Folding@home SMP FAQ

Table of Contents

Introduction

Since 2000, Folding@home (FAH) has led to a major jump in the capabilities of molecular simulation. By joining together hundreds of thousands of PCs throughout the world, calculations, which were previously considered impossible, have now become routine. FAH has targeted the study of protein folding and protein folding disease, and numerous scientific advances have come from the project.

Now in 2006, we are looking forward to other methods to produce major advance in capabilities on top of what we can do with distributed computing. We have previously announced our support of high performance Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) from ATI as well as the new Cell processor in Sony�s PlayStation 3 to achieve performance previously only possible on supercomputers.

We are also releasing another type of client, the Folding@home SMP client. SMP means "Symmetric Multi-processing" and it is a term that generally refers to the situation where a computer has more than one processor core. Dual core CPU's are pretty common and even 4-core boxes (currently implemented as dual socket dual core computers, such as Apple's Mac Pro) are becoming common. With advances from Intel and AMD, quad core processors are on the horizon, with 8-core and even 16-core boxes soon to become common.

The goals of the SMP client and the GPU client are similar: in order to tackle many of the problems of interest (especially related to protein misfolding and aggregation, such as in Alzheimer's Disease), we need to not just have lots of computers participating, but we need results returned more quickly so that we can simulate trajectories of sufficient length. Right now, we achieve this by running for many months to years (indeed, our first Alzheimer's Disease simulations ran for almost two years straight). That's where the SMP and GPU (and PS3) clients come in. They give us considerably longer trajectories in the same wall clock time, allowing us to turn what used to take years to simulate even on FAH, to a few weeks to months.

Moreover, the SMP and GPU clients are complementary. The GPU client can greatly (~30x) speed up a specific type of calculation (implicit solvent calculations), whereas the SMP client can lead to a 4x speed up over the complete range of calculations we need to run. Even a 4x speed up is significant here, since it affects virtually all types of FAH calculations, turning a year's worth of work into a few months. As multi-core CPUs become more common, we expect this trend to become more and more important, especially as 8-core boxes (with dual 4-core CPUs) have already been announced.

Our goal is to apply this new technology to dramatically advance the capabilities of Folding@home, applying our simulations to further study of protein folding and related diseases, including Alzheimer�s Disease, Huntington's Disease, and certain forms of cancer. With these computational advances, coupled with new simulation methodologies to harness the new techniques, we will be able to address questions previously considered impossible to tackle computationally, and make even greater impacts on our knowledge of folding and folding related diseases.

How to Run the FAH SMP Beta Client

Important: the FAH v6 beta client has replaced the v5 SMP client for Linux and OSX platforms. Several settings have changed. Please read the v6 instructions before running the client on these platforms. A more integrated set of instructions will be forthcoming.

This is a beta release and we expect that there will be several bugs, flaws, problems, etc. To minimize problems, we have been testing the client and cores extensively in house and they run well there. However, it's our experience that running in the controlled setup in our lab and running "out in the wild" are very different situations.

As in the use of any beta software, please make sure to back up your hard drive, and do not run this client on any machine which cannot tolerate even the slightest instability or problems.

There are two steps:

1. Download the client file from the Folding@home web site download page.
2. Install the program (see either the quick instructions below or the detailed instructions at the end of the page)

Note that we currently only support the console client for three platforms: Mac OSX/Intel, 64-bit Linux, and Windows. We are working on a 32-bit Linux client, but do not have an ETA at this time. The Windows port has recently been released to beta and uses a separate code base from the OSX and Linux versions.

