RE: Mersenne: Computing meltdown???

[SCOTT KUROWSKI]

No meltdown.  Transactions are flowing again through Entropia's forwarding
gateway.  They built a new web server and missed a setup step for GIMPS.

We really only lose time with machines that didn't have enough work queued
before the gateway was restored to service.  They will all sync up just
fine.

Sorry for the confusion & trouble.

Best regards,
Scott Kurowski

P.S. Still working on a new (mostly-)open source primenet design with George
- just the small distraction of starting another company to contend with...
;)

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Mersenne: RE: expired exponents

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi Robert,

[Robert van der Peijl:]
> We might not need a special version of prime95.
> How about if the _PrimeNet server_ itself only issue expired 
> exponents to "power"-users?
> If that is a real possibility, perhaps Scott Kurowski could 
> look into that?

I would instead recommend a broader strategy that expires exponents based
upon the assignment age (days run) and current iteration at null (not
started), perhaps at 60 days age.  Did someone already suggest that?  This
will have the system effect of generally causing machines that grab and hold
excess exponents to lose smaller exponents to new or more productive
machines, while making up for those losses by grabbing fewer, ever larger
exponents.  This would happen in addition to the current automatic
expiration process.

The risk that a machine actually started a long-held exponent before
contacting the server to learn it had been reassigned is somewhat greater.
The result would be slightly more frequent 'opportunistic' double-check
passes as the machine forges along to complete the then-redundant test,
probably after the reassignment machine finishes.  Maybe that's a good
thing.

George Woltman manages the server's individual exponent and range
assignments from time to time.  If overriding a 'squatter' is important
enough, he could do so manually.  However, if server changes are necessary,
we defer to him for those requirements.

(If there are replies, please cc me directly since I receive only the
Mersenne list digests.)

regards,
scott kurowski

Entropia, Inc.
San Diego, California

P.S. if there are any GIMPS folks on this list nearby, I'll treat lunch or
beers...  I left Ernst and Luke in Silicon Valley. :-(
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Mersenne: PrimeNet DB Sychro Complete

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi all,

Some of you may have noticed your Cleared Exponents lists are shorter
following Wednesday's PrimeNet resync with George's database.  Thanks for
hanging in there for 10 months instead of the usual 3 between updates.

We have had a few things on our plate here.  In case you have not been
following Entropia's amazing progress this year as a commercial distributed
computing services company, please visit our web site and check out the
Press section.  We expect 2001 to be an even bigger year.  If you are near
San Diego, please feel free to drop in for a visit.  We love meeting people
from the Mersenne list! (Right Luke?)

(Please note that Entropia 2000, our general-purpose distributed computing
software, is not yet compatible with Prime95 or NTPrime... which take CPU
time from Entropia 2000, so try not to run them concurrently! :-)

Just as we have since late 1997, we look forward to our continued role
supporting GIMPS into the future.  On behalf of the entire Entropia team,
we'd like to wish everyone a great holiday season.

Best wishes & happy hunting,

Scott Kurowski & Brad Bernard
Entropia, Inc.

[EMAIL PROTECTED] (scott)
[EMAIL PROTECTED] (brad)

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Re: Mersenne: P-1 Credit

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi Eric,

Eric Hahn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Terry S. Arnold wrote:
>>Does anyone have any skinny on when we will start getting credit for
>>1.  doing P-1 testing?
>>2.  finding a factor during P-1 testing?
>
>AFAIK, from what George has said, credit will eventually be given
>after BOTH v21 comes out, and the Scott has time to do some
>modifications to the PrimeNet server...  Time Frame?  ...??...

Changes to support this are being designed.  Mostly we needed to first get
the next-generation Entropia network deployed to support v21 and other
applications.  This has been happening for a while now, so we will be
resuming a focus on GIMPS soon.

Regards,
scott kurowski

Entropia, Inc.

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Re: Mersenne: P-1 Credit

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi Eric,

Eric Hahn <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Terry S. Arnold wrote:
>>Does anyone have any skinny on when we will start getting credit for
>>1.  doing P-1 testing?
>>2.  finding a factor during P-1 testing?
>
>AFAIK, from what George has said, credit will eventually be given
>after BOTH v21 comes out, and the Scott has time to do some
>modifications to the PrimeNet server...  Time Frame?  ...??...

Changes to support this are being designed.  Mostly we needed to first get
the next-generation Entropia network deployed to support v21 and other
applications.  This has been happening for a while now, so we will be
resuming a focus on GIMPS soon.

Regards,
scott kurowski

Entropia, Inc.

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Mersenne: Error 404s fixed

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi all,

We moved PrimeNet, Mersenne.org and the Entropia.com sites from Silicon
Valley to our new San Diego/La Jolla office.

All of the web content should be appearing properly now - seems we
overlooked forwarding subfolders of the root www service.  We put in a
forwarding server until the DNS servers throughout the Internet catch up
with the change of IP addresses.  Mostly we focused upon ensuring the client
transactions reached PrimeNet, which worked out great.

You should have seen us on the plane early Saturday AM with our servers
entombed in bubblewrap and strapped into the adjacent seats!  (Of course, we
did take several other precautions.  :-)

regards,
scott

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Mersenne: RE: Mersenne Digest V1 #703

[Scott Kurowski]

> George seems to add the CPU credit from QA tests to his records. So
> far as PrimeNet is concerned, we (deliberately) don't use PrimeNet to
> communicate results; in any case PrimeNet doesn't recognize that we
> own the QA assignments (some of them are actually triple-checks & the
> rest are outside currently active ranges), which is why they "don't
> count". This doesn't bother me, but it should be easy enough to fix.

If the exponent is not assigned to someone else, the server automatically
registers your assignment and starts tracking it normally, including credit
for work done.  You are welcome to hook up your QA work to PrimeNet.

This is regardless of the exponents being within an open range or not.
(Safety note: This feature is currently switched on [and has been on since
April 1997], but can be toggled off if things get out of hand with up-range
exponent squatting.)

I originally added this capability to allow manual testing folks with
exponents in progress to start using PrimeNet and automagically transfer
tracking to the server for George.  At first it got a lot of mileage, but is
now seldom used as most new GIMPS members immediately sign up to use
Entropia's network.

Regards,
scott

[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Entropia.com, Inc.



