folding.lac.fi – Remote deployment

If you're in a Windows domain environment and are able and allowed to set up clients to multiple computers, here's one way to get it done.

Steps for SMP beta client version 6.30

Different types and versions of the Folding@home client differ in the way you install their service. I chose to show how to install this one because it's straightforward to do and all the necessary steps can be shown clearly. You can download the client at http://folding.stanford.edu/English/DownloadWinOther.

  1. Create a folder and place the appropriate client .exe in it. I'll use C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop\FAH\Folding@home-Win32-x86.exe as an example.
  2. Open a command prompt, start the client with the -configonly parameter and set it up accordingly. (See Introduction to console clients)
    Always remember to set -smp to Additional client parameters when using SMP beta clients.
  3. If you want to keep the reference folder tidy, you can delete FAHlog.txt and MyFolding.html, only saving client.cfg and the .exe.
  4. Copy the entire folder to the target computer. In this example as a domain administrator, you can just open C:\Users\Administrator\Desktop and \\target\c$, then drag the folder FAH from the former to the latter. Replace target with the target computer name.
  5. Open a command prompt, elevating to domain administrator privileges as necessary.
  6. Run sc \\target create FAH binPath= "c:\FAH\Folding@home-Win32-x86.exe -svcstart -d c:\FAH" DisplayName= "FAH Service" start= auto to remotely install the necessary service. Replace the target computer name and paths to match your environment.
  7. You can start the service immediately with the command sc \\target start FAH. The \\target\c$\FAH folder should fill up with files as the client starts to set itself up. You can also open FAHlog.txt to see what's happening.

Additional things to consider

Setting up mass deployment is also easy since you only need to create a job to copy the reference client's files and set up a service on each system.

You can also set up different types of reference clients. For example, some types of systems on a mixed environment shouldn't accept big work units or should only run a uniprocessor client. In this case you can just store all variations in their own folders and you're ready to go.

Monitoring clients can be done through network shares by opening \\target\c$\FAH\unitinfo.txt or other relevant files. Naturally, there are tools (FahMon, HFM.NET) to cover all your monitoring needs.