Bug 1423405 - boincmgr unable to connect to the core client
Summary: boincmgr unable to connect to the core client
Keywords:
Status: CLOSED UPSTREAM
Alias: None
Product: Fedora EPEL
Classification: Fedora
Component: boinc-client
Version: epel7
Hardware: x86_64
OS: Linux
unspecified
unspecified
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Germano Massullo
QA Contact: Fedora Extras Quality Assurance
URL: https://github.com/BOINC/boinc/issues...
Whiteboard:
Depends On:
Blocks:
TreeView+ depends on / blocked
 
Reported: 2017-02-17 09:22 UTC by Todd Taft
Modified: 2020-07-09 13:01 UTC (History)
9 users (show)

Fixed In Version:
Doc Type: If docs needed, set a value
Doc Text:
Clone Of:
Environment:
Last Closed: 2020-07-09 13:01:38 UTC
Type: Bug
Embargoed:


Attachments (Terms of Use)

Description Todd Taft 2017-02-17 09:22:00 UTC
Description of problem:
The BOINC Manager (boincmgr) reports that it is unable to connect to the core client even when boinc client is running.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
boinc-manager-7.6.22-7.el7

How reproducible:
100%

Steps to Reproduce:
1. yum install boinc-client boinc-manager
2. systemctl start boinc-client
3. boincmgr

Actual results:
Unable to connect to the core client

Expected results:
Ability to configure boinc client on localhost

Additional info:
boinccmd --get_state shows client is running

Comment 1 Germano Massullo 2017-02-17 09:35:12 UTC
Does this

# echo > /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg
# systemctl restart boinc-client

solve your problem?

Comment 2 Todd Taft 2017-02-21 06:34:30 UTC
That set of commands did seem to work.  I got prompted to add projects, etc. in boincmgr after running them.  Perhaps the standard install needs to be reconfigured to do that?

Comment 3 Pedroslav 2017-03-10 00:20:14 UTC
I believe the better way is to set the /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg permissions to 640 and add relevant user account to the boinc group. That way only members of the boinc group can connect the core client. The way suggested by Germano allows any user to connect.

Comment 4 Giovanni Tirloni 2017-07-14 12:00:00 UTC
I had the same issue.

boinc-client-7.6.22-7.fc25.x86_64
boinc-manager-7.6.22-7.fc25.x86_64

Here's a summary of the messages exchanged by boinc-client and boinc-manager:

<boinc_gui_rpc_request>.<auth1/>.</boinc_gui_rpc_request>
<boinc_gui_rpc_reply>.<nonce>1500032825.709024</nonce>.</boinc_gui_rpc_reply
<boinc_gui_rpc_request>.<auth2>.<nonce_hash>a3b7ea39z2383ae6b4c5fc7z40c538ab</nonce_hash>.</auth2>.</boinc_gui_rpc_request>
<boinc_gui_rpc_reply>.<unauthorized/>.</boinc_gui_rpc_reply>

My user is not in the 'boinc' group.

-rw-------. 1 boinc boinc 1 Jul 14 08:48 /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg

`boinccmd --get_state` worked, even though BOINC Manager couldn't connect.

Workaround allowed BOINC Manager to show list of projects. File gui_rpc_auth.cfg remained empty after BOINC Manager was able to connect.

I removed all packages, deleted /var/lib/boinc, reinstalled everything, started boinc-client, added my user to 'boinc' group and made sure `id` confirmed I belonged to that group. BOINC Manager still could not connect when gui_rpc_auth.cfg was populated.