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Mersenne: PrimeNet Top Producers List

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi all,

Following the database synchro we performed on PrimeNet yesterday, we cleaned up
some of the 'dead' user accounts over a year old.  The cumulative machine times
were added to the Entropia.com, Inc. 'challenge' account, the first one opened
on PrimeNet in April 1997.  Hopefully nobody will mind our reclaiming the
fragmented time.  :-)

regards,
scott

[EMAIL PROTECTED]



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Mersenne: PrimeNet Proxy Service for v19

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi all,

The PrimeNet 4.0 Proxy Service (for Windows) has been updated to support v19.
It will support Prime95.exe or NTPrime.exe v19 using RpcNet.dll that ships in
the v19 zip file.  Just as before, it statelessly channels and maps RPC to RPC
or HTTP transactions with PrimeNet.

(v19 beta version) http://entropia.com/primenet/v19pnProxy.zip

Regards,
scott

(thanks, Brian B.)


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Mersenne: Quarterly PrimeNet Stats Updated

[Scott Kurowski]

PrimeNet's statistics page has been updated.

http://entropia.com/ips/stats.html

The virtual supercomputer is sustaining over 800 gigaflops, spiking into the 900
range.  30 and 31 August, for example, ran fast with record rates of 921 and 977
gigaflops.  780 PII400 years (4292 P90 years) were logged since the last update
on 28 June.  The parabolic trend is slightly stronger.

Regards,
scott


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Mersenne: v19 network connection tests

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi all,

I need your help.  It takes just a few moments on your Windows computer.

I need test data from a broad variety of network connection and ISP types to see
if a new Internet connection detection method will work or supplement the RAS
method used in v16-v18 now.

There's a tiny Win32 console app executable to run that outputs 2 or 3 lines of
text, at http://entropia.com/primenet/online.ex_ (28k).  Download and rename it
from 'online.ex_' to 'online.exe'.

Copy and paste the results into a email directly to me, indicating:
  - type of Internet connection (dialup modem, LAN, DSL, ISDN, etc.)
  - output of program test run(s)
  - if the connection was really open or not
  - ISP connection method & if applicable, version
  (direct, Windows dialup networking [DUN], AOL 4.0, Compuserve 3.0, etc.)
  - web browsers & versions installed (Netscape 3, IE4.0, IE5, etc.)
  - Operating system (Win95, Win98, NT 4.0 workstation or server)

For dial-up users, run it twice, once with the connection closed, and again with
your Internet connection established.

If you have a LAN and/or proxy connection, please also run it.

Thanks, everyone.  Hopefully we'll cover enough network connection types to
determine its viability.

Regards,
scott


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Mersenne: RE: Mersenne Digest V1 #613

[Scott Kurowski]

A digest reply:

> questions, but I really try to get to all the FAQs/digests/ReadMes
> before I post, and I'm still not satisfied with the answers...

You can always ask us directly at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.


> Should I contact PrimeNet from time to time to assure it (her? ;)
> that I'm still whith the GIMPS?

Yes.  At least every 59 days, but monthly is better.  More often doesn't hurt -
in fact it gives your account report the most accurate snapshot of your
progress.

However, after 60 days without communication with your program PrimeNet will
automatically expire your exponent assignments and give them to someone else.
The Vacation feature in Prime95 and the assignment extension form on the manual
testing page can reserve longer timeouts, if necessary.


> If I should contact PrimeNet, how should I do it?

Just connect to the Internet.  The program knows when it needs to contact
PrimeNet and will do so automatically, even in mid-test.  The "Send new
completion dates..." feature forces the program to update the server between
automatic updates.  In most cases, the default 'start & forget' behavior of the
program works best.


> It seems the last synchronization was on Aug-9, and my exponents
> finished before that day disappeared from my personal account report as
> I supposed correct. But in the cleared exponents report there are a lot
> of results sent to Primenet before Aug-9. My results are not in this
> list, so... Why other results from other accounts remain in it?.

Exponents left on the Cleared Exponents list after a merge were either received
since George Woltman last retrieved PrimeNet's results logs for the GIMPS
'database' file update, or are invalid.  Most are either removed in a subsequent
merge or requeued for assignment.

Back to v19 work...

Regards,
scott


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Mersenne: PrimeNet Stats Updated

[Scott Kurowski]

PrimeNet's updated CPU stats chart is at
http://entropia.com/ips/stats.html

The last chart update was mid February.  There are a handful of days that
reached 800 gigaflop rates, and a nice view of the rate recovery from the v17
bug.  A linear trend is no longer the best fit.

Regards,
scott



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Mersenne: RE: Mersenne Digest V1 #570

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi all,

(replying to the digest)

[Steinar:]
> >However we can't deny having seen cash prizes, in addition to
> >this satisfaction, make an observable difference in accelerating
> >Mersenne number research results.
>
> Can we? I'm sure you (Scott) is the one with most data on this...

I have one solid data point and a few weak ones.  The GIMPS newsletter
registration web form data has about 1,000 entries.  GIMPS participation is
apparently self-reported with prizes as a motivating factor for at least 16% of
registrants, though prizes alone did come in last:

26% good use of spare CPU time
18% just for fun or cool hobby
15% research participation
14% several reasons, in part for the prize
14% (no response entered)
06% help distributed computing
05% possible famous discovery
02% other (added to comments)
02% $50k prize money

The weaker evidence is from PrimeNet's account level responses.  First, the
April 1999 GIMPS Newsletter detailed both the v17 bug and the EFF prize - and
resulted in about 5% of recipients rejoining GIMPS and adding over 1,000 new
accounts the following few days.  The second account level response was EFF's
prize announcment finally gaining press (including CNN and Science), where
another 1,000 accounts joined in the span of a week.

In conclusion, I'm guessing people on the fence may be tipped by the extra
reason to play, but in retrospect my impression of prize effectiveness was more
subjective than I thought.

So while I'm on the subject, the list response regarding sponsoring a prize pool
amounted to 2 people offering $225 between them - I have my answer.


> - --Luke, who has such great vision that he lost a bet and
> owes George a dinner (prime rib, of course)

That reminds me, during a lunch last summer it was Luke who made sure the prize
pool was all 1 digits to entertain all of you...! (I was too lazy to change all
the zeros on the web site.)  Luke is also an advisor to George and I, and helped
shape the PrimeNet status report content & layouts.


[John Williams:]
> Finally, when and why does it communicate with the server (besides getting
> new numbers to test)?

It will update the server at least every 28 days with when the exponents are
expected to finish.  This keeps your assignments 'alive' so PrimeNet will not
give them away after several months.  When there's a factoring or primality test
result, or you change your account settings, those are updated immediately.

Overall, the transactions are very fast and only a few hundred bytes each,
perhaps once a week on average.  The majority of the server's transactions are
assignment progress updates.


[Aaron Blosser:]
> I did notice in the prime.log that when errors occur, that info is sent to
> the Primenet server.
>
> On that note, Scott...what becomes of info sent indicating errors in the
> calculations?  Are those exponents flagged in someway, indicating that they
> are "suspect"?

