Message boards : Number crunching : PrimeGrid is Moving!!!

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For the last several years, we've been very fortunate to have Rackspace sponsoring PrimeGrid and providing our cloud servers free of charge.



We're very grateful for everything Rackspace has done for us, but times change, and this is coming to an end.



We are looking for a new home. Don't worry; this isn't the end of PrimeGrid. This is not the first time we've had to move. It probably won't be the last. But we need a new digital abode in which to take up residence.



If anyone has connections with a corporation, university, cloud provider, or rich uncle that might want to sponsor a crowd-sourced mathematical research site, we'd appreciate any help and advice you can provide.



Thank you

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My lucky number is 75898524288+1

Team Gridcoin is currently discussing:



* "what if we sponsor it (The Gridcoin Foundation)? Let's say for a year. It's probably not a large sum and would boost our standing within the BOINC community considerably."



Also:

* "What do they need? Money, physical place...??? How much?"



further info here:

* https://steemit.com/gridcoin/@erkan/boinc-project-primegrid-is-looking-for-a-new-home-and-sponsors

How much do Rackspace want for you to stay put?

How much do Rackspace want for you to stay put?



Also:

* "What do they need? Money, physical place...??? How much?"



* "what if we sponsor it (The Gridcoin Foundation)? Let's say for a year. It's probably not a large sum and would boost our standing within the BOINC community considerably."



We're not looking to stay at Rackspace. For our needs, Rackspace is overkill. We can probably run PrimeGrid on a much smaller budget than what Rackspace would cost if we were paying their normal fees.



We just started talking about our options (and there are indeed options). If Gridcoin wishes to help, the simplest option is money. While it's possible some entity may step up and cover the entire cost (either financially or by providing the servers and infrastructure directly), a more likely scenario is PrimeGrid purchases physical servers and runs them from a local datacenter. I don't have the cost for that option yet (colo fees plus hardware reserve for the server hardware). We'll be working out the budget pretty soon.



Right now, we're looking at consolidating the current 4 servers into 2.



Note that whatever we do, our policy regarding backup and survivability doesn't change. The only difference will be that the time needed to recover from a disaster will increase.

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My lucky number is 75898524288+1

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Joined: 25 May 17Posts: 1ID: 891116Credit: 340,801,358RAC: 0 Message 109823 - Posted: 2 Sep 2017 | 15:45:15 UTC

Last modified: 2 Sep 2017 | 16:02:29 UTC

I will help.



I have a very good VPS package that is collecting dust right now as I am between projects.



I would be happy to host for free, and I will work with Gridcoin community on whether or not they wish to reimburse me.



It sounds like you have multiple servers full of data, so it may be too big for what I have available. If that's the case, I will join my Gridcoin community friends in making donations toward your new home :-)

I will help.



I have a very good VPS package that is collecting dust right now as I am between projects.



I would be happy to host for free, and I will work with Gridcoin community on whether or not they wish to reimburse me.



It sounds like you have multiple servers full of data, so it may be too big for what I have available. If that's the case, I will join my Gridcoin community friends in making donations toward your new home :-)



Zen,



Thanks for your offer. As you have guessed, the VPS servers you have are too small to run PrimeGrid. (We need about 30 GB of RAM on the DB/web server, with about 300 GB of SSD RAID 1 disk and a 1+ GB network connection. We also need a second server with 8-16 GB of ram and about 100 GB of SSD RAID 1.)



That being said, your gracious offer of financial support is greatly appreciated. Details will be forthcoming about how to support PrimeGrid with direct contributions, should we eventually go in that direction.

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My lucky number is 75898524288+1

I'd like to clarify something that wasn't obvious in my original post. The new "home" we're looking for doesn't have to be a scenario where one entity is providing us with free servers. Prior to Rackspace, we paid for our own cloud servers, and before that we owned our own physical servers. Both of those choices are viable options moving forward. (Because of the lead time involved with ordering hardware, we're actively investigating hardware options at this time.)

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My lucky number is 75898524288+1

If there's a way I can donate directly, I'd be happy to throw some coins your way.

If there's a way I can donate directly, I'd be happy to throw some coins your way.



I concur.

PrimeGrid is accepting both BTC and GRC donations (and PayPal, of course):



http://www.primegrid.com/donations.php

PrimeGrid is accepting both BTC and GRC donations (and PayPal, of course):



http://www.primegrid.com/donations.php



I'll gladly donate some € - PG is my favorite BOINC project.



