Guys, I've discovered that, for some strange reason, you *must* have elevated privileges to run / configure BOINC when it's installed via the F10 repositories.
I've been trying to get BOINC configured to connect to my accounts ever since I installed the X86_64 version of Fedora 10 several months ago. Today I got a crazy idea and tried running the boincmgr binary as a superuser and to my surprise I was able to connect to the client and configure it, something that I have been trying off and on for the past several months to do without success.
Since I never had to run it as a superuser when I installed from the tarball off the Boinc.berkeley.edu server, I suspect this is a RedHat/Fedora issue. Can someone explain the rationale behind requiring admin privileges to configure BOINC?
I managed to work around it by "chmod +s" all the Boinc binaries, but I shouldn't have to do that!
On Wed, 2009-03-18 at 10:56 -0400, John Aldrich wrote:
Guys, I've discovered that, for some strange reason, you *must* have elevated privileges to run / configure BOINC when it's installed via the F10 repositories.
I'm running boinc on an unprivileged user.
I've been trying to get BOINC configured to connect to my accounts ever since I installed the X86_64 version of Fedora 10 several months ago. Today I got a crazy idea and tried running the boincmgr binary as a superuser and to my surprise I was able to connect to the client and configure it, something that I have been trying off and on for the past several months to do without success.
Did you configure the boinc password? Network access?
In general you need to add --redirectio --allow_remote_gui_rpc to /etc/syscnofig/boinc-client (latest version only!), and save your clear-text password in $BOINC_HOME/gui_rpc_auth.cfg.
Since I never had to run it as a superuser when I installed from the tarball off the Boinc.berkeley.edu server, I suspect this is a RedHat/Fedora issue. Can someone explain the rationale behind requiring admin privileges to configure BOINC?
Default -Fedora- configuration doesn't accept network connection. The default upstream version does.
I managed to work around it by "chmod +s" all the Boinc binaries, but I shouldn't have to do that!
Don't.
- Gilboa
On Wednesday 18 March 2009, Gilboa Davara wrote:
On Wed, 2009-03-18 at 10:56 -0400, John Aldrich wrote:
Guys, I've discovered that, for some strange reason, you *must* have elevated privileges to run / configure BOINC when it's installed via the F10 repositories.
I'm running boinc on an unprivileged user.
That's interesting. Did you install via YUM, or did you download the tarball?
Did you configure the boinc password? Network access?
Nope. I've got BOINC running on my "workstation" and am trying to connect on the same machine.
In general you need to add --redirectio --allow_remote_gui_rpc to /etc/syscnofig/boinc-client (latest version only!), and save your clear-text password in $BOINC_HOME/gui_rpc_auth.cfg.
But, I'm running it on the same machine.
Default -Fedora- configuration doesn't accept network connection. The default upstream version does.
Yes, that's the sort of behavior that annoys the crap out of me. Fedora/RedHat in their *infinite wisdom* have decided that we can't be trusted to run *anything* as a normal user (as witnessed by them requiring admin priveleges awhile back to run XCDRoast!)
I managed to work around it by "chmod +s" all the Boinc binaries, but I shouldn't have to do that!
Don't.
Well, a friend on another group pointed out that BOINC creates a user/group to run as. I've added myself to that group. Hopefully that'll fix it. When I get home (or more likely tomorrow morning) I'll chmod -s all those binaries and give it a shot again.
John Aldrich wrote:
Yes, that's the sort of behavior that annoys the crap out of me. Fedora/RedHat in their *infinite wisdom* have decided that we can't be trusted to run *anything* as a normal user
That's not true, actually with technologies like ConsoleKit and PolicyKit the trend is towards running more stuff as the regular user.
(as witnessed by them requiring admin priveleges awhile back to run XCDRoast!)
I'm not sure why that's the case. I do know that we explicitly do not require root privileges for K3b, as they aren't necessary. (We also disable the check from upstream K3b which warns if wodim is not suid root, it works just fine without it!) Have you tried filing a bug against xcdroast?
Kevin Kofler
(as witnessed by them requiring admin priveleges awhile back to run XCDRoast!)
I'm not sure why that's the case. I do know that we explicitly do not require root privileges for K3b, as they aren't necessary. (We also disable the check from upstream K3b which warns if wodim is not suid root, it works just fine without it!) Have you tried filing a bug against xcdroast?
It's not the case, any more, but I do recall it being an issue in FC3 or FC4, if memory serves.
I've not seen it since FC5, and I know it's not the case in F8 or F9 (haven't tried in F10, yet).
On Wednesday 18 March 2009, Kevin Kofler wrote:
I'm not sure why that's the case. I do know that we explicitly do not require root privileges for K3b, as they aren't necessary. (We also disable the check from upstream K3b which warns if wodim is not suid root, it works just fine without it!) Have you tried filing a bug against xcdroast?
Well, I haven't used XCDRoast in awhile. I'm just remembering back when I had that problem and went to the source who said it did NOT need to be SUID Root. That was several years ago.
On Wednesday 18 March 2009, Mike Burger wrote:
It's not the case, any more, but I do recall it being an issue in FC3 or FC4, if memory serves.
I've not seen it since FC5, and I know it's not the case in F8 or F9 (haven't tried in F10, yet).
Yeah. I think that was about the time I discovered K3B or maybe I just downloaded the tarball and installed it. :-) Don't recall, as it has been several years. Just that it annoys me that this sort of thing happens... stuff that *used* to run just fine under normal user accounts gets changed without any fanfare or notification that it now requires special privileges to run.
I also made a note of it on the boinc.berkeley.org wiki that someone needs to make this warning and work-around (which they publish as well) more prominent if this sort of thing is going to be going on. I figure it's their product and if they are aware of it and/or endorse the policy, they ought to publicize it.
On Wed, 2009-03-18 at 15:43 -0400, John Aldrich wrote:
On Wednesday 18 March 2009, Gilboa Davara wrote:
On Wed, 2009-03-18 at 10:56 -0400, John Aldrich wrote:
Guys, I've discovered that, for some strange reason, you *must* have elevated privileges to run / configure BOINC when it's installed via the F10 repositories.
I'm running boinc on an unprivileged user.
That's interesting. Did you install via YUM, or did you download the tarball?
Yum version.
Did you configure the boinc password? Network access?
Nope. I've got BOINC running on my "workstation" and am trying to connect on the same machine.
As far as I remember, in the default configuration, only the user 'boinc' can connect to the service. (I maybe wrong, though)
In general you need to add --redirectio --allow_remote_gui_rpc to /etc/syscnofig/boinc-client (latest version only!), and save your clear-text password in $BOINC_HOME/gui_rpc_auth.cfg.
But, I'm running it on the same machine.
As far as I know, if you're user X, and boinc runs as user Y, you can either drop the security (chmod +s, etc) or use networking.
I'd suggest you file a bug report about the default configuration. The maintainer is -very- forthcoming.
- Gilboa