Folding Forum

Hello to anyone reading this.

I am a student at a school in the UK and recently proposed that we implement FAH into our school network.

This idea has been posed to my local council which takes some responsibility for what is allowed to run on educational networks, and if they can make it work, they will allow it. Basically, I need to find out how it could be implemented. Here is my idea - could anyone tell me whether this would work, and if so, please give me a guide to make it happen?

Obviously I am not one of the IT administrators at my school, so won't really know any technical detail, but any you could provide would be passed on directly to them.

We have a mixture of Windows XP and Mac computers (although only one Mac lab).

Proposal:

Ideally FAH would run on all of our school's PCs, over the network.

When the computers are turned on in school, they show the network log-in screen.

Would it be possible to have FAH run at startup, and begin to process data before a user logs in, and then cease to run on any particular computer when a user does log in?

This would mean that it wouldn't interrupt work in any way, as of course, in an educational network that must always take priority.

I know that CPU usage can be set within the program, but, as an example, could the program automatically run at startup, and take up 20% of the CPU when no user is logged in, then ceasing to operate as soon as a user logs in? (Of course, starting back up when the user logs out.)

Ideally, this would be the case on all PCs which were switched on - FAH would run at 20% CPU (or whatever), on each PC until a user logged in, and then stop - returning to function when they log out again.

Would it also be possible, as we only have a limited internet bandwidth at school, to limit the bandwidth consumption of FAH to again, say, 20% of available bandwidth, thereby having the bandwidth allocated to it automatically reduced as any other service connects to the internet, so that FAH only ever takes that 20% of what is available, however many computers are running it?

I would very much appreciate any answers and guides to these questions.

Thank you very much,
Jack.

FAH can be set up to start when the computer is booted up -- before anyone logs on.

There's really no reason to limit the CPU to 20% when nobody is logged on. FAH was originally designed to use all unused resources but to allow any other application to run unimpeded. In fact, if FAH is limited to 99% whether anyone is logged on or not, I really doubt that anyone will notice that it is running unless they specifically look for it. It runs at the lowest possible priority and when a student is using the computer, they will be using a normal priority so the student will not encounter any delays.

FAH has no method to limit bandwidth, just as your browser has no way to limit bandwidth. When you ask for a web page to be displayed, it uses all available bandwidth until that page is displayed. Each client will connect to the internet every day or two to upload results and download a new assignment. If that causes a noticeable delay, it shouldn't be any different than if another student happened to be downloading something at the same time you are displaying your web page. If this turns out to be a problem, I don't know how to solve it, though somebody else may be able to provide a better answer about that than I can.

It will probably be necessary to demonstrate these facts to the computer experts who are responsible for the school's resources. Without their support you won't be able to do what you're proposing. The license agreement for FAH requires that the owner of the computer give permission for FAH to be run. Presumably the local council will obtain the proper permission, but that often turns out to be the most difficult part of the process.

To add to what codysluder has said:

I am fairly regularly required to do High-Definition video editing, and with FAH set to 95% of the CPU I experience no lag beyond what I get when FAH is not running. FAH instructs the windows scheduler to immediately free up CPU time if another program is using it, as FAH runs at the lowest possible priority... another example of this would be my dad who permits me to run it on his machine so long as he doesn't notice any slowdowns... it's been a year now (again set at 95%) and he still hasn't noticed any slowdowns.

Also like codysluder says, there is no way to limit bandwidth... the closest thing the client has to this is the size limit for units, which will obviously shorten the amount of time it is using your school's internet connection. If you wish to physically limit the amount of bandwidth the client can use, your school would need to use some third party software if such software exists.

and finally, that permission has to be given in writing saves a lot of trouble further down the line.

Please search the forum for similar topics. You're not the first person to ask this question. Here are a few examples:
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I'm sure that's more than you wanted to know and I'm sure you can find more.

We're here to help, though, and you're always welcome to ask any questions about details that are unclear.

Thanks for all of that information.

Sorry to resurrect this thread, but my school are asking me a few questions about this software, and while I could answer general questions about home usage, I'm not sure what could be done to fix/regarding these issues within a school network environment. Any suggestions/answers? Thanks.

I was asked these questions:

1. What, if anything, appears on the screen
2. What other schools use this and can you get me some contact details
3. We are moving to thin client technology which requires the servers to be fully available, all the time. How much space does this take?

I imagine that the answer to (2) will be that there are likely none in Hertfordshire, UK, but maybe some further afield could be contacted? Any way to find out/details available somewhere?

Any ideas of how this will fit in with the Schools move to Thin Client technology and server availability? I don't know how much network space this program would take, any ideas again? Also, there were concerns regarding the continuing drive to reduce both the School’s carbon foot print and costly electricity bill. Are there any stats or even ball-park figures I can suggest to them that you may have available?

I will very likely suggest a trial run within perhaps one computer room, just to trial all of these ideas, but I'm not sure whether anyone in my school will know how to set these things up, or remove any indications on screen, network setups etc.. and I have absolutely no experience of any of that.

I would really appreciate any advice on this, and if possible, some kind of guide as to how to set it up, or maybe just an email address which can help someone at my school can get in contact with a knowledgeable person who could help get it set up, would be amazing. I am concerned that as I don't know the answers, if I can't find them, the idea will just be scrapped, so thanks for anyone who can help.

1) When the clients are run in service mode nothing appears on the screen. The only way to know the client is running is to use a monitoring program or check task manager.

3) The most I have seen the classic client use as regards storage space is 40MB all told, including 6 or 7 FahCores, so multiply that by the number of clients you intend to run for the total.

As a side note... thin clients are by their nature usually not very powerful, so your best bet then would be to run F@H on the servers, which I doubt the network admins will allow. It depends on the hardware specs of the thin clients as to whether they would be any use for folding.

Hello, thanks for the fast reply.

Is there a guide around here regarding setting up the clients in service mode over our network? I really don't know about the technical side of it whatsoever, although what you say there sounds great.

About client numbers, would that be one per computer? Sorry, but I'm not sure how that works, and would it mean FAH would have to be installed on each PC, or could it theoretically be installed (somehow) on the network just once, and run using the processing power of the computers, from one central location? If that sounds just ridiculous, it's just my inexperience here, and I don't know about network limitations. Could you explain that to me briefly (without taking up too much of your time)?

Thanks again!

Each client will need to have access to a private location for it's data files and there will be a unique value added to the registry that identifies each client to the server so a centralized install would be pretty difficult. Each client is configured the first time you run it and that's the only time it will need write-access to the registry. When you go through the configuration steps, one of the questions is whether you want to [install/uninstall] the client as a service (so you're not going to find any real details in a guide).

Most thin-client's provide permanent private (network-disk) storage. In rare instances, a thin-client may be set up to discard anything permanent every time you logoff. Be sure to confirm which one you have.

Right. I'll get back to my school with this. So basically, it's an approximate maximum of 40MB of space per pc, and nothing at all appears on screen in service mode? Brilliant!