Not if it is done once per work request. If the file is downloaded and the AV deletes it, then all tasks that are currently downloaded and using it will fail. These would be reported back to the server, and the qouta will be reduced by that number. A new set of tasks will be downloaded, along with the executable. The executable will be deleted, and all of those tasks will fail. They will be reported back to the server, reducing the daily quota. In fairly short order, the quota will be reduced to 1.
At the point that the daily quota is reduced to 1, the client will get 1 task, and 1 chance at downloading the executable / day. This allows computers where BOINC is rarely re-started to be automatically fixed by an AV update of the scan files that does not have th efalse positive. Downloading only on startup requires the user to do manual intervention to fix the problem even if the AV should have automatically fixed it. In either case, not downloading files that are not required by any task on the machine is a good idea. We now have a project that has a bad version of the software that will be deleted by an AV product, that cannot inform the BOINC client not to attempt to download it again. I have been thinking about a possible method of determining whether do delete an application. I believe that there is a table that contains the current applications. If so, then the server, once per day does a union of the select unique of the application name from the table that contains the current applications, and a select unique of the applications of tasks that are currently assigned to computers where the WU has not yet been validated, or the task is not past deadline and has not been returned. This list is then compared against the list of applications returned by every client during its connection (yes, I know we would have to add that). The reply packet would then have the difference added to a list of applications to delete. Shared files would have to be detected on the client and left alone if a current application was using them. This would allow the cleanup of applications from users hard disks. jm7 David Anderson <da...@ssl.berkel ey.edu> To john.mcl...@sybase.com 09/29/2009 02:20 cc PM boinc_dev@ssl.berkeley.edu Subject Re: [boinc_dev] Why did BOINC contact Prime Grid, and Why did it DL execuatables That proposal would lead to infinite downloading (see below) john.mcl...@sybase.com wrote: > The proposal is to download missing files only at startup or when new tasks > arrive needing the file, and ONLY do so if there is work that needs the > file. i.e. at startup, if there is a missing file, and no work for that > file, do nothing. > > jm7 > > > > David Anderson > <da...@ssl.berkel > ey.edu> To > > > I'm not sure this will solve the problem. > Seems to me the client will go into this loop: > > 1) get a job from the server > 2) download the executable > 3) anti-virus program deletes the executable > 4) job bombs out because executable missing > 5) go to 1 > > As of right now, as far as I've heard, > the client re-downloads the executable only on startup. > That's better than the above. > > It's not clear to me what the solution is, > or if we really need to do anything. > Suggestions welcome. > > -- David _______________________________________________ boinc_dev mailing list boinc_dev@ssl.berkeley.edu http://lists.ssl.berkeley.edu/mailman/listinfo/boinc_dev To unsubscribe, visit the above URL and (near bottom of page) enter your email address.