Ghosting Farms

[SteveI]

I've been reading about methods to get a farm up and running. As it turns out, people like to ghost their HDD off the main rig and copy the image to other PCs. This gets a farm up and running quickly and you can create and maintain a large number of boxes this way.

I bother to say this because I am begging anyone considering this method PLEASE DON'T!!!!!

As it turns out, all boxes will have the saming folding ID. As a result, folding servers will identify the machines incorrectly and think it's the same machine, and give it the SAME WU over and over again until that wu is completed. However, they do give credit for duplicate WUs. As a result, the individual may only show up with 1pc in stats, but somehow manage 100's of points a day. While they rack up the score, in reality only the first machine is really contributing to folding. The rest actually do harm by clogging up the servers with duplicates.

I hate this and believe there must be people out there taking advantage of the system.

Anyway, if anyone used a form of ghost, or copied config files between boxes, please double check your setup. We all want to score a lot, but in the end it's pointless if it's not done right.

[/rant]

[Daniel ~]

Still worth doing SteveI! You ghost your rig BEFORE you install the Client, then if you have to reformat it takes about 5 min and the time to install your new client or about 10 min a box":O}

[William]

stupid question from a somewhat intelligent man. You are issued a F@H id the first time you run the client(in the sense of the program, i am including graphical here as well) correct? Just install the client, DON'T run it, and then ghost. Then just run the client on each machine after the ghost. Well, it would save a few clicks.

But I agree, that pisses me off that people do that. I could care less about the numbers even if their units didn't go to stats at all, thats a lot of power not doing units.

[Daniel ~]

Thats what I do, each machine recives a different ID#. If I have a Major malfunction and Ghost back to a more recent back up I del the clinet and run a search for all F@H file then del any but the ZIP File and IE links.

[SteveI]

Yes on all counts.. I have to admit I've been quite irked since I found out. I highly doubt anyone is folding on any super computers. Yet, some of the greatest "contributers" to folding have no more than 2 or 3 machines listed as active. If I could get 200points a day, that way, I wouldn't bother. If done that way, it actually hurts more than it helps, because the servers are being tied up.

I just had to let that out. I'm feeling better now.

[Lionfish]

Originally posted by SteveI
Yes on all counts.. I have to admit I've been quite irked since I found out. I highly doubt anyone is folding on any super computers. Yet, some of the greatest "contributers" to folding have no more than 2 or 3 machines listed as active. If I could get 200points a day, that way, I wouldn't bother. If done that way, it actually hurts more than it helps, because the servers are being tied up.

I just had to let that out. I'm feeling better now.

Forget the servers reason,

WHY are we doing this @ all? !!!!!! {cough} mankind

[Daniel ~]

I guess everyone has their own reasons, mine havn't changed:


"No man is an Island, each man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main!"

I would like to say a few words about Our Folding @home team. In the usual course of things when men and women gather together to enjoy a common interest, to share a hobby, that's about as far as it goes.

There are a few exceptions.

- Those who train Dogs for search and rescue or for work with the blind.

- Mountain Climbers who form a life line to those stranded and in peril.

But for the most part Hobbies remain rather insular and of little interest to those who are not immediately involved. For this reason, I suppose, people often wander, often abandon a hobby that they grow weary of.

I belive this reflects a need most of us have to see our work take on a wider meaning. To see it reach out and touch those around us, even if that work does not directly involve them.

Only in the last few years has Overclocking been given the grace to transform itself into something really extraordinary. Something that can not only save lives, but completely reshape the quality of the lives it saves!

Overclocking can now enter upon the battlefield where life and death mingle and human destinies are decided.

We can by means of the knowledge our pass-time has given us join with science and every decent thought and feeling human kind harbors for itself and quite literally re-make the world for untold generations to come.

At first folding@home seemed such a small, even insignificant thing to do.

But is it not a single drop of water that announces the flood!

Is it not a single trail of smoke that proceeds the volcanos' fury and the mountain that grows to obscure the horizon?

Is it not often a single gene that cripples a child or steals the life memories from our parents or perhaps our selves? Perhaps our children?

A work unit that is run on your machine today may unlock for science

an end to the devastation of Alzheimer's tomorrow.

May regenerate and restore withered limbs, eclipsed eyes and deadened ears. This work is that important!

This work may be the most meaningful use of the modern computer.

So I come to you in the mist of your play. I ask that when your done playing our favorite game today, that you download the Folding@home client, That you leave your computers on when you return to you work or rejoin your families.

I ask That you give our children and their children something of yourself, something of your time on earth to make better the world they will have to live.

I come to you in their name to beg a few watts of your energies and a few moments of your good will. I come in their name, but I come for your sake and for my own. This work is that important!

Please use what you have learned to speed tomorrows better day into our children's lives.

"There for never send to know for whom the bell tolls It tolls for thee"

(John Done)

I do it all the time, with Drive image. I just change the computer name under network propertys and delete the client cfg file and the whole work folder under FAH. Works like a champ. I have a restored drive ready to go in about five minutes.

[Allan]

Good post Steve. It sucks that people take advantage of this just to increase their personal score.

[SteveI]

Originally posted by Lionfish


Forget the servers reason,

WHY are we doing this @ all? !!!!!! {cough} mankind

Exactly!!

Stanman, your way is the right way. All of your machines do work independently, and it shows.

The real hidden evil here is that there are ways to take a single machine and artificially crank WUs out like you wouldn't believe. It would be time consuming, but it's really no worse than what some are doing with their farms, automatically. I don't want to discuss how, because I don't condone it.