Hello. I'm new to Linux so I don't know how to fix this error. Installed BOINС from the kubuntu 22.04 repository, but the application does not start, and the message is: "chdir: Permission denied". I tried to reinstall the application, even reinstalled the system - the problem is not solved. Surely the solution should be trivial, but I did not find it. Thanks in advance for your help!

Might be worth adding yourself to boinc user group.
usermod -a -G boinc yourusername

I have also given myself read/write permissions to /var/lib/boinc-client but that is more to allow myself to modify configuration files for BOINC.

Same condition here.
Fresh load of Ubuntu 20.04.01
Ran the following command:
sudo apt install boinc-client boinc-manager (according to instructions at https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Installing_BOINC_on_Ubuntu
As instructed launched BOINC by the icon found under applications.
File programs shows file belongs to root and to BOINC group
Used nano to edit gui-rpc-auth.cfg to enter 123456 as a random password

After this instead of getting the notice that var/lib/boinc-client permission denied....
I get nothing....

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Don

Same condition here.
Fresh load of Ubuntu 20.04.01
Ran the following command:
sudo apt install boinc-client boinc-manager (according to instructions at https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Installing_BOINC_on_Ubuntu
As instructed launched BOINC by the icon found under applications.
File programs shows file belongs to root and to BOINC group
Used nano to edit gui-rpc-auth.cfg to enter 123456 as a random password

After this instead of getting the notice that var/lib/boinc-client permission denied....
I get nothing....

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Don

Have you tried > File > Select Computer and entering the machine name and password?

Is your username a member of the boinc group?
If not, modify and run this command according to your needs:
sudo usermod –a –G GroupName UserName

To activate the group membership you need to log out and log in again.

Same condition here.
Fresh load of Ubuntu 20.04.01
Ran the following command:
sudo apt install boinc-client boinc-manager (according to instructions at https://boinc.berkeley.edu/wiki/Installing_BOINC_on_Ubuntu
As instructed launched BOINC by the icon found under applications.
File programs shows file belongs to root and to BOINC group
Used nano to edit gui-rpc-auth.cfg to enter 123456 as a random password

After this instead of getting the notice that var/lib/boinc-client permission denied....
I get nothing....

Any help would be appreciated.

Thank you.

Don

You can try deleting the password file and hope that boinc will just generate another, but I suspect you are going to have to re-install boinc.
Whatever does work, you also need to add yourself to group boinc, and if you are using virtualbox, you need to add user boinc to group vboxusers (or whatever Ubuntu may be calling it).

Thanks for responding. Where would one fine File ... Select computer?

Yes I have done that. Thanks.

I did try deleting the password and the cfg file remains blank.

You can try deleting the password file and hope that boinc will just generate another, but I suspect you are going to have to re-install boinc.
Whatever does work, you also need to add yourself to group boinc, and if you are using virtualbox, you need to add user boinc to group vboxusers (or whatever Ubuntu may be calling it).

DON'T do that. If you don't understand what you're trying to achieve, it's worse than useless.

First, make sure the BOINC client is listening for a known password. You've changed the password in gui-rpc-auth.cfg to 123456 - that's fine: it's not a high-security data risk. But now you must re-start the BOINC client, to make sure it's listening for the new password.

Second, look at the launcher for the BOINC manager. Examine its properties. If the 'Command' line just says "boincmgr", change it to:

boincmgr --password=123456

Now, the client and the manager are on the same page - they're speaking the same language. There's a key for the lock. They should work together.

If I enter boincmgr --password=123456 if get Illegal Instruction (core dumped)

answered wrongly...looking again.

In Linux Mint (various versions over the last three years), it looks like this:


(my memorable password is slightly different to yours, but the principle is the same)

What is the "launcher" for boincmgr? I've tried the file app and under properties the name is boincmgr but there is no way (that I can figure out) to change to boincmgr --password=123456

Not like that in Ubuntu. Maybe I should try mint......thank you.

