For some reason, I have a machine that refuses to have an internet connection recognized by BOINC. I am posting this from that computer, so it obviously has a network connection. Are there any tools I can use to figure out why BOINC can't connect to any projects? Is anyone else having these problems? The machine next to it is running XP, no problems, the machine at home over dial up, running FC4, no problems.

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I'm NOT familiar with Linux, but it sounds like a port problem. check to see if ports 80, 1043 and 31416 are useable by boinc. That's about as much help as I can offer.

tony

I am running FC3 with no problems.
Hmmmmmm where to start.
How long have you been running FC3 and have you other software on that system that use your internet connection apart from the browser?
What security level are you running at i.e. SELinux?
Post the logs you get from boinc manager when trying to connect to a project so we can see what it is saying.

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oooops

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Have been running FC3 for ~1 year on this machine, switched over to FC4 a few weeks ago primarily because I was bored (to be honest). Running SELinux at the default enable (but am fairly confident I have run into this with it disabled). I suspect the port theory is on target, but when I run ethereal on the packets, in the past I have found them with bad checksums, I then ran away in fear (the message is at the very bottom).

At the "attach to project" page I copy and paste the following:
http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/

It shows me the computers trying to talk and then tells me I am not connected to the internet, please connect and try again. I am 99% sure I have gone through the exact same procedure at home (over dial up) and it worked just fine (hence a ton of my confusion). Here is what comes up in the logs (interesting that it doesn't show the failure to fetch?):

Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:13:48 AM CST||Starting BOINC client version 5.2.13 for i686-pc-linux-gnu
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:13:48 AM CST||libcurl/7.14.0 OpenSSL/0.9.8 zlib/1.2.3
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:13:48 AM CST||Data directory: /home/sbourland/BOINC
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:13:48 AM CST||Processor: 2 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Pentium(R) 4 CPU 2.60GHz
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:13:48 AM CST||Memory: 1.98 GB physical, 3.97 GB virtual
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:13:48 AM CST||Disk: 223.55 GB total, 140.15 GB free
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:13:48 AM CST||No general preferences found - using BOINC defaults
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:13:48 AM CST||Remote control not allowed; using loopback address
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:13:48 AM CST||This computer is not attached to any projects.
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:13:48 AM CST||There are several ways to attach to a project:
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:13:48 AM CST||1) Run the BOINC Manager and click Projects.
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:13:48 AM CST||2) (Unix/Mac) Use boinc_cmd --project_attach
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:13:48 AM CST||3) (Unix/Mac) Run this program with the -attach_project command-line option.
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:13:48 AM CST||Visit http://boinc.berkeley.edu for more information
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:13:50 AM CST||Running CPU benchmarks
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:14:41 AM CST||Fetching config info from http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/get_project_config.php
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:14:49 AM CST||Benchmark results:
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:14:49 AM CST|| Number of CPUs: 2
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:14:49 AM CST|| 487 double precision MIPS (Whetstone) per CPU
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:14:49 AM CST|| 779 integer MIPS (Dhrystone) per CPU
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:14:49 AM CST||Finished CPU benchmarks
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:14:50 AM CST||Resuming computation and network activity
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:14:50 AM CST||request_reschedule_cpus: Resuming activities


If I change from localhost to connecting to the computer name and then try to attach, same result with the following line added to the log:
Thu 23 Feb 2006 11:22:51 AM CST||Fetching config info from http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/get_project_config.php

From ethereal:
Checksum: 0xa307 (incorrect, should be 0x75fa)

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OK. Well I disable SELinux and I firewall the server for myself with IPtables. I know its a different approach but....... One day I will get round to SELinux but right now its more a pain than a help. Also I downloaded FC4 and scratch installed it. It is now running Boinc successfully. I thought I would do that to see if there was anything I was not aware of and I had promised myself I would do it some time. Anyhow it works fine so I would turn off SELinux and reboot to see what happens.

Also check your firewall is allowing traffic on port 80 (and 443) to pass in and out. Run ethereal again and tell us what traffic is going out and we will see what can be done from there.

As for the Ethereal checksums well this may be a real nic fault but it may also be a super intelligent ethernet card. Some smart cards add the checksum for outbound traffic rather than have it done when the packet is constructed so ethereal has no chance of seeing it. It can happen this way and its documented better at the ethereal web site. But I guess you should be ready for a faulty nic yet.

If you wish to send me the trace of connection attempts then john_brown_gordon at ntlworld.com will find me. Please send them as ethereal files not txt. By all means filter out what you don't want to send. Many have done this and your data is safe with me as others will testify here if you ask.....its up to you.

Hope this helps and do come back and tell us.

Thanks.
Ian

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On travel this week, when I get back next week I will give it a go and see what comes out. I am on the trip with one of our IT guys, it may be a perimeter firewall issue WRT the bad checksum, but if the XP box can do it, I am thinking it is the FC4 box itself, will look into it more next week.

Hopefully your email has some info for you, and I obviously didn't read down to the end of this post since I addressed it to John, sorry about that.

OK. Well I disable SELinux and I firewall the server for myself with IPtables. I know its a different approach but....... One day I will get round to SELinux but right now its more a pain than a help. Also I downloaded FC4 and scratch installed it. It is now running Boinc successfully. I thought I would do that to see if there was anything I was not aware of and I had promised myself I would do it some time. Anyhow it works fine so I would turn off SELinux and reboot to see what happens.

Also check your firewall is allowing traffic on port 80 (and 443) to pass in and out. Run ethereal again and tell us what traffic is going out and we will see what can be done from there.

As for the Ethereal checksums well this may be a real nic fault but it may also be a super intelligent ethernet card. Some smart cards add the checksum for outbound traffic rather than have it done when the packet is constructed so ethereal has no chance of seeing it. It can happen this way and its documented better at the ethereal web site. But I guess you should be ready for a faulty nic yet.

If you wish to send me the trace of connection attempts then john_brown_gordon at ntlworld.com will find me. Please send them as ethereal files not txt. By all means filter out what you don't want to send. Many have done this and your data is safe with me as others will testify here if you ask.....its up to you.

Hope this helps and do come back and tell us.

Thanks.
Ian