Quick install for Windows XP and 2000

Install the Microsoft .NET framework v2.0 before installing the SMP client. Next, run the self-extracting installer to choose an installation directory and install the files there. Then run install.bat in the installation directory to complete the install process. Running the fah.exe binary starts the client. More detailed instructions are at the bottom of this page. The quick version is:

1. Make sure .netframework 2.0 is installed
2. Make sure you have an account with a password set up (FAH SMP on Windows won't work if your account doesn't have a password associated with it).
3. Install FAH SMP client
4. Run install.bat file
5. Run fah.exe

Quick install for Windows Vista

The .NET framework v2.0 is not needed (it is already installed). Run the self-extracting installer to choose an installation directory and install the files there. Then run install.bat in the installation directory to complete the install process. Running the fah.exe binary starts the client. More detailed instructions are at the bottom of this page. The quick version is:

1. Make sure .netframework 2.0 is installed
2. Make sure you have an account with a password set up (FAH SMP on Windows won't work if your account doesn't have a password associated with it).
3. Install FAH SMP client
4. Run install.bat file
5. Run fah.exe

More detailed instructions are given below. We are also working on installers to make this process easier and they will be available when the SMP client goes past the beta test phase. In either case, be careful not to install over an existing installation.

Quick install for Mac OSX

The installer version installs itself and is the suggested method for those not familiar with unix, etc.

For the console client: untar the files and then copy the mpiexec file to the ~/Library/Folding@home directory and then run the fah5 binary. More detailed instructions are at the bottom of this page.

Quick install for Linux

Untar the files and then run the fah5 binary. For those unfamiliar with running FAH on linux, see the FAH wiki entry for the basics on running FAH on Linux (or the FINSTALL code tutorial on the wiki). More detailed instructions are at the bottom of this page.

Detailed Installation Instructions

Windows Installation Instructions (Console)

Installation instructions are also included with the client download in a readme.rtf file.

Note: The account under which the client runs MUST have a password. Blank passwords will cause the FAH cores to fail.

1. Required component for XP & 2000 (not Vista, it is built in): The Windows SMP client requires the Microsoft .NET framework v2.0; please install this prior to installing the client. The version 2.0 framework is required; it can co-exist with other versions, but this version must be installed. It can be obtained from Microsoft at the following URL: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=0856eacb-4362-4b0d-8edd-aab15c5e04f5&displaylang=en. Administrator privileges are required for installation.
2. Unpack files. Run the self-extracting installer to unpack the SMP client files.
3. Client installation. Run install.bat from within the SMP install directory to complete the installation. This will install MPI services that the client needs. If you have Windows Firewall enabled, you may get a pop-up window asking if you should give access to the smpd and mpiexec programs. Grant access. If you use an alternate firewall product, you will likely have to make a similar exception for smpd.

NOTE The username and password you provide for mpiexec should be your Windows login that you will run the client under. This is used for authentication on your local machine. It is cached in encrypted form in your Registry and is not transmitted to FAH servers. And if you change your password, you will need to run install.bat again.

At the end of the install process, you should see two lines of output:

 If you see this twice, MPI is working
 If you see this twice, MPI is working

If you do not see these lines, do not start the client. MPI is not successfully installed, and the client will not run successfully.

1. Run the client:

Run fah.exe to start the SMP client. You will get another pop-up firewall window. Note: We do not officially support running the SMP client as a service, although people have found the following to work

• .NET 2.0 & Windows SMP Client must be installed from the same account with full administrator privileges.
• using the -configonly flag, say "yes" to services question & configure everything else as you normally would. Do not start the client yet.
• Open the services control pannel, go to the new FAH WinSMP service & open the properties and click the Log On tab. Select Log On As: This Account (instead of Local System Account), put the user name for the account under which .NET 2.0 and the SMP client were installed. Enter the password.
• Reboot. The SMP client will automatically start in service mode.

See the forum link for more details.

OSX Installation Instructions (Installer)

 1. Download and double-click the .zip file to decompress.

 2. Double-click on the installer package, and follow the instructions.

 3. Select System Preferences in the Apple menu.

 4. Select the Folding@home icon in the System Preferences.

 5. Set your username, team number and click the Start button!

Once you finish the install, you can watch your points on the stats pages. The protein viewer (part of the old GUI) and a Dashboard widget are in development.

