New Quisi Linux install FAQ (for debian)

[narzy]

I am not sure about other distro's if this works but it does work for debian, thanks to LD for the help originaly geting it working for me. I as a linux newbie, have a hard time finding simple to the point answers to direct questions I have. So I will try and document my smaller simple answers in hopes of making life to linux more sane for the rest of the world.

to do this you need to have seti installed (duh) in debian there is a package already made all you have to do is get it. It did not come on my CD image but it may now, if its not on your CD and you have not tould Debian to hook up to the web to find packages I will write an FAQ about that aswell. if it is set to look the web for packages just use apt-get install setiathome this will install the setiathome package. (do this as root)

to set Seti to start with the machine you will be creating a small script. browse to your /etc/rc.boot/ directory
cd /ect/rc.boot/
use your favorite text editor to create a new file, I use nano, you can also get this via apt-get just type apt-get install nano, but Vi edit works aswell, its commands however are a bit combersome in my opinion.

nano setiathome

setiathome is your script file name

now that you have your new file open you will point to where you want setiathome to run I personally created a setiathome directory in my root directory / to run seti. you file will need to look somthing like this.

#! /bin/sh/
/setiathome/setiathome

the first /setiathome/ is the directory the second is the program call itself if you are connecting to a que or whatever your arguments go at the end of the line... like this

/setiathome/setiathome -proxy xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:xxxx

(in this example replace the x's with the proxy ip and port just like normal)

DO NOT ADD a & at the end of the line yet! you will be profoundly sorry!

exit out of the file (with nano this is ctrl+x)

chmod 755 setiathome

reboot your machine

with linux loads this time you will get the standard seti config screen select the apropriate option and set it up like normal.

then ctrl+c out of it once it downloads its first work unit, and log on as root once more

browse back to /etc/rc.boot/

edit the setiathome file once again with your favorite text editor

nano setiathome

at the end of the /setiathome/setiathome line add a space and & so it looks like this

/setiathome/setiathome &

or whatever with your arguments the important thing is the space and & at the end of the line
then exit out once more.

reboot the machine again, and enjoy 🙂

note: this is a rough draft I am doing this from memory do not try it yet I will test the procedure once I get home back on my second linux box. I am sure I have an error somewhere 😉 and since linux is picky like that, you may end up spending a butt load of time fixing it.

 

[Poof]

😕

Narzy - it looks like what you're trying to do is:

1.) create a little script that runs seti with all the parameters already in place
2.) edit the rc.local file on the machine to start the SETI script at boot time (although we Linux users know that booting is a windoze thing, not Linux! 😛)

I'm still nervous about running something like that (even as a script, although maybe that gets around it) in rc.local without the "&" to fork the process off into the background (even that "first time" as you indicate). Been there done that! :Q :Q :Q 🙁

The reason why I say this (and maybe it's a Red Hat thing) is apparently, rc.local would run before the network modules and networking configurations were loaded. So if you didn't already have a user_info.sah in your SETI directory, when it tries to run the SETI script and the user login prompt comes up, you'll never be able to login to SETI to enter your existing account name, 'cause you won't have any network access to them! :Q.

Just some thoughts... 🙂

 

[narzy]

I knew I had a problem there, I could not remember if I did it like this or if I ran seti in the /setiathome/ dir the first time to get things going. the client seems to start after all the verbose stuff loads before it, but I was having an issue with it not connecting just sitting.

its a draft 😉.

 

[Eponymous]

I just have a cron job run once an hour trying to run setiathome.

If it is already running it just dies. If it died or got stuck it will fix itself.

(I had problems early on with it mysteriously dying on me once or twice a day.)

The cron jobs won't run until the machine is already up so you don't have to worry about it
being too soon in the boot process.

Also with the cron jobs you can turn off Seti during peak times.



Ps. Poof is my hero. 😀

 

[Poof]

I was having an issue with it not connecting just sitting.

That's 'cause the NIC was not ready to communicate yet (no drivers loaded)! :Q 🙂

its a draft .

I know. Looks good though! 😀

I never got chance to write up some sort of script to run my seti. I always started it manually (bum me... 😛). And me of all people should be using a script because I have something like (since I run the CLI with WINE):

wine --winver nt40 -- seti.exe -proxy xxx.xxx.xxx

:Q 😉

Ps. Poof is my hero. 😀

😱

🙂

BTW - Narzy... the cron job bit that eponymous mentions could be in your FAQ too. How to do it is in the readme that comes with the client, although I'm not sure if the SETI .deb app came with all that or what...

[EDIT: Narzy - as you go along with putting together the FAQ, post what you have and we'll give you a hand! 🙂]

 

[Eponymous]

This is what I have on my Sun Boxes (Solaris 2.7 and higher)

The cronjob runs this script:

#!/bin/sh
# For Solaris 2.7
# usage: seti start
# seti stop
#
# 19 is when computer is bored, 1 is normal, negative numbers are really fast but don't go too fast.
NICENESS="19"
#PROXY="xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx:5517"
SETIDIR="/seti"

case "$1" in
'stop')
/bin/pkill setiathome
;;
*)
cd $SETIDIR
if [ -n "$PROXY" ]; then
./setiathome -proxy $PROXY > /dev/null 2>&1 &
else
./setiathome > /dev/null 2>&1 &
fi
PID=$!
renice -n $NICENESS -p $PID > /dev/null 2>&1
;;
esac

 

[HeavyIron]

I like the running Seti from the cron option also. It's a little easier to control the proxy option.

you just add a line to the crontab like this:

0 * * * * /path/where/you/first/ran/seti/from/; setiathome -proxy proxyaddy:port -nice 19 > /dev/null 2> /dev/null

It tries to start seti once at the begining of each hour, if it's already running then great, if not it will start it. So if you don't have it set as a service and you reboot the box, seti will start within an hour of reboot. And of course any output will be sent to the twilite zone. 😛

You just need to get it started from the command line the very first time so you can enter your user info, then cronjob will handle it from there.
If you want to change proxies or something, kill seti, edit the crontab and it'll start at the top of the hour, or you can start it manually with the same options specified in cron entry.

 

[Poof]

You just need to get it started from the command line the very first time so you can enter your user info, then cronjob will handle it from there.

If you already have a user_info.sah from another machine that is sending results to your account, and you copy that into your SETI directory, then you won't even need to login that first time! Just let it rip! 😀