connect to my machine? Cause my some of those in my mini-team want a better way to see their own rate.

Setting up my machine as a proxy, is it feasible only if i have a loca network or can all the different teammates connect to my machine?

So, my machine will connect to Mika's proxy, but what are the settings needed to allow my other clients to connect?

 

[jinsonxu]

Help! At the moment, i've set my clients to flush to my IP. My own client on the proxy machine can flush to it.

BUT all others don't succeed!

What have i done wrong??

THis is my proxy ini file.

[KeyServer]
ipaddress=proxy.teamanandtech.com
port=2064
connectperiod=120
connectivity=normal
;bindip= ; IP to talk out to keyserver from
;uuehttpmode=0
; 0=normal,1=uue,2=http,3=http+uue
; 4=socks4,5=socks5,6=genproxy,7=genproxy+uue
;httpproxy=wwwproxy.corporation.com
;httpport=8080
;httpid=

[ports]
;listenaddress=XXXXXXXXXX (My ip) ; IP to accept clients on
port=2064
;port2=23 ; must be root for ports < 1000
;port3=80
testport=3064
timeout=30

[console]
logfileconsole=
logfileconsolerotation=daily
consoleverbosity=&quot;general stats keyblock server client buffers timestamp attention errlow errsevere&quot;
timestampflags=130

[rc564]
logfilekeyblock=keylogs/pproxyrc5
logfilekeyblockrotation=daily
minkeysready=2000
maxkeysready=15000
maxkeysdone=500
expertmode=0

[ogr]
logfilekeyblock=keylogs/pproxyogr
logfilekeyblockrotation=daily
minkeysready=0
maxkeysready=0
maxkeysdone=1
contestclosed=0

[desII]
logfilekeyblock=pproxydes
logfilekeyblockrotation=daily
minkeysready=10
maxkeysready=20
maxkeysdone=3
contestclosed=1

[csc]
logfilekeyblock=pproxycsc
logfilekeyblockrotation=daily
minkeysready=10
maxkeysready=20
maxkeysdone=3
contestclosed=1

[misc]
proxymessage=&quot;TA Pproxy!!&quot;
pidfile=rc5desproxy.pid
statusperiod=30
periodicperiod=120
;logfilecompressor=logcompressor.sh

[ignoredip]

[allowedip]

 

[jinsonxu]

Ok, i've gotten it to work.

Problem now.

How do i set ZoneAlarm to allow connections through 2064??

 

[jinsonxu]

Ok, now i'm encountering the same problem.

I'm getting the same error as Robor when starting the Analyser program.
Trying active Perl at the moment.

 

[TwoFace]

jinsonxu:

Sorry that I haven't replied in here for all your needs 🙁 I'm ashamed and hope to make corrections to that STAT!

Nice to see that you've gotten the pproxy to work... and all your teammates should have no problem at all... just point them at your box if you haven't already done that and it works 😎

Holler if you need ppstats help!

With love and respect your fellow TA member

Two-Face