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My stats

Vortac wrote:

PrimeGrid is accepting both BTC and GRC donations (and PayPal, of course):



http://www.primegrid.com/donations.php



Is this the currently preferred donation method? Earlier, Michael wrote:



Details will be forthcoming about how to support PrimeGrid with direct contributions, should we eventually go in that direction.

We will be updating the donations page, the bank donations method isn't currently working.

We will be updating the donations page, the bank donations method isn't currently working.

Oops, I just sent something via PayPal - hope it gets to the project.

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My stats

We will be updating the donations page, the bank donations method isn't currently working.

Oops, I just sent something via PayPal - hope it gets to the project.

Got it - thanks!



I'll still ask the others to refrain from donating until we have a more exact budget expectations.

Who would have thought NOT collecting money would be so difficult? You guys are awesome!



I have totally disabled the donations page -- you'll now get a 404 error if you try to use the link above (which is to a webpage we didn't want people using.) I thought merely removing all links to the page would be sufficient, but with Internet archives, bookmarks, etc., that was not correct. Lesson learned.



(Please note that I'm not blaming anyone for trying to donate -- and with lots of persistence! -- the onus is on me. I should have been more thorough and realized simply removing links wouldn't get it done. The Internet never forgets anything.)



We'll let everyone know when it's safe to donate again (assuming we go that route.)



Thanks for your amazing support!!



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My lucky number is 75898524288+1

At the risk of sounding like the idiot that I am, here's a question: Can some (or all) of primegrid's hosting needs be handled in a distributed way? (in a similar fashion as boinc tasks that are currently being sent out for crunching) I would guess that even the database could be done in some kind of peer to peer or shared way, where stuff is stored and processed in little chunks distributed across thousands of our computers. then pretty much all you need is a simple web host. I'll bet that there are lots of reasons not to do that, just throwing it out there.

At the risk of sounding like the idiot that I am, here's a question: Can some (or all) of primegrid's hosting needs be handled in a distributed way? (in a similar fashion as boinc tasks that are currently being sent out for crunching) I would guess that even the database could be done in some kind of peer to peer or shared way, where stuff is stored and processed in little chunks distributed across thousands of our computers. then pretty much all you need is a simple web host. I'll bet that there are lots of reasons not to do that, just throwing it out there.



The big server component is the database server. Is it possible to run a database on distributed servers? Absolutely. But I've never heard of anyone spreading a (relatively) small database across many servers. Typically, that's done with huge databases, and the individual components are themselves pretty large systems.



We're working on the server specs right now. It's not incredibly onerous -- I imagine there's many "gaming" rigs as well as computers built specifically to crunch PrimeGrid tasks that will cost more than one of the servers. I wouldn't be surprised if some of your monthly electric bills exceed the cost of the server.



I apologize for being vague about a lot of details, but I'm communicating in real time and the situation is very fluid. We've had multiple offers to (possibly) host us free of charge, as well as investigating the "purchase our own servers" option.

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My lucky number is 75898524288+1

If any of my rigs can host (or backup host) or make a small $ donation in my Canadian rupee's for you to build your own I'm more then glad to.

After some research and discussions, PrimeGrid has decided that the best way to move forward is to purchase our own dedicated servers. Plans are underway for that right now, including housing the servers in a commercial data center.



We will be opening up the donations page in the next couple of days, for those who would like to help. (And, of course, thanks to those who already have donated.) We want to nail down the actual costs before setting the targets for donations.



As things stand right now, it looks like our total operating expenses, including the data center (the largest single cost), hardware reserve for future server repairs and replacements, and covering the up front hardware costs comes out to less than half of what some of us pay for our monthly electric bills.



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My lucky number is 75898524288+1

Do we run into a deadline for the move?

(Other words: Do we have to leave Rackspace until xxxxx?)





Do we run into a deadline for the move?

(Other words: Do we have to leave Rackspace until xxxxx?)







Sometime in late October we have to start paying for RackSpace. We intend to be up and running before then.



Lead time on our hardware is about a month, so it will be close.



Worst case scenario is we drop a lot of non essential stuff and only run the main server for a few days if we need extra time. Off the top of my head that would cost us about $30/day.



