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Several tools are available for Macintosh System Administrators, mostly in the form of command-line shell scripts to be run from the Terminal application. Please read the comments in each script for descriptions and directions.

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This document describes how to deploy BOINC across a network of computers.

If you're deploying BOINC on lots of hosts you'll want configure it to be attached to a particular project or account manager. This is done using one or more configuration files:

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The following programs complement or enhance BOINC. Note:

• These applications are not endorsed by BOINC and you use them at your own risk.
• We do not provide instructions for installing these applications. However, the author may have provided some help on installing or uninstalling the application. If this is not enough you should contact the author.

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If you run BOINC on a computer with an Internet connection that's not always on (such as a modem, ISDN or VPN connection), you can have BOINC connect in either of two ways:

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This page contains solutions to some common problems. Other help resources:

• Live help via Internet phone or email
• Other web sites related to BOINC
• BOINC message boards

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You can specify preferences that limit when and how BOINC uses your computers. There are two kinds of preferences:

General preferences

These apply to all projects. Example: whether BOINC should compute while you're at your computer.

Project preferences

These apply only to one project. Example: the color scheme used in the SETI@home screensaver.

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The BOINC client software can be configured to:

• Produce more detailed log messages. These messages appear in the Messages tab of the BOINC Manager (informational messages in black, error messages in red). On Windows, they are written to a file (stdoutdae.txt). On Unix, they are written to standard output.
• Control various behavioral parameters, such as how many simultaneous file transfers to allow.

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The BOINC core client typically is controlled by the BOINC Manager running on the same machine:

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The BOINC core client can be controlled by command-line options, configuration files, and environment variables.

These features are generally useful only for advanced users.

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A BOINC project gives you credit for the computations your computers perform for it. BOINC's unit of credit, the Cobblestone (named after Jeff Cobb of SETI@home), is 1/100 day of CPU time on a reference computer that does both

• 1,000 double-precision MIPS based on the Whetstone benchmark, and
• 1,000 VAX MIPS based on the Dhrystone benchmark.

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This page describes how to customize the appearance of the BOINC Manager. Skins allow you to customize how the BOINC Manager looks in the simple view, the advanced view, and wizard dialogues. Skins are all collected in the "skins" subdirectory of the working directory. A skin.xml file needs to be created for any customized skin. This page describes the layout of the skin.xml file.

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We haven't found a universal hardware-level mechanism (CPU chip ID, MAC address) for uniquely identifying computers. So we do it in software as follows: When a computer first contacts a project's scheduling server, the server creates a database record for the computer , which includes a host ID and an RPC sequence number. The computer ID and the RPC sequence number are also stored in the client's client_state.xml file. The client increments the RPC sequence number on each scheduler request.

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Because BOINC reports back to project servers automatically it may be possible to use BOINC to help you recover a stolen computer. If a computer running BOINC is stolen:

• Go the the web sites of your attached projects, and click on Your Account > View Computers.
• Check the 'Last contact time' of the stolen computer; wait until the last contact time is after the time of the theft.
• Click on the computer ID, and click on Show IP Address

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SETI@home Classic benefited from "proxy servers" such as SETIQueue, that store work units and results, and transfer them between participant computers and the main SETI@home server. Proxies provide a smooth supply of work even when the main server is down, and they make it possible to run SETI@home Classic on computers not connected directly to the Internet.

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Participants in a project can form teams. Each participant can belong to at most one team.