OSX Installation Instructions (Console)

The preferred means for OSX installation is the installer (above) . Here are detailed instructions to setup the SMP client console version if you choose to run this one instead.

1. Go to Terminal: In the Finder ribbon, select Go-> Utilities. Open Terminal. In the Terminal window you should see a prompt that looks something like this: yourcomputername:~ yourusername$
2. To get the SMP FAH client going type in following commands:

 mkdir ~/Library/Folding@home
 cd ~/Library/Folding@home
 curl -O 
 http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/release/FAH6.00beta1-OSX-Intel-Console.tgz
 tar xzf FAH6.00beta1-OSX-Intel-Console.tgz

1. Now you should have the SMP FAH client in place and you'll have to configure it. It can be done by running following command: ./fah6 -smp local -configonly
2. After setting the configuration there are couple of ways to start the SMP FAH client. One way is to start it is by typing in each time the following command: ./fah6 -smp -local -verbosity 9
3. OPTIONAL: To make it a little easier for yourself, one can make a little script by running following commands:

 echo "./fah6 -smp -local -verbosity 9" > FaH
 chmod +x FaH

Now you'll just have to run

./FaH

and all those additional FAH client flags will get added by itself.

Note: All those listed commands MUST be typed/pasted from this little HOWTO to the terminal (window) of your machine.

Example (OSX):

 Welcome to Darwin!
 box:~ user% mkdir ~/Library/FAH
 box:~ user% cd ~/Library/FAH
 box:~/Library/FAH user% curl -O
 http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/release/FAH6.00beta1-OSX-Intel-Console.tgz
   % Total    % Received % Xferd  Average Speed   Time    Time     Time  Current
                                  Dload  Upload   Total   Spent    Left  Speed
 100  138k  100  138k    0     0  34461      0  0:00:04  0:00:04 --:--:-- 39789
 box:~/Library/FAH user% tar xzf FAH6.00beta1-OSX-Intel-Console.tgz
 box:~/Library/FAH user% ls -la
 total 960
 drwxr-xr-x    5 user  guest     170 Nov  6 23:58 .
 drwx------   18 user  guest     612 Nov  6 23:55 ..
 -rw-r--r--    1 user  guest  141900 Nov  6 23:56 FAH6.00beta1-OSX-Intel-Console.tgz
 -rwxr-xr-x    1 user  guest  282796 Nov  4 07:04 fah6
 -rwxr-xr-x    1 user  guest   60156 Oct 27 16:52 mpiexec
 box:~/Library/FAH user% ./fah6 -smp -local -configonly
 ...
 box:~/Library/FAH user% echo "./fah6 -smp -local -verbosity 9" > FaH
 box:~/Library/FAH user% chmod +x FaH
 box:~/Library/FAH user% ./FaH

Linux Installation Instructions (Console)

We are in the process of making an installer to make this process much easier. For now, here are detailed instructions to setup the SMP client.

1. Go to Terminal. Depending of your desktop engine (KDE, GNOME, ...) the Terminal application can be at different places, but you'll find it. GNOME has it at "Applications->Accessories->Terminal". Open Terminal.
2. In the Terminal window you should see a prompt that looks something like this: yourusername@yourcomputername ~ $
3. To get the SMP FAH client going type in following commands:

 mkdir -p ~/folding/FAH
 cd ~/folding/FAH
 curl -O
 http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/release/FAH6.00beta1-Linux.tgz
 tar xzf FAH6.00beta1-Linux.tgz

Note: If you don't have curl available on your machine, use wget instead:

 wget http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/release/FAH6.00beta1-Linux.tgz

1. Now you should have the SMP FAH client in place and you'll have to configure it. It can be done by running following command: ./fah6 -smp -configonly

After setting the configuration there are couple of ways to start the SMP FAH client. One way is to start it is by typing in each time the following command: ./fah6 -smp -verbosity 9

1. OPTIONAL: To make it a little easier for yourself, one can making a script by running following commands:

 echo "./fah6 -smp -verbosity 9" > FaH
 chmod +x FaH

Now you'll just have to run

 ./FaH

and all those additional FAH client flags will get added by itself.