PrimeNet completely ignores error messages and stuffs them into the results log
for George to analyze.  George requeues exponents with bad results through the
database synchronization process and his use of a few remote scheduling
commands.  Things seem to be working smoothly enough, but there's always room
for improvement.

Best regards,
scott



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Mersenne: RE: Mersenne Digest V1 #568 & prize question

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi all,

(A belated reply to the digest...)

> Subject: Re: [Re: Mersenne: Serious problems with v.18]
[cut]
> Your work to date on that exponent was disgarded
> (though you might still get credit for time spent--Scott?)
> because it was invalid.

Indeed - we gladly offer compensation CPU time credit in PrimeNet's accounting
system for work lost to the v17 to v18.1 software upgrade.  Please email
 with the exponent value and iteration or percent
complete at the time you upgraded from v17.

If your computers have contacted PrimeNet at any time since the first week of
April, any v17 clients will be clearly identified on your PrimeNet individual
account report.  (Available at http://entropia.com/ips/accounts.html)


On a different subject:

On the heels of the probable find of the 38th Mersenne prime, I was undecided
upon about whether to ask all of you about a new prize pool for the next
Mersenne prime under 10M digits long.  Obviously I've concluded, 'what the
heck' - I simply want your opinions.  If you think the question is
inappropriate, please disregard.

GIMPS is certainly not about cash, and for those of you who offer your machine
time primarily for the value of GIMPS as an academic objective - and I believe
that is true for most of you - that is a very fine gift toward knowledge.
However we can't deny having seen cash prizes, in addition to this satisfaction,
make an observable difference in accelerating Mersenne number research results.

The $1500 I offered before the EFF contest began has since gone toward more
PrimeNet hardware.  Between some GIMPSers, a new prize pool of $.11 has been
proposed (the radix is 10 :-)  If you think it's worth a few (literally) of your
bucks to support their proposal, please let me know how much you would consider
'pledging' to a new GIMPS prize pool.  A private response is fine.

No followup plans have been made - this will just give us some viability
measure.  I'll later summarize it for the list.

Best regards,
scott



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Mersenne: MPrime v18.1 for FreeBSD 3.0 UNIX Released

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi all,

The FreeBSD 3.0 version of MPrime 18.1 for Intel has been released for general
use.  Many thanks to Nick Hilliard for doing the port.

Download locations (U.S. California):
http://entropia.com/gimps/mprime-18.1-freebsd3.0.tar.gz
ftp://entropia.com/gimps/mprime-18.1-freebsd3.0.tar.gz

v18.1 source code (taken from source.zip) modified for Intel UNIX is available
at:
http://entropia.com/gimps/mprime-18.1-unix.tar.gz
ftp://entropia.com/gimps/mprime-18.1-unix.tar.gz

The GIMPS download site above is also mirrored by:
ftp://ftp.iol.ie:/pub/gimps/ (Dublin Ireland)
ftp://193.61.169.253/gimps/software (U.K.)

If you are interested in beta testing a SCO Unixware (Intel) version, please
email me at [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Regards,
scott



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Mersenne: Beta version of FreeBSD 3.x native client for PrimeNet

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi all,

Nick Hilliard has finished the native FreeBSD 3.x version of v18.1
MPrime for PrimeNet.  It is a limited availability beta version we
want to first test on relatively fast machines to see complete test
cycles as soon as possible.  Following a few weeks of testing the
general availability release should be ready, including source code.

If you are interested in testing the new FreeBSD 3.x client, please
email me at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> before Friday 23 April.

Best regards,
scott

P.S. Paul Missman pointed out MPrime for Linux apparently runs only on
FreeBSD 2.x in the Linux compatibility mode. (thanks Paul)


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Mersenne: RE: Mersenne Digest V1 #545

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi all,

[Aaron:]
> I had a question from my brother who is interested in
> getting some of his Unix boxes up and running.  He was
> dismayed when he couldn't find any versions that would
> use Primenet for automatic assignment.
>
> So, I thought I'd ask, has anyone done any ports for the
> following that use Primenet, or should I tell him to
> just use the manual testing page at entropia:

I've been working with developers of several client ports.

Chris Smith is about 90% done with a PrimeNet client for UNIX and
Alphas based on MacLucasUNIX.  We'll probably start testing with the
live server in early May.  Until then, the manual testing page is
about it.

Richard McDonald is completing PrimeNet clients for Macs.  That has
been doing well, too, maybe 60% done.

Nick Hilliard has been updating MPrime with FreeBSD improvements.
That might be ready for public testing as early as next week.


[George:]
> Note that when the next version of prime95 comes out, everyone
> will take a hit as the new faster timings are applied.  Use the
> page as a rough indicator of where you stand relative to other
> GIMPS members.  Don't take it as an overly accurate accounting
> of every CPU cycle you have invested.

Everyone please note this will not impact your accumulated PrimeNet
account CPU statistics.


[Foghorn:]
> A question for George (and Scott): Is there any chance that
> Prime95's ECM factoring will ever become automated as a part
> of PrimeNet?

PrimeNet already collects ECM results in its logs, but otherwise does
nothing with them; it is already equipped with almost everything else
necessary.  Entropia.com has a standing offer to GIMPS to automate ECM
with PrimeNet, but I'm guessing George's priorities are elsewhere
right now (v19).

Best regards,
scott



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Mersenne: RE: Mersenne Digest V1 #544

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi all,

Please cc my direct address for any replies.  I receive only the list
digests.

The Entropia.com team has expanded to five!  We have added a new
PrimeNet support & operations engineer, Brad Bernard.  Brad will soon
be picking up and answering traffic sent to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>,
watching over the PrimeNet server, and helping George.  I've known
Brad for 6 years, and know he'll continue making the job look much
easier than it really is.



[Shane:]
> There are a number of less intrusive options availible other
> than a message box which would REQUIRE user interaction.
> [...]
[Aaron:]
> Well, these are all good thoughts, let's see what George
> and Scott can do...they've already done so much as it is.

Shane's suggestions are closer to what we will probably do.  PrimeNet
4.0 already supports client update notification, but we have yet to
decide how to best use it.



[Brian:]
> Interesting. rpcnet.dll from the v18 distribution is much
> smaller than that in the v17 distribution.
>
> Should be safe enough to keep the v17 distribution copy.

Yes, but it the v17 version uses a proxy running on the old PrimeNet
3.1 server's box.  I'd rather everyone use HTTP if possible, or at
least use the updated v18 version dated 4/12/1999.


> Actually my systems are all using either http or the special
> rpcnet.dll used to connect to the PrimeNet Proxy server, so I just
> don't know how badly the v18 rpcnet.dll is broken.