Expect some downtime when we move. We'll need to shut down, backup, and restore on the new server. Plan on a 48 hour outage, although it could be as short as 2 or 3 hours.



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My lucky number is 75898524288+1

Plan on a 48 hour outage, although it could be as short as 2 or 3 hours.



Any problem with someone hoarding work for 48 hrs? It would mean extra activity when the system is back up due to the bulk submissions but it also means no CPU/GPU cycles would be lost.

Any problem with someone hoarding work for 48 hrs? It would mean extra activity when the system is back up due to the bulk submissions but it also means no CPU/GPU cycles would be lost.

No problem with that. The load will probably be less than an average challenge! There is however no need to act now, we will post well in advance of the outage.

Perfect and thanks.

Could there be options if we raise enough money to get more powerful servers?

Could there be options if we raise enough money to get more powerful servers?



You want the whole planet's light to dim when we turn it on, eh?



Seriously, the servers are ordered, so that part's set in stone now.



The CPUs are more powerful than the existing server -- the new guys are quad core Kabylake Xeons -- and the only question in my mind is how well the SSDs perform relative to what we have now. I won't really know about that until we start using them, but at worst, that's upgradable later on. Actually, I'm not even worried about that. Earlier versions of the server ran fine on hard disks, so I'm not expecting performance problems.





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My lucky number is 75898524288+1



Seriously, the servers are ordered, so that part's set in stone now.





The geek in me would love to know the details of what you guys ordered, but I understand if you don't want to open yourself up for discussion, second guessing, etc. :)

I think that all of this is being handled very well. It's nice to know nuts and bolts but the reality is that as long as the work units keep getting pushed out the door and accepted back when completed is all that's really important. :-) And once you get things firmed up budget wise I'm more than happy to contribute financially. Love this project! :-)



Seriously, the servers are ordered, so that part's set in stone now.





The geek in me would love to know the details of what you guys ordered, but I understand if you don't want to open yourself up for discussion, second guessing, etc. :)



No big secrets...



https://www.lenovo.com/images/products/system-x/pdfs/datasheets/x3250_m6_ds.pdf



CPU is Xeon E3-1240 v6 3.7GHz 4C/8T



Configured with 2x 240 GB SSDs in a RAID 1 configuration, 32GB of DDR4 ram and redundant power supplies.



The second server, which will act as the both database replica and as the backup server in case the primary fails is identical except it has only a single SSD.

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My lucky number is 75898524288+1

I think that all of this is being handled very well. It's nice to know nuts and bolts but the reality is that as long as the work units keep getting pushed out the door and accepted back when completed is all that's really important. :-) And once you get things firmed up budget wise I'm more than happy to contribute financially. Love this project! :-)



Thanks for...



Participating

The kind words

Offering to contribute



They all mean a lot to us.



You're absolutely right about it not really mattering what's under the hood. When Jim and I got involved, PG was running on a fairly old set of servers which couldn't really handle the load very well. It meant we had to be a bit more creative about managing the system. Sometimes we did that better than other times. ;)



Then we had a situation where we had to move datacenters and the cost was going to go up significantly. Instead, we ditched the old servers and moved to a low cost cloud provider. That worked well for a while, until the provider modified their policies to limit the amount of disk IO you could do. For a BOINC system, it's all about disk IO speed, so we had to find another place. That got us to Rackspace. Once or twice we had problems with servers developing problems. Each time, we rebuilt on a new cloud server which was not only faster, but sometimes less expensive as well. Overall, an excellent experience there. Rackspace also provided us with the opportunity to use a second database replica server, which not only protects the database integrity, but also allows us to back up the database from the replica. We used to shut down PrimeGrid every night for a few minutes to back up the database.



And now, we've come full circle and are moving back to owning our own servers. Yes, we'll have to start fund raising again, but I think we'll be okay. It's not a ridiculous amount of money.



We're carrying over some of the concepts we implemented in the cloud to our new architecture. In particular, we're keeping the database replica. It makes a real difference. The cloud version of the replica was a smaller server, but this time it's essentially identical to the primary server so we have a quick and easy backup if needed.



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My lucky number is 75898524288+1

Thank you michael and Rytis (also Jim, and anyone I'm forgetting) for keeping this project running.

