UK BOINC Team Forum

https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

Am I right in thinking I can install Virtualbox on Windows 10, and then setup loads of VMs, each with their own install of Windows 10?

And could each VM with Win10 installed have its own BOINC install?

And what would be the impact of any GPUs installed in the, err, source/top/master Win10 OS? I am right in thinking that the VMs could not use any GPUs installed?

Are there any other issues that I should watch for when and if it possible to run multiple VMs each with their own Win 10 plus BOINC?

I read somewhere that in the past some project admins banned you for running projects in VMs; anyone know what the situation today is, and what projects you are or not allowed to do this?

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This shows you how to install Win10 on VirtualBox.

https://www.extremetech.com/computing/1 ... al-machine

I assume so, I've never tried it on Windows 10 but it works fine on Windows XP, Windows 7 and Linux.

Yes, each VM is basically a discrete PC and you can do almost anything on it that you can do on the host.

The GPUs can be seen in the VM if the correct VM passthroughs are enabled in the BIOS/Windows (VT-D I believe for peripherals?) and work in your processor. Then you'd have to go through the steps here viewtopic.php?f=93&p=118112#p118112 to get specific ones to appear in specific copies of Boinc.

Each VM will need it's own Windows 10 licence. Each VM will need a specific amount of memory/cores assigned when initialised and these resources can't be released if not used, you can end up with one copy of Windows out of memory and several copies sitting with multiple gigabytes spare.

Goofy originally banned VMs but it's now allowed, WUProp doesn't work in VMs, only one copy per physical host. Multiple WUs will run but as soon as one WU finishes, anything else running is aborted in all the host/VMs. I don't know of any other projects that have a stand on it either way.

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However, if all you want is multiple copies of Boinc running, it's far easier just to launch a second, third, fourth ... copy in the native host. Check with UBT - Chris the best way to do this at the moment since it's been a while since I did it.

Mark

Hi Mark,

Thanks for the info, at this time I just trying to run Yafu on VMs..

I am trying to work out how this guy has a Mag of over 2,000, and yet each 'host' is doing so little (when it should be doing so much more). And each 'host' are exactly the same in most cases - so I am guessing he is running VMs..

https://www.grcpool.com/report/researcher/5492

chriscambridge wrote:Hi Mark,

Thanks for the info, at this time I just trying to run Yafu on VMs..

I am trying to work out how this guy has a Mag of over 2,000, and yet each 'host' is doing so little (when it should be doing so much more). And each 'host' are exactly the same in most cases - so I am guessing he is running VMs..

https://www.grcpool.com/report/researcher/5492

Hi Chris

It could just be he has spent some real money on some cloud based computing...so, it would then be real easy to rack up his MAG to significant levels...

regards
Tim

Hi Chris,

It does look suspiciously like multiple instances on one host.

I will say that whenever I run YAFU, it does spend a lot of it's time with the CPU less than 5% utilised so there's plenty of scope for running more tasks at the same time.

Mark

Hi Tim,

Now that;s something I hadn't thought of.

Mark

I did a quick calculation and just the CPUs and 32GB DDR4 RAM for each box would cost about £300K, let alone anything else.

Cloud computing is a lot more expensive than actual buying the hardware in house so I would guess it is not Cloud based.

Also If you were running that amount of hardware (non-VM), either in house or cloud based, you would want more than 10% normal credit from Yafu which is what he is getting per host.

I personally think they are VMs, and like you say Mark, if there was one project which was perfect for VMs (due to wasting CPU cores most of the time), its Yafu.

I am going to move some GPUs about and have a play about with Yafu on VMs over Christmas.

Do I need to turn on VMxd (or something similar) in the BIOS if no GPUs are being for BOINC? However about if I use a Geoforce 210 for display locally and remotely?

BTW, if you ever need to download the Windows 10 ISO, and Microsoft is stopping you as you are visiting the site on Windows, use the following technique!

- Go to the download page using Google Chrome ( https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/softwar ... /windows10 )

- Click F12

- Click on icon "Customize and control DevTools" (In my case it is an icon with 3 dots below eachother)

- Choose menu item "More tools"

- Choose menu item "Network conditions"

- In one of the windows you will have a new tab "Network conditions". Scroll down to "User agent"

- Uncheck "Select automatically"

- In the dropdown where "custom..." is selected. Now choose "Chrome -- Android Mobile" (or another non Windows browser)

- Press F5 to refresh your screen. You now have the possibility to download the iso.

Hi Chris,

You need VT-x turned on if the guest OS is 64 bit (which I assume your copy of Windows 10 is) and VT-d turned on if you want direct access to the peripherals from the host.

If you're not using the GPUs then you won't need VT-d, the display will be output via the host but you won't notice any significant deterioration.

Mark

Okay thanks for the info.