The v18 program defaults to HTTP when you first install it, so new
users should not run into it.  The PrimeNet FAQ page also describes
how to handle the RPC run-time library crash situation.

I've updated the posted v18.1 zips with a new RpcNet.dll.  I couldn't
get it to crash.  If you have an environment that can test this,
please do so and tell me how it went.



> Floris Looyesteyn ( who has to retest 2 7mil primes which
> were at 70%)

Floris, tell us which exponents those were and we'll credit your
account for the lost work.



[Martin:]
> Did someone else notice that the top producers lists on
> mersenne.org and entropia.com are inconsistent? Apparently,
> on mersenne.org the exponents that were affected by the
> V17-bug are no longer taken into account.
> Shouldn't this be dealt with consistently?

The GIMPS list and PrimeNet lists have never really been consistent.
They track different objectives, though I suppose we could be more
clear about calling attention to that.

GIMPS specifically reflects work accomplished toward a research
objective - completing valid LL primality test results.  You lose time
to invalid results, factoring, earlier LL tests for numbers
subsequently factored, etc.

In contrast, PrimeNet simply tracks how much CPU time you gave in good
faith to GIMPS as part of its virtual machine.  Primality tests,
factoring, double-checking, and even time lost to errors count.  You
give the time to the networked project, and PrimeNet counts it.



Does anyone have AOL 4.0 working with Prime95 on a dialup account?
The problem I'm trying to solve for the FAQ page is how to configure
AOL to be the default dialup service so Prime95 checks AOL for a
connection, not Windows DUN.  If Prime95's 'Use a dialup network
connection' box is checked, the symptom is Prime95 says there's no
dialup connection even when AOL's connection is open.  Another symptom
is Prime95 causes the Windows dialup connection box to pop up instead
of AOL if the checkbox is off.  One person told me he solved this by
configuring the AOL hotkeys, though I have no idea what this meant.

Best regards,
scott


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RE: Mersenne: IMPORTANT: BUG IN VERSION PRIME95 17

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi all,

Thanks for everyone's supportive comments and suggestions.  Your
dedicated participation and positive outlook are at the heart of this
project's success.

Retesting will go quickly:

The virtual machine has slowed about 25 gigaflops from 550 to absorb
the bug hit, but this should be offset by at least a factor of 2 in
the next 2 weeks by the 1050 people who joined in the last 7 days.  It
should then notch back upward past 600 gigaflops within 3 weeks, maybe
as high as 620 in week 4.  Partly cloudy, then clearing to fair skies
late in the month.  I could be way wrong, but it's fun to test my
mental model this way.


> > Would I be right in assuming that Primenet keeps track of
> > which version was used to check in a certain result?
>
> Scott can answer this best.  He may not be able to tell if a result
> was finished by v17 and started by v16.

PrimeNet now has both algorithm and version for each client and each
exponent.  The versions are being populated as each client contacts
the server, and reflect only the *last* client to do so.  Formerly,
only the algorithm was recorded.  I don't recall why we never captured
version data other than in the logs.

Early sampling of Australia, Asia, Africa and Europe suggests we are
about half way through upgrading to v18.1, but that might be
over-optimistic as those are roughly 40% of the machines on PrimeNet.
The other 60% are in the Americas, and most have not checked in yet
today.  We should have a fairly solid estimate in a week or so.


> It would be very helpful if there were a way to request,
> from the Primenet server, a list of machines and the
> version reported by their last result.  This would make
> administration of more than a few machines much easier.
> Any possibility of this?

PrimeNet account reports now show any known v17 clients.  v18 will not
appear as they did in the stopgap report change yesterday.


> Could we not credit those users who have had their
> intermediate files wiped as a result of updating to
> v18 for the work carried out up to the last time
> they checked in the exponent to PrimeNet?

Certainly.  We are doing so on PrimeNet's accounts, as you suggested,
in proportion to percent (or iteration ratio) complete.  So far, it
has only been as requested or at our urging for the very disappointed.


> Scott, if there's any way you could send me a description
> of the log file format, (and perhaps a small extract), I
> could look at writing a program which you could use to do
> the processing, but I won't be able to look at it
> for a week or two.

Couldn't hurt to try.  Brian, please email me privately when you have
a few days.

Best regards,
scott


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Mersenne: RE: Version 17 errors

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi Greg,

> It would be very helpful if there were a way to request,
> from the Primenet server, a list of machines and the
> version reported by their last result. This would make
> administration of more than a few machines much
> easier. Any possibility of this?

Sure.  If there is enough demand I can put up a web page for this, but
short of that please email me.

Here are your v17 machines:

machine_id
-
aup
bdc
fuzzybutt
gmab
greg-home-p2
horntoad
imcs
monica
qa
webs_r_us


And here are your v16 machines:

machine_id
-
dan
demo
devnts2
greg
greg-home-px
ozzie
popmail
prime1
prime2
prime3
swg
winterm

Best regards,
scott


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RE: Mersenne: IMPORTANT: BUG IN VERSION PRIME95 17

[Scott Kurowski]

>   I've asked Scott to change Primenet to assign double-checking
> work to version 17 clients in the future.

PrimeNet's assignment rule was put into place shortly after George's
message.  v17 clients asking for LL tests will get double-checking.

Folks, we now have more continuous CPU time on LL tests than ever
before in all of human history.  And recently new members are joining
six times faster than usual, over 120 per day.  GIMPS will bounce back
quickly.

Best regards,
scott


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Mersenne: $50k Cooperative Computing Award Announcement

[Scott Kurowski]

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, in cooperation with Entropia.com,
Inc. and the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search, announces US
$50,000 for the first million digit prime.

--- EFF Press Release ---

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 31, 1999

EFF Offers Cooperative Computing Prizes

Netizens Encouraged to Enlist Idle Computers in the Name of Science

CONTACTS
  Tara Lemmey, EFF Executive Director, +1 415 436 9333, x102,
  E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  John Gilmore, EFF Co-Founder and project leader, +1 415 221 6524,
  E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
  Landon Curt Noll, Cooperative Computing Awards advisor, +1 650 933
4168,
  E-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]


SAN FRANCISCO -- The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is
sponsoring
cooperative computing awards, with over half a million dollars in
prize
money, to encourage ordinary Internet users to contribute to solving
huge
scientific problems.

"We're providing incentives to stretch the computational capabilities
of
the Internet," said Tara Lemmey, EFF's Executive Director.  "We hope
to
spur the technology of cooperative networking and encourage Internet
users
worldwide to join together in solving scientific problems involving
massive
computation.  EFF is uniquely situated to sponsor these awards, since
part
of our mission is to encourage the harmonious integration of Internet
innovations into the whole of society," she added.