What version of Mint do you suggest? I just want to run boinc. Thanks.

Referring to Linux Mint Releases, I'm currently at v20.3 'Una', with the 'Mate' desktop management tools (I haven't introduced myself to Vanessa yet). That's supposed to be the most painless introduction for Windows users, which is where I came in.

I've paired that with Ginfranco Costamagna's PPA, which is a fasttrack release vehicle for BOINC, currently v7.20.2

You can try deleting the password file and hope that boinc will just generate another, but I suspect you are going to have to re-install boinc.
Whatever does work, you also need to add yourself to group boinc, and if you are using virtualbox, you need to add user boinc to group vboxusers (or whatever Ubuntu may be calling it).

DON'T do that. If you don't understand what you're trying to achieve, it's worse than useless.

First, make sure the BOINC client is listening for a known password. You've changed the password in gui-rpc-auth.cfg to 123456 - that's fine: it's not a high-security data risk. But now you must re-start the BOINC client, to make sure it's listening for the new password.

Second, look at the launcher for the BOINC manager. Examine its properties. If the 'Command' line just says "boincmgr", change it to:

boincmgr --password=123456

Now, the client and the manager are on the same page - they're speaking the same language. There's a key for the lock. They should work together.

People who do know are here to assist those who do not, are we not?
Since deleting gui-rpc-auth.cfg clearly does not work, the file can easily be recreated -- but a suggesting a trivial password like 123456 is hardly the proper response. The password should be a 32-character random hexadecimal code (represented, of course, in text format). If you do need to create a new file, make sure to set the owner/group to boinc/boinc, and set the permissions as 0640 (rw-r--)
Even worse is to fire up the boinc manager with the password embedded in the startup command so every system user can use it -- even if it's not a security risk, it means any system user can access your boinc operation and do whatever they please with it, a risk I think most of us would choose to avoid.

There is a proper way to do all this, which, unfortunately, is not well documented -- it took me hours of searching to find it. But here it is, for everyone to read. Many have already posted most of it, but alas, it seems to have been swept away in an awful lot of noise. These instructions are for openSUSE 15.4, but should work on any Linux distro.

After installing boinc client, boinc manager and virtualbox, first go into your system's user/group manager (you will need root access to do this), and look for group "boinc" -- it will be a system group. Add your user to that group, which will allow the manager to connect with the client (that will be run under your user account, so it inherits all your access privileges -- including being able to read the password file). Next, you must allow the boinc client to start up virtualbox. When that was installed, it will have created a group called something like vboxusers (that is the openSUSE group name, other distros may vary). Add user "boinc" to that group.

Now, everyone who needs to talk to someone else can do so, and no prying mischievous 15-year-old kid can mess with it (unless, of course, your user password is trivial, and the kid has hacked into your user account).

Now you want to set up the client so it starts automatically when the system boots. By now, most distros should be using systemd rather than sysconfig to boot the system. This greatly simplifies this part.
Open a console and run this command:
sudo systemctl list-units --all |grep boinc
This will tell you all the systemd services that have "boinc" in their names; in openSUSE, the relevant one is called boinc-client.service. You need to enable this to get the client to start on system boot:
sudo systemctl enable boinc-client
To start the client immediately, run this
sudo systemctl start boinc-client

Now you can fire up the manager, and since it can read all the boinc files (being a member of group boinc), it can talk to the client. The client itself, being a member of vboxusers, has enough access to start up the virtual machine whenever it is needed.

Systemd is a steep learning curve for everyone who has spent years working with sysconfig. However, once you start getting used to it, you will see just how much it simplifies system control. The key is to take it slow and easy at the start -- and above all else, do NOT go hacking the service files, unless you REALLY know what you are doing. I'm still learning, and it's been nearly a year and a half since I first encountered systemd (starting with Leap 15.3).

And by all means, if you start to think you are getting into trouble, STOP, come back here, and ASK.