Note: All those listed commands MUST be typed/pasted from this little HOWTO to the terminal (window) of your machine.

Example:

 user@box ~ $ mkdir -p ~/folding/FAH
 user@box ~ $ cd ~/folding/FAH
 user@box FAH $ curl -O
 http://www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/release/FAH6.00beta1-Linux.tgz
 % Total % Received % Xferd Average Speed Time Time Time Current
 Dload Upload Total Spent Left Speed
 100 138k 100 138k 0 0 34461 0 0:00:04 0:00:04 --:--:-- 39789
 user@box FAH $ tar xzf FAH6.00beta1-Linux.tgz
 user@box FAH $ ls -la
 total 960
 drwxr-xr-x 5 user guest 170 Nov 6 23:58 .
 drwx------ 18 user guest 612 Nov 6 23:55 ..
 -rw-r--r-- 1 user guest 138145 Nov 6 23:56 FAH6.00beta1-Linux.tgz
 -rwxr-xr-x 1 user guest 282796 Nov 4 07:04 fah6
 -rwxr-xr-x 1 user guest 60156 Oct 27 16:52 mpiexec
 user@box FAH $ ./fah6 -smp -configonly
 ...
 user@box FAH $ echo "./fah6 -smp -verbosity 9" > FaH
 user@box FAH $ chmod +x FaH
 user@box FAH $ ./FaH
 ... 

Known Bugs and Issues

Please note that this is a beta release. While we have done lots of testing in house, there are limits to the bugs we can find in these limited tests (and hence the need for a beta test). Thus, we expect that there will be many problems with the client that need to be resolved. Below is a list of some of the relevant known issues or bugs for beta testers of this new client.

When running an integrated client (OSX or Linux), the -smp flag must be used to request SMP work units. Under some circumstances, omitting the SMP option may cause loss of the current work unit.

1. The core needs some time (often as much as 4 minutes) between work units to finalize work.
2. Printing to the log file sometimes gets weird due to multiple threads
3. The Linux client (and sometimes the OSX client) does not correctly detect RAM levels 2GB or greater. In this situation, please make sure to set the RAM by hand in the client configuration process (to reconfigure, run the client with the -configonly flag). If the memory is not read correctly, it defaults to a very low value. If your OSX client detects some huge amount of memory (eg 4294965248 MB), then you need to configure the RAM by hand with -configonly.
4. The core will print "No option -tpi" 4 times during the start up of the core
5. The core does not clean up its work files completely (can leave several files after the WU has completed)

Notes for Running

1. We strongly suggest people run this client on 4-core boxes. While it will run on 2-core boxes, we have noticed some potential problems (we are looking into these issues now).
2. Most SMP WU's will be "big" WU's, so you'll have to configure the client that way. During the client configuration, when the client asks "Allow receipt of work assignments and return of work results greater than 5MB in size (such work units may have large memory demands) (no/yes)" say yes.
3. There is a brief pause (15-20 seconds) at the end of each WU. This is so we can make sure all the threads sync up. This is not a bug, as much as a limitation of SMP needing to synchronize the threads before moving on to the next WU.
4. The SMP core can get confused about disabling SSE, so we suggest running with the -forceasm flag if you notice that the SSE was disabled unnecessarily.
5. The linux client is a 32-bit executable, as we are planning on using a single client binary for SMP and non-SMP. However, this means that 64-bit linux distros will need to have 32-bit ELF support enabled.