We will be opening up the donations page in the next couple of days, for those who would like to help. (And, of course, thanks to those who already have donated.) We want to nail down the actual costs before setting the targets for donations.



https://www.primegrid.com/donations.php



The donations page has been updated. If you would like to do so, feel free to donate.



Please note that the counters are not automatically updated, so you won't see the bars move immediately. (And before you ask, I'm not sure if that's even possible. That would require getting information from external financial systems.)

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My lucky number is 75898524288+1



err: 8 WebMoney payments for this merchant are not set up or set up incorrectly by it`s payment processor. Please contact the merchant`s technical support. (LMI_SHOP_ID not specified for this merchant!) step:13.4



Webmoney doesn't seem to be working for me.





err: 8 WebMoney payments for this merchant are not set up or set up incorrectly by it`s payment processor. Please contact the merchant`s technical support. (LMI_SHOP_ID not specified for this merchant!) step:13.4



Webmoney doesn't seem to be working for me.





Thanks, we'll look into it.



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My lucky number is 75898524288+1

I can use paypal but 2.9% of €3500 is substantial plus i think $.25 USD per transaction. No I'm not donating that full amount just if everyone went that route.

I got in touch with Paysera and they will look into the issue. I will let you know when the issue is resolved - thanks for letting us know!



As for PayPal, we are aware of the rather large fees. Sadly I don't think there is a more convenient service for international payments. Within the EU we have an (almost) free SEPA system, but going worldwide presents some challenges.

Apparently it is against WebMoney terms of service to use their service for donations, so we cannot accept WM. The payment option has been removed. Sorry for the inconvenience.

I got in touch with Paysera and they will look into the issue. I will let you know when the issue is resolved - thanks for letting us know!



As for PayPal, we are aware of the rather large fees. Sadly I don't think there is a more convenient service for international payments. Within the EU we have an (almost) free SEPA system, but going worldwide presents some challenges.

With PayPal, there is an option to send money to friends and relatives. The last time I used it, I was charged $1 for using this option. I do not know if there are any limits when using this option and/or whether the $1 is valid up to some limit of its own.

With PayPal, there is an option to send money to friends and relatives. The last time I used it, I was charged $1 for using this option. I do not know if there are any limits when using this option and/or whether the $1 is valid up to some limit of its own.



I would be very surprised if this qualified as "friends and relatives".

____________

My lucky number is 75898524288+1

With PayPal, there is an option to send money to friends and relatives. The last time I used it, I was charged $1 for using this option. I do not know if there are any limits when using this option and/or whether the $1 is valid up to some limit of its own.



I would be very surprised if this qualified as "friends and relatives".

I would think we're all friends here.



But seriously. What if Paypal donations were sent directly to Rytis then he could forward it monthly (or however often he wants to) to Primegrid's account. If Primegrid's account is at a local bank (or online bank) that Rytis has a personal account at (or open one), it should be easy for him to transfer without fees. This could bypass the usual fees (especially advantageous for donors of larger donations) that Paypal charges for normal transactions. Just a thought.





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Largest Primes to Date:

As Double Checker: SR5 109208*5^1816285+1 Dgts-1,269,534

As Initial Finder: SR5 243944*5^1258576-1 Dgts-879,713





With PayPal, there is an option to send money to friends and relatives. The last time I used it, I was charged $1 for using this option. I do not know if there are any limits when using this option and/or whether the $1 is valid up to some limit of its own.



I would be very surprised if this qualified as "friends and relatives".

I would think we're all friends here.



But seriously. What if Paypal donations were sent directly to Rytis then he could forward it monthly (or however often he wants to) to Primegrid's account. If Primegrid's account is at a local bank (or online bank) that Rytis has a personal account at (or open one), it should be easy for him to transfer without fees. This could bypass the usual fees (especially advantageous for donors of larger donations) that Paypal charges for normal transactions. Just a thought.







I appreciate the desire to help, but it can't be by breaking the rules, whether those rules are laws or merely the TOS we agree to when using a company's services. If we can find a more efficient way to handle donations, we will of course do so. But it needs to be 100% honest and above board.

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My lucky number is 75898524288+1

I dont know what ( and how ) EU handle cryptocoins: but if somebody send any kind of coins, and if that coin is sold and changed for $ then there will be no fee for that transaction.

In days that price can go up and down rapidly, it will be good to have one person, that will we sold coins immediately , and convert it to solid value ( like $)

In that case you will not lost anything because of unstable price.