Comment 5 Germano Massullo 2017-07-14 12:05:17 UTC
(In reply to Giovanni Tirloni from comment #4)
> I had the same issue.
> 
> boinc-client-7.6.22-7.fc25.x86_64
> boinc-manager-7.6.22-7.fc25.x86_64
> 
> Here's a summary of the messages exchanged by boinc-client and boinc-manager:
> 
> <boinc_gui_rpc_request>.<auth1/>.</boinc_gui_rpc_request>
> <boinc_gui_rpc_reply>.<nonce>1500032825.709024</nonce>.</boinc_gui_rpc_reply
> <boinc_gui_rpc_request>.<auth2>.
> <nonce_hash>a3b7ea39z2383ae6b4c5fc7z40c538ab</nonce_hash>.</auth2>.</
> boinc_gui_rpc_request>
> <boinc_gui_rpc_reply>.<unauthorized/>.</boinc_gui_rpc_reply>
> 
> My user is not in the 'boinc' group.
> 
> -rw-------. 1 boinc boinc 1 Jul 14 08:48 /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg
> 
> `boinccmd --get_state` worked, even though BOINC Manager couldn't connect.
> 
> Workaround allowed BOINC Manager to show list of projects. File
> gui_rpc_auth.cfg remained empty after BOINC Manager was able to connect.
> 
> I removed all packages, deleted /var/lib/boinc, reinstalled everything,
> started boinc-client, added my user to 'boinc' group and made sure `id`
> confirmed I belonged to that group. BOINC Manager still could not connect
> when gui_rpc_auth.cfg was populated.

It's a bug, see URL flag of this bugreport.
After adding your user to boinc group, make sure that boinc manager connects to 127.0.0.1

Comment 6 Germano Massullo 2018-11-12 11:08:17 UTC
Hi there, can you still reproduce the problem?
7.14.2 is going to be released in a few hours in EPEL7 testing. Could you please try to reproduce so I can force upstream to reopen the ticket?

Comment 7 wd5bjt@peoplepc.com 2019-07-23 03:01:54 UTC
I am a Fedora/Linux newbie trying to unlearn windoze.
Please forgive any transgressions and point me in the right direction.

I am having the following problem with BOINC and Fedora 30:

Steps taken to install/run Bionc:

[WD5BJT@WD5BJT ~]$ sudo dnf install boinc-manager
[sudo] password for WD5BJT: 
Last metadata expiration check: 0:10:40 ago on Tue 23 Jul 2019 02:10:06 AM GMT.
Dependencies resolved.
================================================================================
 Package               Architecture  Version               Repository      Size
================================================================================
Installing:
 boinc-manager         x86_64        7.14.2-17.fc30        updates        1.4 M
Installing dependencies:
 boinc-client          x86_64        7.14.2-17.fc30        updates        593 k
 wxGTK3-webview        x86_64        3.0.4-8.fc30          fedora          55 k

Transaction Summary
================================================================================
Install  3 Packages

Total download size: 2.1 M
Installed size: 9.6 M
Is this ok [y/N]: y
Downloading Packages:
(1/3): boinc-client-7.14.2-17.fc30.x86_64.rpm   459 kB/s | 593 kB     00:01    
(2/3): wxGTK3-webview-3.0.4-8.fc30.x86_64.rpm    42 kB/s |  55 kB     00:01    
(3/3): boinc-manager-7.14.2-17.fc30.x86_64.rpm  799 kB/s | 1.4 MB     00:01    
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total                                           653 kB/s | 2.1 MB     00:03     
Running transaction check
Transaction check succeeded.
Running transaction test
Transaction test succeeded.
Running transaction
  Preparing        :                                                        1/1 
  Installing       : wxGTK3-webview-3.0.4-8.fc30.x86_64                     1/3 
  Running scriptlet: boinc-client-7.14.2-17.fc30.x86_64                     2/3 
  Installing       : boinc-client-7.14.2-17.fc30.x86_64                     2/3 
  Running scriptlet: boinc-client-7.14.2-17.fc30.x86_64                     2/3 
  Installing       : boinc-manager-7.14.2-17.fc30.x86_64                    3/3 
  Running scriptlet: boinc-manager-7.14.2-17.fc30.x86_64                    3/3 
  Verifying        : boinc-client-7.14.2-17.fc30.x86_64                     1/3 
  Verifying        : boinc-manager-7.14.2-17.fc30.x86_64                    2/3 
  Verifying        : wxGTK3-webview-3.0.4-8.fc30.x86_64                     3/3 

Installed:
  boinc-manager-7.14.2-17.fc30.x86_64     boinc-client-7.14.2-17.fc30.x86_64    
  wxGTK3-webview-3.0.4-8.fc30.x86_64     