The prizes will be awarded for finding huge prime numbers, that is,
numbers
that can only be divided by 1 and themselves.  The first million-digit
prime found will be worth $50,000; a ten-million-digit prime will
claim
$100,000; a hundred-million-digit prime garners $150,000; and the
finder of
the first billion-digit prime will receive $250,000.  The largest
known
prime number, discovered by the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search
(GIMPS), has 909,526 digits.

"The EFF awards are about cooperation," said John Gilmore, EFF
co-founder
and project leader for the awards.  "Prime numbers are important in
mathematics and encryption, but the real message is that many other
problems can be solved by similar methods."

Finding these prime numbers will be no simple task, given today's
computational power.  It has taken mathematicians years to uncover and
confirm new largest known primes.  However, the computer industry
produces
millions of new computers each year, which sit idle much of the time,
running screen savers or waiting for the user to do something.  EFF is
encouraging people to pool their computing power over the Internet, to
work
together to share this massive resource.  In the process, EFF hopes to
inspire experts to apply collaborative computing to large problems,
and
thereby foster new technologies and opportunities for everyone.

Prizes and cooperative projects to find prime numbers or demonstrate
weaknesses in encryption systems have existed for some years, although
they
have not yet found mass market appeal.  "The approach that we're
taking
with prime numbers could be used for other scientific problems, such
as
analyzing the human genome, weather prediction, or searching for signs
of
life in space," said Gilmore.

"In the long run, we hope to move beyond prizes," he said, "catalyzing
a
market where ordinary people can sell the spare time on their
computers to
others who need to compute something overnight on thousands or
millions of
machines.  This would reduce the net cost of owning a personal
computer,
and open new opportunities in animation, product design, economics,
cryptanalysis, science, and business."

According to Landon Curt Noll, chair of the award advisory panel and
discoverer of many large primes, the prizes are spaced so that winning
each
successive award would require over 100 times more effort.  "While one
could wait for computers to get 100 times faster, it would be much
smarter
to attract 100 times the number of people to cooperate on the problem,
or
to invent a more efficient prime searching procedure.  Both methods
offer
benefits to society."

"Given current technology, I would estimate that GIMPS could discover
a
million digit prime within a year," said Simon Cooper, a member of the
award advisory panel.  "Discovering a ten million digit prime may take
several more years."  One of the easiest ways for people to join the
effort
is via the GIMPS project (see http://www.mersenne.org/prime.htm).

A prize claim must provide the date and time of discovery, and fully
disclose all hardware and software used.  Each claim must be verified
by an
independent party knowledgeable in the field of computation, and must
be
published in a refereed academic journal.

Complete information about the EFF Cooperative Computing Awards is
available at the http://www.eff.org/coop-awards web page.

--

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is one of the leading civil
liberties
organizations devoted to preserving civil rights and promoting civil
responsibility on the Internet.  We work to ensure that the Internet
remains a global vehicle f

Mersenne: RE: Meganet's Primality Code

[Scott Kurowski]

I'll wait until I get source code before doing anything else - I'm
expecting to hear from Saul then, and will ask about a web server demo
hookup.  Maybe he would set it up for us.

When I asked about a proof, he said they didn't have one - just a huge
test set.  Short of a proof, I thought finding at least one example
that breaks their program would be most effective.  If it's not worth
the bother, I'll drop it.

Regards,
scott


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Mersenne: RE: Meganet's Primality Code

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi all,

About a month ago I invited Meganet to show me their primality
program, a small subcomponent of VME.  Saul stopped by our office.  I
echoed the Mersenne list's skepticism, but suggested independent peer
review might buy Meganet better credibility.  I don't necessarily
support Meganet's claims but thought being open minded enough to
invite concrete results would clear the air.

I signed a simple NDA, the same that up to three other reviewers I
choose will sign to try the program and examine/modify/compile the
code.  I have not yet received a copy of the source code, pending
further progress on their patent application.

He walked me through the code, explained the algorithm and described
how it was developed with Milstein.  The program was simple - a few
pages - and uses a public domain integer math package.  I'm tough to
snow and didn't detect any B.S. as we reviewed its internals, but I'm
no math expert, either.

I can say, loosely, that the 'T-sequence' primality test is actually a
family of four related complementary algorithms performed in series,
any of which can reject a number as composite, but if all four pass
the number is supposedly prime.

One claim Saul made (and showed on paper to my unqualified eyes to
verify) was that pinning the coefficients of the 'T-sequence' to a set
of specific values causes it to degenerate into the LL series.  Saul
also claimed the algorithm detects and rejects strong pseudo-primes as
composite, and showed some examples with the program (I don't recall
what they were).

>The number n=4^7057-3 has been proved prime by cyclotomy: with 4249
>decimal digits, it is currently the largest prime proved with a
>general prime proving algorithm. The main stage of the proof took 6
>hours, the final "Lenstra - gcd and trial division" step (allowing a
>factored part of O(n^{1/3}) took roughly 2 days.

Luke invited me to try the Meganet program on 4^7057-3.  It reported
the number as prime in 33 minutes on my PPro 200, with a bunch of
other apps going at the same time.


> M(727) is not prime. VME made the claim that they could
> compute the first prime following M(727) in two seconds.

I tried this on my PPro 200 and reproduced the composite result < 2
seconds.


> Well, that's only 156 more than M727, so finding it is easy; the
> obvious sieve will do it.  Verifying it's at least pseudo-prime took
> the mers package's ecmfactor program only 1.27 seconds CPU
> on my Linux
> Pentium 200MHz just now, and proving it prime using Morain's ECPP
> program took all of 50.9 seconds.
>
> So, even if they are proving it prime, it's not a big advance.