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314187728^131072+1 GENERALIZED FERMAT :)

93*10^1029523-1 REPDIGIT PRIME

31*332^367560+1 CRUS PRIME

Proud member of team Aggie The Pew. Go Aggie!

Yesterday I figured I'd donate, and found out I'd have to go through with PayPal. My intent was to donate $100. Well paypal's exchange using their system rather than the "merchant's" (they give you a choice) was 1.19 US to one euro. So I ended up doing 83 euros ($98.77). my total cost was just a bit over $102.xx. So my "cost" of using PayPal was roughly $3.50. That doesn't seem onerous to me as it costs more to wire bucks to someone halfway around the world. And also keeping things in a bit of perspective, I go out to eat, the restaurant wants me to kick in a 15-20% tip for someone that takes my order, brings the food. brings the bill, and takes the plates away. So I just can't get too upset over using PayPal, specially when there isn't much of a choice when dealing with international financial transfers.



If it was a straight VISA or MC transfer, then there would be the exchange rate fee at the time/date of placing the transfer. So basically, it is what it is, a necessary evil to keep the project going. :-) Just my $0.02 (two cents) worth on the subject. lol

Cadian peso's are at .68 of a EUR which is the best it's been since april so at least I'm not too screwed on exchange rate. Gave what I could at the moment hope to give more and larger later.

Thanks everyone. We appreciate everybody's contributions.



As for the costs charged by the various intermediaries, that's just the cost of doing business. You don't see it as a consumer, but every time you use a credit card to purchase something, the credit card company takes a small percentage out of what the merchant gets paid. These services aren't free (nor should they be.)



____________

My lucky number is 75898524288+1

just try the SEPA-way ...

I am curious whether my existing crown will change ;-) *)





*) this was not a requirement

____________

Sysadm@Nbg

my current lucky number: 3749*2^1555697+1

PSA-PRPNet-Stats-URL: http://u-g-f.de/PRPNet/



I just tried the SEPA way as well. My homebanking asked for some info that is not available on the donation page (the address and country of the account owner). Nothing that Mr. google couldn't handle though :) I hope it reaches the destination.

Keep the good work guys!

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676754^262144+1 is prime

My homebanking asked for some info that is not available on the donation page (the address and country of the account owner).

Thanks, I'll add the information to the donation page.

Been trying to make a donation through pay-pal but it appears to not be function this morning. Just mentioning it in case no one knows.

We think the donation issues may have been HTTPS related. The page has been modified and the transaction will happen over secure connection, which will hopefully solve the issue.

Had no problem this morning.

Sent some donation recently.

Since I already have donation crown from earlier donation, I got curious how do I know that it reached the destionation?

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My stats

Badge score: 1*1 + 5*1 + 8*3 + 9*11 + 10*1 + 11*1 + 12*3 = 186

Sent some donation recently.

Since I already have donation crown from earlier donation, I got curious how do I know that it reached the destionation?

If you were logged in when you made the donation from the link on the page, you will receive PrimeGrid private message from Rytis.

Sent some donation recently.

Since I already have donation crown from earlier donation, I got curious how do I know that it reached the destionation?

If you were logged in when you made the donation from the link on the page, you will receive PrimeGrid private message from Rytis.

That is correct; please note that donation management is a manual process and it takes a little while. I'll update all donations tomorrow!

For a few years I have been using dedicated servers from online.net (https://www.online.net/en/dedicated-server) and can recommend at least considering their offers, either as a backup solution or maybe even as a permanent one. On a three-year horizon the TCO is going to be less then hosting own servers in a colo.

For a few years I have been using dedicated servers from online.net (https://www.online.net/en/dedicated-server) and can recommend at least considering their offers, either as a backup solution or maybe even as a permanent one. On a three-year horizon the TCO is going to be less then hosting own servers in a colo.



Thanks for that information. That does look like a cost effective hosting solution, however the decisions have already been made. We'll keep this information on file for the future.

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My lucky number is 75898524288+1

We just received a new, much better quote for colocation, so the donation target has been updated accordingly.

Just try to create a new beneficiary using the information on the donation page and it fails.

My bank ask for IBAN (that's ok) and BIC information (=SWIFT) that was rejected.



After some search on BIC information, I found there are 2 version of the BIC, BIC8 and BIC11 for 8 or 11 chars.



