Troubleshooting the MST and deployment to your workstations.
Deploying
BOINC is not being deployed to my workstations when I restart them.
There are a number of reasons why
BOINC is not being deployed to your workstations.
- Check that you created a Security group, rather than a Distribution group, in Step 1 of Deploying to PCs.
- Ensure that the group Domain Computers
is included in the security for the shared installation
folder that is on your server. The following example
shows how to do this on a Microsoft SBS 2003 server.
- Use Windows Explorer to browse to ClientApps.
(By default, it will be found at
C:\ClientApps). - Right click the folder and select Properties.
Click the Sharing tab (NOT the Security
one) and then the Permissions button.
- If permissions are only shown for 'Administrators'
and 'Domain Users', click the Add...
button
- and in the new windows that pops up enter
Domain Computers.
- Click OK to confirm
and OK again to close the Properties
window.
- Use Windows Explorer to browse to ClientApps.
(By default, it will be found at
- Have a look in the
Event Viewer on one of your workstations, for
a hint of what is going wrong.
- To open the viewer, run
eventvwr.mscfrom the Start > Run command line.
- Click the Application section in
the left panel and check in the right panel
for any error or warning messages with the source
MsiInstaller or Application Management.
- Double click the messages to see the full
details.
- If the solution is not obvious, you can always sent me a message. (I will list the more common problems encountered here).
- To open the viewer, run
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How do I remove BOINC from a single workstation?
You would think that by removing a computer from the
list of members of the Security Group that you created,
BOINC would be uninstalled, however, this is not
the case. I would suggest one of the following methods.
- Removed the workstation from the
BOINC Security Group, go to the workstation
and use Add/Remove Programs in the Control
Panel to uninstall. If required, you can then
delete the
BOINC data files folders, which are left behind
in the
BOINC installation folder. (Normally
C:\Program Files\BOINC) - Use the Uninstall_BOINC.hta script on the Downloads page
How do I remove BOINC from all of the computers it has been deployed to?
- On your server, click Start > All Programs > Administrative Tools > Group Policy Management.
- In the left panel of Group Policy Management,
expand Your_Domain and right click
the policy previously created, and click Edit...
- When the editor opens, expand Computer Configuration
> Software Settings > Software installation.
In the right panel, right click your
BOINC package and from the pop-up menu select
Remove...
- Select the Immediately uninstall the software
from users and computers option in the Software
Removal window and click OK.
- BOINC will now disappear from the list of software.
- Close the Group Policy Object Editor and Group Policy Management windows.When your workstations next restart, BOINC will be removed, although the project files will be left untouched. If you wish to redeploy BOINC in the future, repeat the instructions in Deploying to PCs.
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Networking
I cannot remotely connect to my workstations with BOINC Manager
This problem is likely to be caused by any firewall
between your server and workstations. As there are quite
a few available, I will not be going into detail on
each one. It may help to know that BOINC Manager connects
to the
BOINC clients using TCP port 31416. Depending on
your type of firewall software, you will either have
to 'Open' port 31416 or allow the file 'boinc.exe' access
to incomming communications.
If you are just using the built in Windows XP firewall, you can sort out the problem by just adding a few extra settings to the Group Policy that deploys the BOINC software.
- On your server, click Start > All Programs > Administrative Tools > Group Policy Management.
- Right click your BOINC Group Policy object and
click Edit...
- In the left panel, expand Computer Configuration
> Administrative Templates > Network
> Network Connections > Windows Firewall
> Domain Profile. In the right panel, double
click Windows Firewall:Define program exceptions.
- When the Properties window opens, select
the Enabled option and then the Show...
button. (You might want to browse through the
text below the Show... button first, as it
contains help for Item 6 below.
- In the Show Contents window, click on
the Add... button to create an entry.
- The Add Item text is made up of 4 parts
- Path, Scope, Status and Name, each separated by
a colon.
- Path is the location of the installed
boinc.exe file on each workstation. (Use environmental
variables like %ProgramFiles% or SystemFolder%
where possible.) So if you installed
BOINC to the default location, you should
use
%ProgramFiles\BOINC\boinc.exe. - Scope is either * (for all computers)
or a list of the computers, separated by commas,
that are allowed to access boinc.exe. I only
want to manage
BOINC from my server, so I use its internal
IP address of
192.168.0.2 - Status is either 'Enabled' or 'Disabled'.
Obviously we want allow this rule, so set this
to
Enabled. - Name is simply the title of this
firewall rule. It is displayed in the workstation
Windows Firewall settings that you can
view from Control Panel. This example
uses
BOINC (boinc.exe).
- Path is the location of the installed
boinc.exe file on each workstation. (Use environmental
variables like %ProgramFiles% or SystemFolder%
where possible.) So if you installed
BOINC to the default location, you should
use
- The Show Contents window, will now display
your program exception. Click OK to close
it.
- Click OK on Windows Firewall:Define
program exceptions Properties window and you
will the setting is now shown as 'Enabled'.
- You can now close the Group Policy Object Editor and Group Policy Management
- Restart your
BOINC workstations or run
gpudate /forcefrom the Start > Run command line on each one.
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Miscellaneous
If you have manually deployed BOINC to your workstations
and need to remove it, you will need to find the BOINC.msi
file you installed from, right click it and select
Uninstall.
(If you have deleted it, then download the same version
from the
BOINC download page, extract the files and use that
MSI file.)
If you cannot find the original MSI, try the following.
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(If you have deleted it, then download the same version
from the
BOINC download page, extract the files and use that
MSI file.)If you cannot find the original MSI, try the following.
- Using Windows Explorer, navigate to C:\WINDOWS\Installer.
(If you cannot see the folder, you will need to
click Tools, click Folder Option,
click the View tab and in the list of options
shown, untick Hide Protected operating system
files (Recommended).
You will receive a warning, where you can just click
Yes,
and then the folder list will automatically update
to show the 'Installer' folder.
- Right click any of the column headings in the
right panel and select Title.
- Scroll the right panel to the right (or increase
the width of the window) and you will see the 'friendly'
names of the assorted msi files in the 'Title' column.
When you find the one for BOINC, right click it
and select Uninstall.
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How can I remotely restart the BOINC service which has stopped running on one of my workstations.
If you find that the
BOINC service has stopped, you can restart it by
following these instructions
- On your server, click Start > All Programs > Administrative Tools > Services.
- In the left panel of the window that opens,
right click Services (Local) and select
Connect to another computer....
- Enter the name of the computer you want to connect
to and click OK.
- Once you have connected to the remote computer,
right click the BOINC service in the right panel
and select Start.
- After a few moments, the display should show
the BOINC service as started.
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Last Updated: Mon, 16 Apr 2007 11:00:00 GMT