Limit number and "size" (credit) of received workunit

[rechenzeit]

I'd like to donate a certain amount of CPU/GPU time of my system to folding@home. The donation shouldn't be in my name, but on behalf of some family members with very modest IT resources that aren't really suited for folding@home.

Hence my idea was to create a folding@home donor account for each of them. I would then run the fahclient cli tool 3-6 hours for each donor until it completes one work unit:

Code: Select all

fahclient --user=uncle.tom --team=777777 --gpu=true --smp=true --passkey={uncle_toms_passkey}

I have two questions:
- how can I enforce that only one workunit is downloaded and completed? (no further wu download after completion)
- how can I ensure that the WUs are roughly equal in size and do not exceed the 3-6 hours timebox? (e.g. by specifying an upper "estimated credit limit")

[BP2020]

I don't think you can customize the size of the work units. But what I can tell you is that my PC is not a dedicated/unattended rig and I don't leave it on over night so I need some control over the folding. In the Advanced control tool, there is that very nice feature: the "Finish" button. When you click it it doesn't stop the folding but makes sure no WU is requested after the current one; this even works when the slot is requesting a WU but didn't get it yet i.e. the GPU slot is requested but no WU is available so if you click "Finish" in that state it will still take one when one is available but will stop folding after it's done. I think you can pass --finish to Fahclient.exe (see fahclient --help).

What I do is that I start folding early in the day and apply "Finish" then when the folding is done I evaluate if I have enough time in the day for other WUs. It's always a gamble as some WU could be longer (i.e. I have had some CPU WU last 24 hrs or GPU ones with 8-12 hrs). I imagine using the Task Scheduler and passing the "Finish" argument to the CLI with the account you want, this works if you accept you won't be able to choose the size/duration (generally it goes against policy to try to manipulate the assignment servers).

[rechenzeit]

Thank you! Will try that!

[JimboPalmer]

The max-packet-size is somewhat historical, it was in use when dial up modems were in use and controls the size of the download not the length of the processing time.
The values I know of are small, normal, and large, but there seem to be numbers allowed as well.

What I do not know is if any current researcher is still making different sized packets so dial up modems get their preferences, it seems unlikely.

Best of luck.

[PantherX]

Welcome to the F@H Forum rechenzeit,

If you want to limit the number of WUs a client can process, change 0 to X units using this command:

Code: Select all

  max-units <integer=0>
    Process at most this number of units, then pause.

As previously stated, there's no way to ensure that the WU downloaded will take 3 to 6 hours. Also, the PPD per WU would vary but the same system folding 24/7 would achieve a PPD with +/- 10% on all the WUs it folds.