On the donation page you set only the BIC8 and obviously my bank ask for the BIC11.



As DuckDuckGo is my friend, a search for BIC & AB DNB bankas found the missing information: here



BIC8 = AGBLLT2X

BIC11 = AGBLLT2XXXX



....



Must the amount be prime ?

Hopefully, it should not be one of the T5k :)



Donation ongoing ....

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Badge Score: 1*2 + 10*5 + 4*6 + 2*7 + 2*8 + 1*9 = 115

Thanks - my bank doesn't even provide the longer version in their information page. Added this information to the donation page.

Quick update: we now have enough money to pay for the servers - and I just got news they will be delivered to me tomorrow. It will take a while to set things up, but the first major step is done. Expect photos :)



We are now in the next donation progress bar, which covers hosting both servers in the datacenter. It is going to cost us 140€ per month (5000€ for the next three years), so all your help is very much appreciated.

The new servers are back in their boxes and I'll bring them to the datacenter tomorrow. Thanks to everyone who donated!

Just sent 25 euro. wish it could be more, best of luck

I sent 10 Euros on 11/14/17 just making sure that you got it.

Thanks - we did get those, thank you for your support! Tallying up donations is a manual process that I just completed, so you should get your crowns very soon.

If we are no longer being provided for by Rackspace, why is their log still present in the side bar?

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If we are no longer being provided for by Rackspace, why is their log still present in the side bar?



tl;dr: We'll be at Rackspace for another year, so we're saving money in 2018.



The last few months have been a bit confusing. We've been given an extra year of free hosting at Rackspace and now expect to be there through the end of 2018. This, of course, happened after we'd purchased servers and set them up in a datacenter. The current plan is to keep one of the two new servers as a contingency during the next year, while repurposing the second server outside of PrimeGrid, essentially recouping half the expense of both the hardware and the datacenter fees. That will save us money, leave us in a better position in case something unexpected happens with regards to Rackspace, and next fall we'll (re)purchase the second server and go back to our originally plan. Assuming nothing changes in the next year.





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My lucky number is 75898524288+1

If we are no longer being provided for by Rackspace, why is their log still present in the side bar?



tl;dr: We'll be at Rackspace for another year, so we're saving money in 2018.





while you stay another year at rackspace, will you reopen PSA / PRPNet

or will you let it down unless the porting problems to the own servers are solved?



thanks in advance for any short comment

____________

Sysadm@Nbg

my current lucky number: 3749*2^1555697+1

PSA-PRPNet-Stats-URL: http://u-g-f.de/PRPNet/



If we are no longer being provided for by Rackspace, why is their log still present in the side bar?



tl;dr: We'll be at Rackspace for another year, so we're saving money in 2018.





while you stay another year at rackspace, will you reopen PSA / PRPNet

or will you let it down unless the porting problems to the own servers are solved?



thanks in advance for any short comment



This mindreading thing really has to stop. :)



I was literally thinking a few minutes ago about how nobody has asked or complained about PRPNet.



Here's my question to everyone: WWWW is down until it's modified to produce a meaningful residue so it can be double checked reliably. If and when it returns, it's conceivable it might run on BOINC rather than PRPNet.



That leaves only 27, 121, primorial, and factorial running on PRPNet.



How strong is the demand to run any of those 4?



I'm not saying we'd necessarily turn it on anytime soon (there's some issues), but I do want to know how important it is to all of you.

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My lucky number is 75898524288+1

I may not have been the most consistent PRP runner, despite my showing in the last years' challenges, but I do like having it available as a part of my subproject rotation, and the FPS/PRS searches were pretty decent on my pre-AVX machine.



I think many of us were silent on the issue because the posts about the shutdown were all about the move and being back online after a few things were resolved, and like anyone who loves GFN22, we have a lot of patience to spare!



So, bring it back, please?

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Eating more cheese on Thursdays.

some inline comments - sorry for this "unreadable"



If we are no longer being provided for by Rackspace, why is their log still present in the side bar?



tl;dr: We'll be at Rackspace for another year, so we're saving money in 2018.





while you stay another year at rackspace, will you reopen PSA / PRPNet

or will you let it down unless the porting problems to the own servers are solved?



thanks in advance for any short comment



This mindreading thing really has to stop. :)



I was literally thinking a few minutes ago about how nobody has asked or complained about PRPNet.



