Set Up SETI@home on Ubuntu 14.04 or Debian 7PostedMarch 11, 2015 25.1kviews MISCELLANEOUSIntroductionSETI@home is a large volunteer distributed computing project where software running on participant systems is used to analyze space telescope radio data in order to identify signals or signs of intelligent life. SETI@home uses software known as BOINC which is available on many platforms including Linux.BOINC has a graphical application but also works via the command line. This makes running SETI@home on a Droplet or another headless server very feasible. SETI@home requires very little disk space for usage typically, 100MB of space is sufficient but can utilize as much CPU as it's given.PrerequisitesAn Ubuntu 14.04 or Debian 7 Droplet, any size.A sudo non-root user. You can follow the first four steps of this tutorial for setup on Ubuntu, and this tutorial for Debian.Step One Install boinc-clientSETI@home operates via the BOINC client which is available in the standard Debian and Ubuntu repositories.sudo apt-get install boinc-clientStep Two Connect to a SETI@home AccountWith SETI@home, you'll earn SETI credit for work completed. To connect this host to a SETI@home account and receive credit, an account key is needed.First, create a SETI@home account or log in to your existing SETI@home account. Once inside, click View next to Account keys.You'll see your SETI@home account key on the top of the next page. Run the following command with your account key:boinccmd --project_attach http://setiathome.berkeley.edu account_keyAt this point, boinc will begin crunching away with default values.For now, stop the boinc-client service so CPU usage preferences can be set.sudo service boinc-client stopStep Three Configure Host CPU Usage PreferencesBy default, the BOINC client will use 100% of available CPU. In this step, we will configure the host to use less CPU.Note: In a cloud hosting environment, you are required to lower your CPU utilization from 100% to avoid excessive high usage, which might affect neighboring Droplets.Local host preferences are set in the file /var/lib/boinc client/global_prefs_override.xml, which will be empty initially. An example file is given below for this guide, which is the recommended configuration for a Droplet.Edit the file /var/lib/boinc-client/global_prefs_override.xml.sudo nano /var/lib/boinc-client/global_prefs_override.xmlYou will see an some existing text that looks like this:Delete that, and paste in this example file. 0 1 0 50.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0.000000 0 1 0 0 0.100000 0.500000 100.000000 60.000000 60.000000 10.000000 90.000000 1.500000 75.000000 50.000000 90.000000 0.000000 0.000000 25.000000 0.000000 0Next we will inspect two settings in this example file concerning CPU, which are highlighted above.The first preference is cpu_usage_limit, which is used to limit the amount of CPU used by SETI@home. The example file uses a setting of 25.000000, meaning CPU usage is limited to 25% max. 25.000000 is a good setting if your machine is dedicated for another task or service but contribution to SETI@home is still desired.The second preference is suspend_cpu_usage which is used to temporarily suspend SETI@home from operation when CPU usage by other application reaches that level. In the example file, suspendcpuusage is set to 50.000000, or 50%.You can read more about BOINC preferences on their wiki.After saving and closing the file, start the boinc-client. This will allow SETI@home to