Deploying & Schedule DF Client to multiple machines as a service

[Joe]

This will require you to have admin rights on the desitnation machines:
Theres NO CMD or Command windows that the user will ever see with this process, all they could see is the process start and CPU util go up at night and then magicly stop and cpu go down in the morning.

This is a squence of bat files that work together to deploy the folding client. The assumptions are that you have the current DF files in a folder on your local machine (source) with handle.txt in it. do not put the local bat files in that folder, theres no reason to copy them to the client workstations. Only the custom bat files specified need to be copied.

Running Rcopy.bat and then List.bat is all thats needed to run this at scheduled times.

the bat file structure is like this:

rcopy.bat (located on my machine)

robocopy /e /v c:\source \\machine01\c$\destination\dir

This uses robocopy (the resource kit copy util) to deploy the prepared fold dir. The fold dir has the handle.txt in it, 2 custom bat files, and a file called service.org (we will cover these down the way). The fold dir should also have all the files from the current DF text client zip file. With robo copy if you make a change to a file like service.org or update the folding client software, just run rcopy.bat again and it will upload only the changed files to the workstations... saves LOTS of time when I was playing with startup/stopit.bat

List.bat (located on my machine)

call schedule.bat machinename01 >>c:\runlog.log

I have one entry like that for every machine so the one below it would say machinename02, etc... this passes the machine variable to the shcedule bat file and the >>c:\runlog.log writes log entries for the schedule process to the that file so I can see who got it and who didnt.

Schedule.bat (located on my machine)

at \\%1 7:30 c:\destination\dir\stopit.bat
at \\%1 17:30 c:\destination\dir\startup.bat

for weekends add on a "/next:monday" after the 7:30 for the stopit.bat This schedules onto each machine to start at 5:30pm and stop at 7:30am the next morning. You can schedule an entire week if you wanted using the "every" switch also.. I prefer to run these every morning on my own so I have some control over it.

startup.bat (on the folding machine, deployed with rcopy.bat)

c:
cd \destination\dir
foldtrajlite /remove
foldtrajlite /install
del service.cfg
copy service.org service.cfg
net start Foldtrajliteservice

This is what runs the folding. it forces the service to uninstall if its already there, re-installs it, and then because the reinstall makes a new service.cfg, we remove that and place in the premade one that was deployed with the folder. Then we fire up the service.

service.org (on the folding machine, deployed with rcopy.bat)

service=1
useram=1

the useram variable is needed to get any serious folding performance

stopit.bat (on the folding machine, deployed with rcopy.bat)

net stop foldtrajliteservice
c:\destination\dir\foldtrajlite /remove

this stops the folding and removes the service leaving the dir on the machine ready to be run again.

That is that, thats all you need to run this.

To Remove the works here is what I use:

axelist.bat (located on my machine)

call axe.bat machinename01

axe.bat (located on my machine)

at \\%1 /delete /y

this removes all scheduled jobs on the destination machines

Removelist.bat (located on my machine)

call remove.bat machinename01

Remove.bat (located on my machine)

del /Q \\%1\c$\destination\dir\*.*
rmdir \\%1\c$\destination\dir

This removes the dir and any trace of it. I could make this smarter to make sure the service is stopped and removed first, but I havent yet.

So Thats th at... now you can go and push this to your corp network and schedule it to run only on off work hours. I think its VERY bad business to run this kind of stuff durring work hours as it could hurt your customers/coworkers productivity if theres an issue. I would recomend running this stuff only on non critical machines and only off hours.

I've refined this process over the last week and now have 66 machines scheduled nightly to be run for folding and all of them set to run all weekend. Its pretty bullet proof.

[Joe]

this is meant for ONLY NT/2K/2K3/XP machines ( anything NT based) that always has the root of the physical drives shared as c$/d$/ etc... these are ADMIN shares which means you MUST be an admin to use them. you must be an admin to schedule onto the remote machines also

if you arent an admin on the network you prolly shouldnt be installing software all over anyway

[HaloJones]

Joe,

I just wanted to thank you for these fantastic instructions. In the spirit of the "science" would you post this at the Free-DC DF Project Forums seeing as how you have already made it visible to anyone who even visits here?

HaloJones
www.thegenomecollective.com

p.s. Great numbers you're putting up by the way!

[Joe]

Heheh Nah

I want people to have to look a lil bit to do this hehehe You found it ok, so I am sure others will. I mean afterall it is a bit of a competition still, dont want to make it TOO easy

From your stats I see this is working good for you

[HaloJones]

Originally posted by Joe
Heheh Nah

I want people to have to look a lil bit to do this hehehe You found it ok, so I am sure others will. I mean afterall it is a bit of a competition still, dont want to make it TOO easy

From your stats I see this is working good for you

Yeah, nice when it works efficiently.

I did it the hard way in Phase 1

[imagex]

joe is there a simple way to set foldit as a service on my local machines, my kids keep turning it off and it get to be a pain running after them starting it again, I'd like to hide it so they dont even know its running. Thanks

[Joe]

what OS? if its XP or 2K just read the Readme, it tells how to install it as a service, but I believe its this:
foldtrajlite /install

then it will be in a service.

[Boli]

(this is of course using the text client NOT the screensaver)

~ Boli