I thought I'd try this, too:

M(727)= 70600348967705437423727721055115696583783847796289
4381170850482715673457590299624976468480248807499242724466
3745709991445308242164695977369066382721217365266076990228
70679030143158018123175881930939339869708632591433727

(pasted output)
Composite:
Start:  1999/03/14-12:05:33
Finish: 1999/03/14-12:05:33
(end output)

I had the program find the next 5 primes, in 37 seconds:
(pasted output)

Prime:  70600348967705437423727721055115696583783847796289
4381170850482715673457590299624976468480248807499242724466
3745709991445308242164695977369066382721217365266076990228
70679030143158018123175881930939339869708632591433883

Prime:  70600348967705437423727721055115696583783847796289
4381170850482715673457590299624976468480248807499242724466
3745709991445308242164695977369066382721217365266076990228
70679030143158018123175881930939339869708632591434057

Prime:  70600348967705437423727721055115696583783847796289
4381170850482715673457590299624976468480248807499242724466
3745709991445308242164695977369066382721217365266076990228
70679030143158018123175881930939339869708632591434109

Prime:  70600348967705437423727721055115696583783847796289
4381170850482715673457590299624976468480248807499242724466
3745709991445308242164695977369066382721217365266076990228
70679030143158018123175881930939339869708632591435431

Prime:  70600348967705437423727721055115696583783847796289
4381170850482715673457590299624976468480248807499242724466
3745709991445308242164695977369066382721217365266076990228
70679030143158018123175881930939339869708632591436901

Start:  1999/03/14-12:08:49
Finish: 1999/03/14-12:09:26
(end output)


> More to the point, a better test, since they're unwilling to reveal
> their method, would be to give them some large, strong pseudo-primes
> mixed in with known primes of similar size.  Anybody care enough to
> produce such a set?  The composite factors of prime exponent
> Mersennes are all base-2 pseudo-primes, but that's not enough; they
> should probably be Cunningham numbers (which are pseudo-prime to all
> bases that aren't related to their factors).

I'd be happy to try some of these and report what happens.  The
program is easiest to use if the number to be tested is built by
formulation, but it can also read ascii digits from a text file.


> The only stronger tests that I can think of are maki

Mersenne: RE: Mersenne Digest V1 #509

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi all,

If you have a PrimeNet question, you'll get a faster answer if you email us at
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> instead of the list.  I receive the Mersenne digests
much later than your messages.  I'm also concerned about people dumping a lot of
PrimeNet operational traffic on a list meant primarily for technical discussions
of number theory and related algorithms.

If you must use a list as a general PrimeNet issues forum, please use the
primenet list at <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.


> The last time I sent results in my total exponents tested was 7 and Cpu years
> were 1.670. Since then my account has been updated to 8 exponents and 1.929
years.
> This happened after the new server went on line. I'm sure I have checked only
> seven exponents so is there a problem with the servers information?

> Yeah! I've also have had some problems, but I've lost one exponent.
> God knows who was the lucky to have it assigned and if I will be capable
> of  having it again!

If there's a discrepancy, please email me directly.  It takes only a few moments
to set an account to the correct state.

For some accounts that submitted results between 5 and 7 February inclusive,
PrimeNet's 3.1 database required a set of roll-forward transactions to correct a
table corruption before the upgrade to 4.0.  We have a complete 3.1 transaction
history, though checking it directly against the 4.0 server is not easy. We have
endeavored to be as thorough as possible, and have restored almost all affected
accounts to normal.

A symptom related to this is that your program may have switched userids because
of a built in automatic fail-safe feature.  In most cases, simply changing the
userid/pw back again resolves this (including errors that an exponent is still
assigned to your primary account ID). Use the User Information settings - do not
edit the ini file.


> The ONLY mention of the contest is at the bottom of the page, What
> should we make of this?
>
> 1) it's a glitch.
> 2) there is no more prize.
> 3) somebody as won the previous prize !!!

The contest link is two lines below.  Attention to the contest is updated
whenever necessary, but it's a motivating factor for participation, not the
basis of the project.


> If a automatic statistics history file containing a log of
> daily throughput rates was put up, one of us could probably
> write a script to produce an automatically updated graph
> similar to the one on   http://entropia.com/ips/stats.html

This was on our to do list, but ok.  Let's try it.  I'll make it even easier.
Assume you have an input text file with two comma-separated text values per
line: total CPU time for a given day (float 7.4f), and the date for that day
(DD/MM/).  Make up some test input.

Send me a script that outputs a GIF image of the chart made from the input file.
I prefer Perl 5 and MS Excel, so please check with me first before you
substitute software tools to see if we have it or want to get it.

Regards,
scott

Mersenne: Link from Knuth's Home Page

[Scott Kurowski]

Has anyone seen the first link on Stanford Prof. Knuth's home page Recent News?

http://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/news.html

scott

Mersenne: RE: etc. & PrimeNet productivity

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi all,

> >There are 3 SunOS workstations in this office that sit doing little
> >more than reading and displaying files - so they can be kept busy
> >testing for primes.
>
> You can always try to compile mprime on these. The network code might need
> platform-specific tweaking but the guts of the primality testing  stuff
> ought to be portable C.

MPrime's Intel assembly code will be tough to build on a Sun.  Michiel Van
Loon's PrimeOS2 implementation of PrimeNet's network layer might be more
portable.


> Today, Primenet status page contains:
(cut)
> 50.314 years/day !!!
>
> It seems that a massive number of new members have sent results.

Interpretation of the CPU rate figures is dependent upon the date stamps below
the subheadings and at the top of the summary report.  In the example 50+ years
accumulated over 32 hours instead of the usual 24 hours.  37.8 years/day was the
interesting figure, not far from the week average of 38.

[Gary:]
> This appears to be a glitch in the program.  The "CPU years" cannot be
> greater than the "CPU yr/day".

Actually, operator intervention.  As Gary later pointed out, the time stamps and
daily cumulative count can on occasion skip a day but the CPU rates remain
normalized.  In this particular case, the server was offline at 06:00 UTC/GMT
(22:00 Pacific) for a snapshot test copy of its database for the new 4.0
server's final tests.  It caused the server to miss its daily self-maintenance
pass that updates the stats.

(The daily CPU rate also varies cyclically throughout the day and week.  To see
a graph of the daily cycle, see http://entropia.com/ips/stats.html for an
analysis of PrimeNet's first 7 months.  The 7-day average CPU yr/day and GFLOP/s
rates smooth out the daily spikes and dips, and is what Entropia.com pays most
attention to.)

The current stats show an additional CPU yr/day is coming in now relative to a
few days ago:

*** Aggregate CPU Statistics, P90 Units ***
Last 7 Days Average   Cumulative Today
from 99-Jan-28 06h   from 99-Feb-04 06h
Test Type CPU yr/dayGFLOP/sCPU yearsCPU yr/day
  --  --  ----
Lucas-Lehmer 37.489 451.287   8.58641.510
Factoring 1.457  17.536   0.255 1.235
  --  --  ----
TOTALS   38.946 468.823   8.84242.745


> This page also shows that the number of inactive accounts is raising
> harder then the active accounts. Since the last newsletter was from may
> 22 (or did i miss one?) it might be a good idea for a new one to wake
> all these people because not all people who are testing are members of
> this mailing list

The inactive accounts figure is not as meaningful as originally conceived.  We
removed it from the 4.0 server's status page, which if you don't mind ignoring
bogus test data is at:
http://207.104.25.139/primenet/status.shtml

A few people quit GIMPS but the vast majority are simply changing account IDs
and leaving the old ones behind.  In contrast to this, PrimeNet has seen a net
average of 21 people join GIMPS every day for over the last year.

