[Feature Request] continuation of computation on another computer/OS

[huan-kun]

I (and not only me) have more than one place where I can compute project units and each computer has different OS (Windows, Linux, MacOS). This leads to necessity to run different units on each machine but I have not enough time till deadline on some of them. So, the idea for boinc-client feature: user can press some button (for project) and this will lead to packing current results, marking by and sending package to the project server[-s]. Server stores this data and user can retrieve it with all needed processing cores (algorithms) in another boinc-client by but only once for the sake of limiting duplication of information (and calculations).

[ZipovUA]

Yesterday I wanted to post same request :)

As for me here I see 2 cases:

1. For job, that was not started
2. For job, that already running some time and has some calculation part that already finished.

In both cases we see such steps:

When User open BOINC manager on host1
And User select task
And Click on button to pack task to another host
And Select some host name from list of hosts (specific host or "Any") that are applicable for this task (for example we can not select android host if it's not supported by project)
Then BOINC manager set status for task "Ready for re-sending"

When On boinc manager1 Project planner is called
Then Boinc manager try to send to pool (or where system store information about tasks?) task
When If sending was successfull
Then Boinc manager remove information about job
(or archive job)

When User open BOINC manager on host2
And Boinc manager planner is called
And On BOINC manager did not set deny to pull tasks for current project
Then BOINC manager planner pull job
And BOINC manager set status to task "Ready to run"

[ZipovUA]

So as we can see to implement previous scenario we should add such functionality:

1. BOINC manager UI:
   Add button that change task status to "Send to another host" or "Cancel sending"
   Add modal dialog with such elements:
   - dropdown that contain list of hosts that applicable for current project
   - label for additional hosts description
   - buttons "ok", "cancel"

2. BOINC tasks planner:
   - add ability to get information about hosts
   - add ability to send task to pool (or how it is calling?)

3. pool
   - add ability to store tasks for current user and specific host
   - if specific host did not get task before end date - it should be rejected

[Ferroin]

How might this interfere with the result verification done by the BOINC server? I could have sworn it has some requirements as to platform selection when giving out duplicate work units for verification.

[ZipovUA]

@Ferroin

As I understand BOINC server use task name as unique identifier - that should not be changed when task is sending from one host to another. But for sure it will be good if BOINC developers describe how system works more clear.

[truboxl]

I think sharing is possible and in fact it's somewhat working for me...
Dual booting between Windows and Linux (WINE), BOINC continues to work accordingly by pointing to the same ProgramData/BOINC directory. I suppose BOINC is thinking it is still in a Windows environment under WINE...

The only problem lies on the projects. Unless the project managers say so, I don't think they can be shared with one another natively to their own platform/OS. And I think BOINC aborts all the task immediately when it sees the BOINC data directory is from a foreign OS.