Policy Notes

1. The client will stop working after 2 months (this is a limited release beta -- new clients will be available before the current version ends its test period)
2. Deadlines will be set to be much shorter than normal, as we need to get data back quickly in this beta test and we are releasing to a very specific set of hardware. This will likely change in time, as we move from a beta test and as we move towards supporting other platforms. However, the deadlines will be much shorter than the deadlines for normal WUs (as the reason for high performance clients like the SMP client is high performance!).
3. If a server with SMP WU's is not available or is overloaded, the client will be assigned to 0.0.0.0, which tells the client to wait and try again. As more SMP servers come on line, this won't be an issue, but during the beta test, we want to keep the SMP clients crunching SMP WU's.

Previous bugs fixed in the current version

1. Checkpointing was previously not working (this means that if you quit the client and then restart it, the client will start from the beginning of the WU).
2. In previous clients, the core can sometimes get confused about whether the previous core ended cleanly and will turn off assembly loops. In cases like this, we strongly suggest that people run with the -forceasm flag.

Frequently Asked Questions

What operating systems will be supported?

We support three operating systems: Windows, Mac OSX/Intel, and 64-bit Linux. We are working to port to 32-bit Linux and hope to have that ready to beta test soon. The Windows version of the client has recently been released and runs under both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows.

How many cores do I need to run this? What types of CPUs?

In the beta test, we are strongly recommending that this code be run on 4-core boxes, although it can be run on 2-core boxes with reasonable performance. The code does best on Core 2 Duo/Woodcrest class chips and we recommend these systems (new iMacs, Mac Pro's, etc).

How long do you estimate this program will remain a beta before it turns into a final client?

This is hard to predict, as it depends on how well the code works �in the wild.� Also, using multi-core processors for a single calculation in distributed computing is itself new and so there may be unexpected consequences that nobody could foresee.

What scientific cores does the FAH SMP client support? Only Gromacs cores? Others cores like Amber?

We will support a particular Gromacs core for SMP processors only (Core_a1). Other core support (Amber or Tinker) is possible, but not on our current roadmap.

Does the FAH SMP client run the same WUs as the regular FAH client?

No, the SMP will run a set of WUs specially constructed for the SMP Core_a1�s new functionality. While the SMP Core_a1 WUs use the same file format as Gromacs WUs, the scientific code, which performs the calculation, is different and the WUs for Core_a1 will yield incorrect results (simply not run) if run with Gromacs (and vice versa).

How do you decide the credit value of SMP work units?

Points are determined by the performance of a given machine relative to a benchmark machine, similar to the CPU client benchmark process. Before releasing any new project (series of work units), we benchmark it on a dedicated Macintosh Pro with 2 - 2.33 GHz Dual Core Xeon processors. (more specifically, 2 Woodcrest 5140 processors with 4 MB cache (each), 5 GB FBDIMM Memory (667 MHz DDR2), 1.33 GHz Bus)

We plug the results of this benchmark test into the following formula:

points = 1760 * (daysPerWU)

where daysPerWU is the number of days it took to complete the work unit.

Please note the very concept of a reference machine will mean that some WU performance will vary from the performance on your machine. Even between various Xeon processors, there are significant differences in architectures. Moreover, there are variations between WUs within a given project which can lead to speed differences.

Our goal is consistency within a given definition of a reference machine setup (described above), but beyond that, the natural variation from machine to machine and WU to WU will never allow any point system to perfectly predict what you get on your machine.

Why is the SMP client important, and why is the benchmark set at that level?

The purpose of the SMP client is twofold: to take advantage of the high-performance capabilities of recent multiprocessor systems and to help develop a simulation architecture that will become one of the dominant FAH computing paradigms as multi-core chips become an industry standard over the next several years. High-performance clients enable us to run types of calculations that would be impractical on our standard architecture--calculations that enhance our scientific capabilities, and your scientific contributions, significantly.

High-performance clients often require more computing resources. SMP clients typically run on dedicated systems, 24 hours a day, and use more processing power, more disk space, more network resources, more system memory, etc. Also, a major part of the scientific benefit is dependent on rapid turnaround of work units; hence we assign short deadlines for SMP work units. To reward those contributors for donating resources beyond the typical CPU client, for completing these work units very quickly within the short deadlines, and for contributing to the development of our next-generation capabilities, we currently set a benchmark value (with included bonus*) proportional to these larger more demanding SMP work units. Without the SMP clients and your additional contributions, we would not be able to complete many important projects. *Please note the bonus value is subject to change.