Complete!
[WD5BJT@WD5BJT ~]$ su -c 'yum install compat-libstdc++-296.i686 compat-libstdc++-33.i686 compat-libstdc++-33.x86_64'
Password: 
Last metadata expiration check: 0:12:17 ago on Tue 23 Jul 2019 02:10:06 AM GMT.
Package compat-libstdc++-296-2.96-146.1.i686 is already installed.
Package compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-68.16.fc26.1.i686 is already installed.
Package compat-libstdc++-33-3.2.3-68.16.fc26.1.x86_64 is already installed.
Dependencies resolved.
Nothing to do.
Complete!
[WD5BJT@WD5BJT ~]$ # echo > /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg
[WD5BJT@WD5BJT ~]$ # systemctl restart boinc-client
[WD5BJT@WD5BJT ~]$ 


Selecting "Activities - Show Applications - BOINC Manager" the application starts.
Only under the "File" and "Help" drop down choices are available and work.
Under the "View" "Activity" "Options" "Tools" all choices are grayed out and
unavailable. Under the "Tools" choices I cannot "Add project..." to add
SETI@Home" as a project.

Thank You for the assistance.
Charlie

Comment 8 markusN 2020-03-22 20:28:25 UTC
(In reply to Germano Massullo from comment #1)
> Does this
> 
> # echo > /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg
> # systemctl restart boinc-client
> 
> solve your problem?

FWIW: This trick solved the issue for me on Fedora 31.

Comment 9 Todd Taft 2020-05-05 05:59:21 UTC
The problem still exists in CentOS 8.1 with these packages:
boinc-client-7.16.1-5.el8.x86_64
boinc-manager-7.16.1-5.el8.x86_64

Behavior appears to be unchanged.

On a fresh install to a system that has never had BOINC installed, after running:
systemctl start boinc-client

the command line client could connect, but the GUI one could not.

The proposed solution of changing the permissions of the /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg file to 640 and adding my account to the boinc group did not work (even after reboot).  Erasing the contents of that file, even with 600 permissions did work.

While I can understand that some people might not want to let everyone logged in have permission to do stuff with the local BOINC client, I'm not sure I see the point of attempting to restrict access via the GUI if access to the CLI is not restricted in the same manner.

Comment 10 Germano Massullo 2020-05-05 07:54:23 UTC
(In reply to Todd Taft from comment #9)
> While I can understand that some people might not want to let everyone
> logged in have permission to do stuff with the local BOINC client, I'm not
> sure I see the point of attempting to restrict access via the GUI if access
> to the CLI is not restricted in the same manner.

When /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg contains a password, BOINC CLI (boinccmd) is as much restricted as BOINC GUI (Manager) is

Comment 11 Jave 2020-07-09 05:30:34 UTC
Yesterday I installed Red Hat 8.2 and also installed boinc-client and boinc-manager. Version numbers are 7.16.6

I've tried all the steps above and still boinc-manager cannot connect to the boinc-client. boinc-client is running but not attached to any projects.

Neither command line boincmgr or GUI can connect to the client.

Comment 12 Germano Massullo 2020-07-09 09:28:14 UTC
(In reply to Jave from comment #11)
> Yesterday I installed Red Hat 8.2 and also installed boinc-client and
> boinc-manager. Version numbers are 7.16.6
> 
> I've tried all the steps above and still boinc-manager cannot connect to the
> boinc-client. boinc-client is running but not attached to any projects.
> 
> Neither command line boincmgr or GUI can connect to the client.

Can you show us the output of
# ls -lah /var/lib/boinc/
# systemctl status boinc-client
# dnf list installed | grep boinc

What does 
# cat /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg
return? A string or nothing?