-
In other PrimeNet news, the new 4.0 server is in final configuration and testing
this week and part of next, and the PrimeNet proxy server beta is running
successfully at almost all of the test sites that signed up.  We expect to cut
over to the new system right after Internet verification completes with a final
database snapshot.

Regards,
scott
(for the Entropia.com team)

Mersenne: RE: Mersenne Digest V1 #501

[Scott Kurowski]

> Perhaps Scott Kurowski is reading this...maybe he'd like to input
> some thoughts since we would probably rely on the Primenet server to find
> the winner...

In the next 4 to 10 weeks, Entropia.com is willing to put up $1500 for an ECM
largest-factor prize with a qualifier or two on our terms, using PrimeNet 4.0.
The only catch is George has not yet built Prime95's ECM feature to use
PrimeNet.  If there's enough interest you can collectively rattle him about it.
:-)


>   Of course the pool for the next Mersenne prime could always be
> increased.  $10,000 for decrypting a message and only $1,500 for a new
> Mersenne prime just doesn't right to me :)

This should soon change at least a little.


> What is up with  http://project.vobis.de/gimps/
>
> I just get
>
> faliled to open configuration file: "/usr/local/Counter/conf/count.cfg"

What did they say when you emailed them?

Regards,
scott

Mersenne: PrimeNet 4.0 Testers Needed

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi all,

I'm looking for about a dozen volunteers to help first test a new PrimeNet
intranet proxy service, then the all-new PrimeNet 4.0 server.

The local proxy is a NT service or Win95/98 console app.  It channels LAN
traffic from your v17 Prime95 or NTPrime clients via a single HTTP or RPC
connection to PrimeNet 3.1 or 4.0, optionally through a firewall.  Supported LAN
protocols include TCP/IP, named pipes, Windows Network, UDP/IP, and IPX,
including DNS lookup indirection.  A new RpcNet.dll is provided to enable
clients to use these protocols and the PrimeNet proxy service.

Internet testing of PrimeNet 4.0 starts within the next few weeks.  A
prerequisite is to successfully setup a local proxy to PrimeNet 3.1.  Tests will
use real exponents and may require an occasional email dialog to check or set
something, but probably little else.

Please reply privately to me at [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Regards,
scott

Mersenne: RE: Mersenne Digest V1 #474

[Scott Kurowski]

> p.s. Does this discussion really belong on the PrimeNet list rather
> than the mersenne list?

I agree.  I'm guessing few Mersenne list participants have a decided interest in
PrimeNet operations issues.  Perhaps it suffices to post a gentle reminder of
the PrimeNet list's address, as needed <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.


> Well, when I had thousands of new machines hitting Primenet back in May, it
> did cause problems...fortunately Scott got on the ball and got it going, and
> it was also related to the 5.2M+ problem, but there were also times (Scott,
> correct me if wrong) that Primenet was already maxed on connections and had
> to refuse other incoming connections.

Old news: Yup, PrimeNet saturated every 15 minutes or so.  It has a 64
concurrent clients limit, which normally never gets above 5 or 6, and nominally
hovered around 0.2 back then.  I recall something crazy like 20 clients/sec.

More old news: Aaron deployed an insufficiently tested first v16 NTPrime, which
misidentified itself as a v15 FFT client.  We got sloppy in the rush to get v16
done because the < 5.26M exponents burned up *much* faster than anticipated.
(v16 Prime95 was well tested.)  Work had gone into the server's v16 assignments
code, assuming the v15 client base was a stable stream.  I ended up hacking the
server to catch and fix the misidentified packets.

(This is a good example of something for the primenet list.)

Regards,
scott

Mersenne: RE: double checking

[Scott Kurowski]

> At 03:45 AM 11/18/98 -0500, Bryan Fullerton wrote:
> >I've noticed that when I manually request exponents from the Primenet web
> >page the lines to be inserted into worktodo.ini all
> >start with Test=, but when the util gets double checking exponents itself
> >the lines start with DoubleCheck=.

Oops - I thought that had been done.  It's fixed now.

Regards,
scott

Mersenne: MacLucasUNIX v4.4

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi everyone,

FYI, PrimeNet's manual testing checkin web page supports MacLucasUNIX v4.4
formatted results, as well as MacLucas v1.4.
http://entropia.com/ips/manualtests.html

Regards,
scott

Mersenne: RE: Mersenne Digest V1 #467

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi all,

> The Mercury article mentions a $1100 prize for finding a prime.  Who
> is offering this?  I wasn't aware that any such prize was involved in
> GIMPS.  (The prize was also mentioned in the Lode article, but I
> assumed they had confused GIMPS with distributed.net or some such.)
>
> - -andy

Entropia.com currently offers a cash prize of $1100 to $1500 ($1 for each 1000
digits of the discovered prime, between these bounds) for the discoverer of the
38th Mersenne prime, provided they network the test program over the Internet to
PrimeNet.  The prize amount will probably be increased at an unspecified later
date.  See http://entropia.com/ips for details.

Regards,
scott

Mersenne: RE: Mersenne Digest V1 #463 & 464

[Scott Kurowski]

A collective block of Q & A:

> Is it possible for two GIMPS accounts to be merged into one new account,
> such that the work completed by the two accounts is credited to the new
> account ?
> Or is it possible to take the work done by one account and transfer it to
> another ?

Yes.  Change your userid in Prime95, connect to the server.  PrimeNet will take
care of transferring credit and assignments automatically.  Alternatively, email
me <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.


> Anyone aware of any work in Mac-GIMPs land?

As Will indirectly pointed out, PrimeNet only supports MacLucas for manual
testing at the moment.  I continue to offer support for anyone who needs help
with the server's protocols and other requirements.  Takes some work, but it's
worth it.


> [sorry, replying to digests is probably unfriendly, but I can't face hordes of
> email. Do people mind if I just reply to interesting messages from the digest
> two-daily or so?]

I reply to digests.  Like sending email from light-hours away...


> Still getting a 2250 error with one of my networked PCs.  All the rest work
> fine.  Any ideas (yes I have a primenet.ini)

Error 2250 is the RPC protocol can't connect error.  Select HTTP in the PrimeNet
options to use the primenet.ini file.


> A group of students here at Virginia Tech have formed a group here to
> promote distributed computing. The Computer Science department is
> interested in participating, but are hesitant to join GIMPs (or
> distributed.net). One of their questions is "What other companies or
> schools are participating?" I have read the link for the University of
> Albany. If there is anyone else out there representing a school or company,
> or who has permission to use someone else's computer systems, I'd greatly
> appreciate hearing from you.

