Connecting a BOINC project to the desktopgrid VO

These are the steps necessary to connect a BOINC based desktop grid to EDGeS in DG ⇒ EGEE direction. This is for you if you are an administrator of such a BOINC project and want your WUs to go to EGEE.

  1. Obtain a certificate if you do not have one yet:

    To access EGEE resources a certificate is required from an approved Certification Authority accredited to issue grid certificates. European users can follow links from http://www.eugridpma.org/members/worldmap/ others can follow http://www.igtf.net/ to find your local CA.

    The certificate needed is a personal certificate representing the desktop grid project (normally the adminstrator or the person who can sign executables and install applications for the BOINC project).

  2. Delegate your credentials to the EDGeS MyProxy server

    The bridge has to retrieve a grid proxy to submit jobs to EGEE converted from your desktop grid work units, and long running jobs also need proxy renewal by the gLite WMS. To enable this you have to create a proxy and delegate it to a MyProxy server (don't worry, this is just a single command, see below). For both retreival and renewal the MyProxy service operated by EDGeS are used. This MyProxy server is set up to trust the bridge and our WMS for retrieval/renewal, that is why you need to use our MyProxy server (alternatively, if you want to use a different MyProxy server then the configuration of that server would need to be changed; contact us if you prefer this option but then you have to arrange the configuration of your MyProxy server).

    To delegate credentials to the EDGeS MyProxy server (with your grid certificate and key in $HOME/.globus) use the following commands[*]:

    • if on a gLite UI then make sure you have no valid proxy laying around: issue grid-proxy-destroy
    • use the following command to do the delegation: 
      GT_PROXY_MODE=old myproxy-init -s myproxy.grid.edges-grid.eu -d -n [-c 720]
  3. Send your DN and BOINC project info to the bridge administrator (edges-bridgeadm _at_ mail.edges-grid.eu)

    The DN is printed by myproxy-init after delegation, BOINC project info include the project URL and instructions to connect to the project as a client.

IMPORTANT NOTICE: By default the command in step 2 without the -c option will delegate credentials for a week which you will need to renew before it expires by running the same command periodically to continue using EGEE resources. The bridge can only submit jobs from your DG or retrieve results from EGEE as long as there are valid credentials delegated. You can change the time of delegation with the -c option to myproxy-init. See the man page of myproxy-init for further explanation. The -c 720 option sets validity time for 30 days.

[*]The myproxy-init command can be run from any machine with an internet connection, there is no requirement to run it on a specific machine or to use a specific version. However, we tested with the myproxy-init that comes with a gLite UI version 3.1 so it is recommended to use that if you have access to a gLite UI. If not using gLite then you may also need to add a CA certificate to your trusted CAs. This can be done by putting the contents of NIIF CA certs into your $HOME/.globus/certificates directory (or the directory indicated by myproxy-init). For further help in troubleshooting myproxy-init problems see here.