What about hyperthreaded (HT) CPUs?

The SMP client was originally intended for multi-core CPUs, which generally do not support HT. For machines with 2 physical CPUs, we do recommend enabling HT for the SMP client as this presents the operating system with what looks like 4 logical processors (and our SMP client is intended for 4 processors). If you have 4 physical CPUs, we recommend against using HT, as this presents the operating system with 8 logical processors, which will make the SMP client run inefficiently (especially since the logical processors coming from HT run much slower than the normal ones).

Why use MPI? Why not threads?

None of our engines are written to be thread-safe or multi-threaded. The only parallelizable codes (Gromacs and AMBER) both use MPI. Making Gromacs use only threads for parallelization isn't possible right now (we talk with the Gromacs developers frequently on this issue), so MPI is the only solution.

How well does MPI work?

The short answer is pretty well on Linux and OSX and not so well on Windows. MPI was originally developed on UNIX, so this is not a surprise (and it's a great feat in many ways for it to even run on Windows). The Windows specific quirks we're seeing are due to MPI-Windows interaction, and we're trying to hunt them down, as well as try out other MPI possibilities.

Why lock to four processes?

Gromacs in all released versions currently breaks up code to set up calculations and those to run them and the number of SMP processors is decided at setup (Grompp) not running (mdrun). MDRUN is the code running in the FAH core, so it has to have a fixed number of SMP processes. We are investigating possible options to change this.

Isn't it needlessly complex to use MPI?

Unfortunately, there aren't other options right now (see the above).

Isn't MPI really meant for clustering computers together?

Yes and no. It originally started that way, but with multi-cpu/multi-core boxes, it has become a natural solution there too (as one can code for MPI and run on both architectures).

Does that mean that FAH could support multi-box clusters?

That's on our mind, but we want to try to get SMP working smoothly before going to far in that direction.

Troubleshooting The Client

The client has trouble making connections and shows MPI errors such as " Fatal error in MPI_Wait: Other MPI error, error stack:"

Check out the advice from Pogo, who found an issue with the loopback device giving trouble. Here are simple steps to detect the issue: - run "hostname" to get your local hostname - run "ping <output from hostname>" - look at response times from ping - if it's over 1ms you have a problem - or run "traceroute <output from hostname>" - there better not be any hops in the route

Fix: - change your local hostname to something NOT pingable on the internet (i.e. do a ping or nslookup on that name from some other internet connected machine) - add local host name to the "127.0.0.1 localhost" line in /etc/hosts

Why does the client fail to start, and what does the error mean?

If the client reports an error code -1, it is likely due to an MPI problem. Try re-registering mpiexec by running install.bat again.

If the client fails to start, and the fahlog.ext shows a CoreStatus = 63 (99) error, that is a permissions problem, or a MPI registration problem, or both. To correct this, set the properties of the fah.exe file to "Run as Administrator" and then run the "install.bat" file again to register MPI and the SMPD service.

When something happens to my network (changing settings or other tweaks), the FAH/SMP client has problems.

One issue with the SMP client is that the client uses MPI to handle multiple processors and MPI uses the network system (albeit on the local loopback device). If the network is tweaked during a run, this can cause problems for the loopback device, causing problems with MPI, causing Gromacs to stop processing. The same happens when a WIFI signal drops or goes out of range and comes back.

We are looking into this and in particular whether we can detect this well enough such that the client restarts from a checkpoint (best case scenario). For now, please don't change the network settings while FAH/SMP is running (you can always stop the FAH client, change the settings, and then restart the client later).

