Unnetworked Fleet

[DJSnairdA]

Hey all,

I'm thinking of developing a fleet now (as 1 machine isn't enough of course). Our network has currently a 5 port switch, 4 of which are used permanently and 1 which is sometimes used with laptops and the like. I was wondering, as I'm not quite prepared to cough up a heap of new network gear at the moment (low on cash, you know how it is ) is it possible to download say 100 WU's for each machine, and then transfer them somehow (floppy, serial etc..) and then being able to get them back once they've finished crunching?

Does the SETI program only hold the processed WU's, or once they are finished are the unprocessed ones replaced by the processed ones?

Is all this possible? Or will i have to start saving? :Q

Cheers

 

[Robor]

Do you mean you have 4-5 boxes that are networked together on the switch but are not connected to the internet?

 

[DJSnairdA]

Originally posted by: Robor
Do you mean you have 4-5 boxes that are networked together on the switch but are not connected to the internet?

Neither. They sit there and have no access to the network, therefore no access to the internet.

They will also most likely run a linux based operating system..

 

[Confused]

Do they have a network card? If so, then you could use a caching program, and use say a laptop with a crossover network cable and set up a SetiQueue on the laptop. This laptop can then connect to the internet elsewhere and upload/download new WUs

 

[DJSnairdA]

Originally posted by: Confused
Do they have a network card? If so, then you could use a caching program, and use say a laptop with a crossover network cable and set up a SetiQueue on the laptop. This laptop can then connect to the internet elsewhere and upload/download new WUs

Well I may sound like an idiot, but I don't have them yet. I'm looking at expanding and I'm wondering if I should invest in some network gear, or if possible save some money there and get some better machines

If it's unavoidable then fair enough but I'm just looking at my options at the moment

Thanks nevertheless, that looks like a good options with SetiQueue

 

[Wiz]

To answer the questions you asked:
Yes, you can transfer them on floppies or burn them to cdrw and move them around that way.
Any removeable media for that matter. Main thing to watch for is to only do each WU once!
I've done exactly what you are talking about before, here is how I did it:

set up seti driver with however many WU's you want to cache
download new WU's on connected machine
stop seti driver & seti
copy the WU (work_unit.sah) to floppy (I made subdirs on the floppy like in the seti driver folder so I knew which one to return it to when finished)
Transfer the WU to the unconnected machine, in the seti folder. Alternatively set up seti driver and don't have it get any WU's. Put the WU in a sub dire created by seti driver when you put a number in the "cache" space it will create subdirectories under the Seti Driver folder.
Now you can set that machine to do several WU's and you don't have to come back as often.
Once finished copy the results back to the floppy and transfer to your connected (internet) machine & upload to Berkley.

Seriously, if you are putting together new machines you can get PCI nics for $10 - $15 and cable is cheap. Switch your hub to an 8 ot 16 port hub and your troubles are over. I believe you will get a lot more seti done this way than sneaker netting them, because the downtime (time when it's not convenient to do the floppy shuffle) will eat into your production.

 

[MoFunk]

I do this with my daughters PC. I use seti hide though. It has an import export feature.
* I download all WU's from my work PC (Dual T1 and I am on dial up at home)
* in my setihide here I export a range of WU's into a folder I named export
* I then use winzip to compress those exported WU's because if I just move them to my zip drive they get set to read only
* at home I uncompress the WU's into a folder I named import, then I take half of those and put them in a new winzip file and delete the old one.
* in setihide I import those WU's
* I then take the new zip file and put that on a zip disk and take to my daughters pc and repeat the above steps. (I use a zip disk because each new WU is over 300k So you can only get a small number on a floppy disk. But you could burn them on a CDRW and transfer them and use a floppy to transfer the finished WU's because the finished ones are really small you could fit a bunch on a floppy.)
* When my dughters PC is done with those WU's I export them, zip them, transfer to my pc, import them, and flush them.

Wash rinse repeat.

 

[Baldy18]

You said you have one port that is open sometimes but ont at others? I'd simply rotate that between the unnetworked boxes during the times when the port is open. You could set all your clients to have a chache of about 20-40 (depending on speed) and set them to auto transmit. That way if they copleted a WU and happened to be connected they would send in the results. Having a different computer each day connected to the network in the offtime would virtually insure that on that day it was connected the pc would complete a unit and send it all units it did when it wasn't connected.

 

[Wiz]

Or spend $20 - $25 and get another small hub - connect to the open port on the first hub and go!

 

[Confused]

Originally posted by: Baldy18
You said you have one port that is open sometimes but ont at others? I'd simply rotate that between the unnetworked boxes during the times when the port is open. You could set all your clients to have a chache of about 20-40 (depending on speed) and set them to auto transmit. That way if they copleted a WU and happened to be connected they would send in the results. Having a different computer each day connected to the network in the offtime would virtually insure that on that day it was connected the pc would complete a unit and send it all units it did when it wasn't connected.

OR

Originally posted by: Wiz
Or spend $20 - $25 and get another small hub - connect to the open port on the first hub and go!

Confused

 

[Confused]

Originally posted by: DJSnairdA

Originally posted by: Confused
Do they have a network card? If so, then you could use a caching program, and use say a laptop with a crossover network cable and set up a SetiQueue on the laptop. This laptop can then connect to the internet elsewhere and upload/download new WUs

Well I may sound like an idiot, but I don't have them yet. I'm looking at expanding and I'm wondering if I should invest in some network gear, or if possible save some money there and get some better machines

If it's unavoidable then fair enough but I'm just looking at my options at the moment

Thanks nevertheless, that looks like a good options with SetiQueue

Well, network cards you can probably pick up $5-10, small hub $20. That's not that much, and it would probably be worth avoiding all the hassle! Plus you can then use something like SetiWatch to monitor them all over the network and make sure they're all crunching!

Confused

 

[DJSnairdA]

Thanks everyone for some useful input!

I think i might save up and go the extra network gear, seems to be the easiest option by far

 

[Confused]

Originally posted by: DJSnairdA
Thanks everyone for some useful input!

I think i might save up and go the extra network gear, seems to be the easiest option by far

Good plan Just keep it simple and then there's no chance of forgetting to check a computer and seeing that it's been sitting without WUs!

Confused