Tutorial: Application Deployment Uppercase Application

1
TutorialApplication Deployment(Uppercase
Application)

• Gabor Szmetanko
• University of Westminster

2
Agenda

• BOINC Desktop Grid installation
• Application porting with the DC-API
• Introduction, sample application
• Client side
• Master side
• Application deployment in BOINC

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Preparation

• Both of our applications are ready
• Its time to deploy them
• We will use a deployment script to deploy the
  applications
• The script considerably reduces the deployment
  time

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The boinc_appmgr script1

• SZTAKI has developed a script
• Makes application management easier
• In standard BOINC, application deployment is a
  multi-stage process
• Deploys a DG application and sets up the
  configuration files
• The configuration files can be customised after
  deployment

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The boinc_appmgr script2

• boinc_appmgr automates application deployment by
  performing the following tasks
• Places the client executables where BOINC expects
  them
• Optionally signs them
• Registers the client executables in the
  project.xml file and in the BOINC database
• Installs the master application in a new
  directory
• Modifies the DC-API configuration of the master
  to match the project's settings
• Adds the master application to config.xml so it
  is automatically started/stopped by BOINC when
  the project is started/stopped
• Also configures a validator, in our case it will
  be the sample_trivial_validator that just accepts
  everything

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The boinc_appmgr script3

• To use the script we should do two things
• Create an archive with the files of the
  application
• Create XML descriptors for both the master and
  the client

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Creating the archive

• The archive should contain all the files required
  by the application
• The way you structure the archive is up to you
• The only restriction is that you should place two
  XML descriptors into the top-level directory of
  the tar archive
• Master deployment descriptor
• Client deployment descriptor

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Master deployment descriptor1

• In the master descriptor we can describe how we
  want the master application to be deployed
• We should describe our requirements as XML
  elements

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Master deployment descriptor2

• Elements of the descriptor
• name application name
• version master version
• files additional files required by the masters
• daemon daemon processes required by the
  application (master, validator, etc.)
• dcapi-conf configuration file for the DC-API

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Master deployment descriptor of the Uppercase
application
ltmastergt ltnamegtuppercaselt/namegt ltversiongt1.00lt/v
ersiongt ltfilesgtltfilegtmaster/in.txtlt/filegtlt/filesgt
ltdaemongt ltbinarygtmaster/masterlt/binarygt ltar
gumentsgt ltarggt--configlt/arggt ltarggtwork
dir/dcapi.conflt/arggt lt/argumentsgt lt/daemongt lt
dcapi-confgtmaster/dcapi.conflt/dcapi-confgt ltdaemon
gt ltnamegtsample_trivial_validatorlt/namegt ltargum
entsgt ltarggt-dlt/arggt ltarggt3lt/arggt ltarggt-ap
plt/arggt ltarggtuppercaselt/arggt lt/argumentsgt lt/
daemongt lt/mastergt
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Client deployment descriptor

• The client descriptor is similar to the master
  descriptor
• Elements of the client descriptor
• name application name
• user_friendly_name user friendly name of the
  application
• version client version
• platform specifies the files required by a
  specific platform

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Client deployment descriptor of the Uppercase
application
ltclientgt ltnamegtuppercaselt/namegt ltuser_friendly_n
amegtUppercase Applicationlt/user_friendly_namegt lt!
-- Application version. The version number must
contain two components (major.minor). Both
component may be 1 or 2 digits long. The major
version must be the same as the Boinc server
major version. --gt ltversiongt1.00lt/versiongt ltplat
formgt lt!-- The name of the platform
--gt ltnamegti686-pc-linux-gnult/namegt lt!-- The
name of the main client binary --gt ltbinarygti686-
pc-linux-gnu/clientlt/binarygt lt!-- Additional
files can also be installed --gt lt!--
ltlibgtwinlib.dlllt/libgt --gt lt/platformgt lt/clientgt
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The DC-API configuration file

• The DC-API library uses a configuration file to
  control its operations
• It is passed to the DC_initMaster call
• Key-value pairs in groups
• Two groups
• Master (global configuration options)
• Client-CLIENTNAME (client-specific options)

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The most common configuration parameters
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Sample configuration file

• The sample configuration file from the
  uppercase_dg folder

Master WorkingDirectory Must be
specified InstanceUUID Must be
specified LogLevel Debug BoincConfigXML
Must be specified ProjectRootDir Must be
specified Client-uppercase name
uppercase-client
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Deploying the application2

• You do not have to bother with the preparation of
  the archive required by the deployment script, it
  can be generated automatically with make

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Deploying the application2

• Change to the project user

e.g.
Use the password you specified at the project
creation!
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Deploying the application3

• Execute the deployment script

• The application has been deployed, after
  restarting the server, the clients can start to
  work

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Testing the application

• Now that our application is running, we should
  test and monitor it
• Your BOINC client is already connected to your
  and your neighbours projects, so it will
  automatically fetch work units of the Uppercase
  application

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Task tab

• On the tasks tab of the client you can check the
  status of the computation

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Checking the results on the website

• You can also monitor the computation on the
  project website
• The BOINC project has two websites
• Public website for everyone
• Private website for the administrators
• Both website can be used to check the progress of
  the computation (different level of details)

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Public website status information
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Admin website (results)
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Admin website (work units)
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Admin website (summary)
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Performance

• We can also monitor the performance of the
  application on the website
• The information we can directly obtain
• Overall performance of the DG
• Performance of individual nodes

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Overall performance of the DG
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Performance of individual nodes
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Getting information from the project database

• As a more advanced alternative, we can directly
  query the project database
• For example, the number of hosts participating in
  the computation

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Thank you for your attention
Any questions?
If you have any questions on application porting,
please feel free to contact us! Email
szmetag_at_wmin.ac.uk