Comment 13 Jave 2020-07-09 10:24:46 UTC
Can you show us the output of
# ls -lah /var/lib/boinc/
[jave@x99 ~]$ ls -lah /var/lib/boinc
total 80K
drwxr-xr-x.  3 boinc boinc  256 Jul  9 07:40 .
drwxr-xr-x. 63 root  root  4.0K Jul  8 16:03 ..
-rw-r--r--.  1 boinc boinc  48K Jul  8 16:05 all_projects_list.xml
-rw-r--r--.  1 boinc boinc 3.4K Jul  9 07:39 client_state_prev.xml
-rw-r--r--.  1 boinc boinc 3.4K Jul  9 07:40 client_state.xml
-rw-r--r--.  1 boinc boinc  325 Jul  9 07:39 coproc_info.xml
-rw-r--r--.  1 boinc boinc  112 Jul  9 07:40 daily_xfer_history.xml
-rw-------.  1 boinc boinc   32 Jul  9 07:34 gui_rpc_auth.cfg
drwxrwx--x.  2 boinc boinc   23 Jul  8 16:05 notices
-rw-r--r--.  1 boinc boinc    0 Jul  8 16:05 stderrgpudetect.txt
-rw-r--r--.  1 boinc boinc  612 Jul  9 07:39 stdoutgpudetect.txt
-rw-r--r--.  1 boinc boinc 1.6K Jul  9 07:40 time_stats_log

# systemctl status boinc-client
[jave@x99 ~]$ systemctl status boinc-client
● boinc-client.service - Berkeley Open Infrastructure Network Computing Client
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/boinc-client.service; disabled; vend>
   Active: inactive (dead)
     Docs: man:boinc(1)

# dnf list installed | grep boinc
[jave@x99 ~]$ dnf list installed | grep boinc
2020-07-09 20:23:10,280 [ERROR] dnf:3607:MainThread @logutil.py:194 - [Errno 13] Permission denied: '/var/log/rhsm/rhsm.log' - Further logging output will be written to stderr
boinc-client.x86_64                                7.16.6-3.el8                                    @epel                            
boinc-manager.x86_64                               7.16.6-3.el8                                    @epel  

# cat /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg
[jave@x99 ~]$ cat /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg
cat: /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg: Permission denied
[jave@x99 ~]$ sudo cat /var/lib/boinc/gui_rpc_auth.cfg
[sudo] password for jave: 
9e922d1f0936f6a60919a7ee7a438f31[jave@x99 ~]$ 

Any help?

Comment 14 Germano Massullo 2020-07-09 11:18:22 UTC
# means "run this command as root"
$ means "run this command as regular user"

# systemctl enable --now boinc-client

What does
$ boinccmd --host localhost --passwd 9e922d1f0936f6a60919a7ee7a438f31 --get_state
return?

Comment 15 Jave 2020-07-09 11:27:23 UTC
$ boinccmd --host localhost --passwd 9e922d1f0936f6a60919a7ee7a438f31 --get_state
can't connect to localhost

My apologies about the mixup. I'm not familiar with bug reporting!

When I start the boinc-client...

# systemctl start boinc-client

[jave@x99 ~]$ boinccmd --host localhost --passwd 9e922d1f0936f6a60919a7ee7a438f31 --get_state
======== Projects ========

======== Applications ========

======== Application versions ========

======== Workunits ========

======== Tasks ========

======== Time stats ========
  now: 1594293981.537328
  on_frac: 0.886825
  connected_frac: -1.000000
  cpu_and_network_available_frac: 1.000000
  active_frac: 1.000000
  gpu_active_frac: 1.000000
  client_start_time: Thu Jul  9 21:25:31 2020

  previous_uptime: 45.938644
  session_active_duration: 40.240314
  session_gpu_active_duration: 40.240314
  total_start_time: Wed Jul  8 16:05:29 2020

  total_duration: 1780.329479
  total_active_duration: 1780.329479
  total_gpu_active_duration: 1780.329479

Comment 16 Germano Massullo 2020-07-09 11:53:51 UTC
So the problem was boinc-client service not running.

Comment 17 Jave 2020-07-09 12:15:13 UTC
No, the problem still exists. boinc-client starts but boinc-manager doesn't connect, either from the command line ($ boincmgr) or GUI.

boinc-manager starts up ok - the window opens, but it still says "Disconnected" at the bottom of the window.

Comment 18 Germano Massullo 2020-07-09 12:21:59 UTC
File->select computer->localhost (or try with 127.0.0.1) and inser the password 9e922d1f0936f6a60919a7ee7a438f31
If does not connect it's an upstream bug already reported at https://github.com/BOINC/boinc/issues/1306
There is nothing we can do here


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