A few days ago I did a count of the colleges and universities contributing CPU
time to GIMPS on PrimeNet, by email domain.  There are 267, including almost
every big name you can think of, plus about a hundred high and elementary
schools.  Commercial addresses are harder to count because they include ISPs,
but they are in the thousands.  There are a few dozen government accounts,
including the US Navy and Air Force.


> What (if any) are the concerns with having an account's password and user
> ID posted on a web page? Would someone be able to change the "Your Name"
> and "Your email address" fields with them?

Someone else could monkey with your account.


> So if my school set up a web
> page to encourage people to join our team, could someone come along and
> usurp our work?

Not if you at least once set LockUserInfo=1 in the prime.ini file.  To change
your account info or transfer anything around after this, you need to contact me
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.   The challenge account prototyped distributed teams
for GIMPS, and originally had a few hundred contributors (they have since
started their own accounts, like netconx).

> Also, what would happen if someone changed (or deleted) the
> existing UserID and password in the middle of a LL test?

The server would return 'assigned to someone else' errors until the test
completed, at which time the server would accept and credit the result to the
new user, then email the assigned account owner that the test was done.


> The secure-yet-still-automated way to do this is to have a public
> html form that takes the new persons data and wraps it up and sends
> you an email containing another url that you can click on from
> inside your e-mail system which will process the user's membership.
>
> One working out of the system, then many one-click approvals, rather
> than simply having the applicants e-mail you and needing to
> do boring data entry, and you still have control unlike if you
> just put the password out.
>
> Have teams been implemented?  Theyt could follow the practice
> of "web rings" and have an "inner circle" who have approval power;
> applications to join can get sent to all approvers, or round-robined
> to each in turn, or a designates one or two.  There is no limit
> to possible subtletl when it comes to dreaming up a user interface.

There are a few hundred teams.  The account locking mechanism works quite well,
so most team leaders simply pre-configure the software with the selected account
settings, add the locking flag, and let people copy the files and start the
program.  If they somehow change things, they at most take the one or two
exponents assigned to that computer.


> Would it be possible to have the next version sending all expected
> completion dates in one time, instead of one by one? Or are there
> objections to do so?

(copied in part from a private reply to Henk)

A speed-up tip:
If you are using RPC, you might try HTTP.  Another speed boost for v17 RPC/HTTP
and v15/v16 HTTP is to cache the entropia.com DNS lookup locally in your HOSTS
file, using IP 207.104.25.155.

Please see the FAQ page at http://entropia.com/ips/faq.html for more.

Best regards,
scott

Mersenne: RE: Mersenne Digest V1 #462

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi Steve,

I created and run PrimeNet, and wrote the network DLLs.  As
the designated person for your question, maybe I can help.

What error message is the program reporting?  Is the
primenet.ini file identical to the files on the working
computers?

Regards,
scott

--

From: "Steve Gardner" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1998 03:37:20 -0500
Subject: Mersenne: Network Problems

I have a 12 PC network doing the search through a proxy
server.  I can't get
one of my PCs to connect to Primenet even though it is no
different to the
others.

The problem PC has access to the outside world with both
email and http.

I have a primenet.ini file and am using Avirt's Gateway
Server

Any ideas.

Thanks
Steve Gardner
Test Point Inc
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Browse 83000 Computer Products At
www.pcavenue.com

Mersenne: RE: Mersenne Digest V1 #446

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi everyone,

> looks like entropia is offline again?  getting timeouts ("cannot establish
> connection with server").

Thanks for the concern.  Pacific Bell kindly called us early this morning to say
they had been/were/are intermittently dropping our T1 lines.  Usually it's the
shared server load with the paying customers' commerce systems that does it.
The test software is designed to keep working between service outages, so this
impact should be low.

We are moving ahead with steps to make PrimeNet's availability more reliable.
PrimeNet 4.0 is underway, and this quarter we are getting a dedicated server.
To date, PrimeNet is covered as an operating overhead expense to which I am the
sole contributor.


> (This is what Scott Kurowski started from.  Scott began with it on
> March 28 '97 and by April 6 he had a primenet server on the internet.)

Ah, nostalgia.  Here's more:

Ken and Kris tested several subsequent 2.x rewrites of the server.  PrimeNet 2.6
for v14 was first in public Internet prototype July 1997, when 'netconx' started
accumulating their century of CPU time.  On 18 October 1997 PrimeNet 2.8 for v14
was officially launched.  Finally, 3 January 1998 v15 and PrimeNet 3.0 were
announced by George.

It's been 18 months of great growth and wonderful participation.  Thank you,
everyone.

Regards,
scott

Mersenne: RE: Mersenne Digest V1 #437

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi Yvan,

> By the way, I think when the server for non-PC base client will be in
> place. It will be primordial to do some publicity. Otherwise, GIMPS will
> be limited by the lack of computer power available for double-checking.

It might be a while before this happens.  Nobody has ever completed the work to
network a non-PC Mersenne test program.  The server is done, but awaits a UNIX,
Alpha, Mac, StrongARM or other platform developer to take the torch to the
finish.

Regards,
scott

Mersenne: Individual Account Status Report

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi Pete,

> Can anyone tell me why my Individual Account Status Report reports that I
> have not completed any LL tests when I have done 2. It does, however,
> indicate that an exponent test has been completed since last master database
> synchronisation.
> The top producers list also says that I have done no LL tests.

The first LL test was computed before using PrimeNet, then sent when the machine
first connected.  The second was checked in on the manual testing page.  I count
machine credit for work done while automatically using the server over the
Internet.  Hopefully the manual testing and FAQ pages are clear on this point.

More importantly, George tracks GIMPS contributions overall.  He'll have them.

(I'm at your disposal to field administrative questions off-list.  :-)

Regards,
scott

Mersenne: PrimeNet

[Scott Kurowski]

Hi everone,

The server was back in service about 12 hours ago.  I regret any inconveniences
you experienced while I was away on fun.

Demand is pushing the server's current v3.1 architecture, but work on version 4
has started!  The chief stability problem areas are exposed by the growing
numbers of courtesy email notices for expiring/expired exponents, and the user
account reports - both of which are too important to curtail.

Polling back-off strategy: George discussed this with me some time ago.  I think
he will soon finish adding this.  You will not need to adjust each computer to
go, for example, in steps from 2 minutes to an hour frequency, if a connection
to the server is out.

Regards,
scott

P.S.  I trust the facts will bear out Aaron's side of the story, and illustrate
a US West MIS process failure rather than an abuse of resources.