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RPM Installation of BOINC client software


How to install the BOINC client software on Linux distrubutions which use RPM (the Red Hat Package Manager), such as Fedora Linux, Red Hat Linux, Mandriva Linux, and CentOS.

Last modified: 3 October 2009
The Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing (BOINC) is an open-source software platform to support distributed computing, primarily for volunteer computing and desktop Grid computing. The BOINC client software runs on Windows, MacOS X, and Unix.

It is now possible to easily install the BOINC client software on Fedora Linux and Red Hat Linux using the rpm command.

Preparation

If you have not previously installed BOINC on your system then you do not need to do anything to prepare for the installation (unless you want your working directory to be something other than /var/lib/boinc).

If you have already installed BOINC on Linux manually then you should first uninstall the executables manually.

If you already have BOINC installed you may want to move the working directory to /var/lib/boinc.

Alternatively, if your BOINC working directory is not /var/lib/boinc you can set BOINCDIR to point to your working directory in /etc/sysconfig/boinc before you install the package and it will use that directory as the working directory. This also works to specify an alternate working directory for a first-time installation.

Installation via RPM

Here is how to install BOINC from an rpm package:
  1. Download the latest RPM package for the BOINC client from http://pirates.spy-hill.net/download/RPMS (This is the directory used for testing. In the future RPMs may well be distributed from some other location.)

  2. Optionally, verify that the package is properly signed with a valid and trusted GPG key. Here is how:
    1. If you do not already have a GPG key imported into your rpm system then you need to do the following:

      1. Download the GPG public key needed to verify the GPG signature of the package, which is currently RPM-GPG-KEY-pirates. (This is the GPG key used to sign test packages. Future RPMs may well be signed by a different key.) Then

      2. Import the key into RPM. As root, the command is
        rpm --import RPM-GPG-KEY-pirates
        (Your browser may have added a .htm extension to the filename when you saved the key. If so, be sure to add that to the filename in the `rpm --import ` command.)

        Once you have the key imported you can use it to verify any package signed by that key. You do not need to import the key again.

    2. If and when you have the key imported into rpm, you can easily verify the signature on the package with the following command:
      rpm --checksig boinc_client-5.10.21-18.i686.rpm
      (This must be given as root, so as to use the same RPM database.) The output must include both "gpg" and "OK", like this:
      boinc_client-5.10.21-18.i386.rpm: (sha1) dsa sha1 md5 gpg OK
  3. Install the package. There are a couple of ways to do this. In KDE you can double-click on the icon for the package. You'll be prompted for the root password, and once you give it the package will be installed. (Can someone check if Gnome is the same?)

    You can also easily install the package from the command line. As root, give the command:

    rpm -Uhv boinc_client-5.10.21-18.i686.rpm

    If you have already installed an older version of the same package then you can use the "-F" flag in place of the "-U" flag to "freshen" the installed package.

If you have previously installed BOINC manually then you may get a note advising you that some components of that installation have not been properly removed. If so, see these notes for instructions on how to clean up from the previous manual installation.
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