On some home routers, it has been found that DHCP lease renewals have caused the same issue as changing network settings. Setting a Static IP address instead will avoid that problem. And an Ethernet cable will help to avoid the problems of a WIFI connection. And these problems are less prevalent in Windows Vista and 2008, as the IP stack has several updates that Windows 2000 and XP do not.

How to prevent network drops from killing the Windows SMP folding client in Windows XP

This guide was adapted from one in the [H]ardForum. Please see http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1286217 for the original version. Thanks to Killer[MoB] who developed it.

The SMP client often gets frozen or seemingly hung up when the box is otherwise running just fine. The problem 99.9% of the time is a network connection issue. Any kind of issue, such as a bad cable, a faulty port on a hub, router or switch, a NIC in power save mode or just flakey wireless connection problems could cause the folding client to stop processing. The problem lies in the way the client uses the network for loopback with the folding cores communicating with each other.

Loopback is the problem and also the solution to the problem. The solution is to install the Microsoft Loopback Adapter. It will help maintain a constant network connection within your own machine. Although this is not its intended purpose, it does work for solving this folding problem. The major difference?? Now I can unplug the network cable completely and it never misses a beat.

What is it and is it a piece of hardware?

It is not hardware. It is a virtual network adapter installed in some cases when you need to test network related things and there is no network available. It is also used when running some virtual machines in various versions of windows.

Where is it and how can I get it?

You don't need to get it because you already have it. This is almost too easy.

How do I install it and set it up?

1) Go to Add Hardware. (Start>Control Panel>Printers and Other Devices>Add Hardware)

2) You should now be at the add hardware wizard.

• Click Next.
• Select "Yes, I have already connected the hardware" and click next.
• Scroll to the bottom of the list and highlight "Add a new hardware device" and click next.
• Select "Install the hardware that I manually select from a list (advanced)" and click next.
• Highlight "Network adapters" and click next.
• Highlight "Microsoft" under manufacturer and "Microsoft Loopback Adapter" under network adapter. Click next.
• Click Next again.
• Now click Finished.
• Close out the Printers and other hardware window.

3) Go to network connections. (Start>Connect to>Show all connections) or (Start>My Network Places>View Network Connections)

• You will see a new Local Area Connection that is listed as being a Microsoft Loopback Adapter. You will also see that it says Limited or no connectivity. We are about to fix that.
• Right click on this new loopback connection and select properties.
• Double click Internet protocol (TCP/IP).
• Select use the following IP address.
• Set the IP address to a 192.168.x.x number that would not normally be assigned on your network. Ex 191.168.255.200
• Click on the subnet mask box and it should auto fill with 255.255.255.0.
• Leave everything else blank.
• Click OK.

This may take the machine a couple minutes to think about. Once it's done, you can close all the windows. Note that on the Network Connections window, the loopback adapter now shows connected.

Windows Vista and SMP

Windows Vista has additional security features not found in previous versions of Windows. In certain situations, these security features might interfere with the installation and/or operation of the SMP Windows client. Please see the FAH WIKI: Vista and SMP page for installation and troubleshooting assistance.

My linux machine hangs at the "4 NNODES" line.

Here's a suggested fix by "Jimmy2Shoe" (see this thread) for RedHat FC6 (the method that I use might diffrer from for diffrent distros...)

1. System --> Administration --> Network: In devices, select eth0, or whichever device is your net connection. Press EDIT.
2. In DHCP settings, put in a hostname of your choice, something original, and exit that window.
3. In the "DNS" Tab, use the same hostname you selected.
4. Close network configuration, save settings.
5. Open up the hosts file under my computer --> filesystem --> etc --> hosts.
6. The text editor now open, type in the first line: 127.0.0.1 [press tab] hostname you selected above
7. Save and close the text editor. Reboot.

The main jist of this is to make sure that your localhost is setup in a way that the MPI libraries like.

For More Information, Please See:

• High Performance FAQ
• FAH FAQ
• Folding Support Forum

Last Updated on April 15, 2008, at 01:43 PM