NO! :) ;-)



Here's my question to everyone: WWWW is down until it's modified to produce a meaningful residue so it can be double checked reliably. If and when it returns, it's conceivable it might run on BOINC rather than PRPNet.



full agree - if we cant make a double check it should be offline



That leaves only 27, 121, primorial, and factorial running on PRPNet.



How strong is the demand to run any of those 4?



I'm not saying we'd necessarily turn it on anytime soon (there's some issues), but I do want to know how important it is to all of you.

cool stuff - but I think - and thats my absolutly personally opinion, not triggered by any thougth of lay down doing on stats- , we should focus on SoB doublecheck, if it is finished we can search on every project for new "great again" primes

____________

Sysadm@Nbg

my current lucky number: 3749*2^1555697+1

PSA-PRPNet-Stats-URL: http://u-g-f.de/PRPNet/



IMO factorial and primorial should be moved to BOINC, and the other PRPNet projects can be stopped.

____________



I'm not personally fussy about PRPNet - the more on BOINC the better. But after the SoB doublecheck to keep efforts focussed (although we are then talking years not months are we not until 'new' projects are introduced).

What I liked about PRPNet was a way to get the PSA badge without a GPU. If CPU manual sieving opens up sometime, PRPNet wouldn't really matter to me, but if it doesn't, I would like PRPNet back.

If 321 is on BOINC, we might as well add 27121 too.

If 321 is on BOINC, we might as well add 27121 too.



I do not recall why we do k=27 and k=121 specifically?



While 3*2^n ± 1 are "logical" candidates, and exciting, are k=27;121 a completely arbitrary choice? I have done work on them on PRPNet, but to me those k are no more special than, say, k=25 and k=125. Maybe I am missing something...



I think primorial and factorial and 321 are interesting categories that PrimeGrid should offer, on either platform (BOINC or PRPNet).



I also find WWWW (Wieferich/Wilson/Wall-Sun-Sun/Wolstenholme) interesting, but I agree we should not do work on them before a solution for the double checking issue has been found. A result like "there are no more Wieferich primes below 10^18 but we have no idea what percentage of the work units leading to 10^18 was invalid" is really not cool.



/JeppeSN



I did not ask a question about PRPNet because I thought things were being worked out behind the scenes and I didn't want to bother :P. I would enjoy having the option of running it for PSA credit and I think the primorial and factorial prime projects are particularly interesting. Like JeppeSN, I don't really see what's special about the 27 and 121 prime searches. Also, being new to PrimeGrid, I don't really know how much time projects usually spend on PRPNet before being ported to BOINC (if ever), but I wouldn't mind also if those were on BOINC.

At PrimeGrid PRPNet seems to be a Sideshow compared to the BOINC Main Event. As a proving ground it has a place.



It occurred to me that PRPNet/PSA credit could serve as a welcome mat for "pet prime projects" and "junior project admin" development experience - I'm looking at mackerel's "my little play with generalized fermat primes".



PRPNet could become an integration point for onboarding projects that don't qualify for T5K treatment but whose project admins might wish to come under PrimeGrid's Big Tent. I think the primary benefit would be sharing the overhead of hosted services and deduplication of overhead work.



I'm not sure PrimeGrid would see any benefits from doing that other than building a bigger community.

Personally I’d like to see FPS back since I found one a few years ago.



____________



Thanks for sharing your opinions. Keep them coming!!



::Administrator hat off::



Here's my personal thoughts:



WWWW: I'd like to see it back once it's in a position to be double checked. As a GPU project, it's especially prone to errors, and it really needs the ability to double check.



Primorial/Factorial: I'd like to move them to BOINC. There's two difficulties here: It's PFGW, not LLR, so we'd need an entirely new wrapper/interface. No multi-threading. Does it checkpoint? (I think it does on this test.) Biggest issue: sieving. A lot more tests will be done on BOINC than PRPNet, so we'll need to sieve more before starting.



27/121: This predates me, and my understanding may not be accurate. I believe this was originally an external mega prime project that was later merged into PrimeGrid. The 2 k's were picked because they were "high weight". As a mega prime project, PPS-MEGA is better, in my opinion. I personally wouldn't have a problem with shutting 27/121 down.

____________

My lucky number is 75898524288+1

27/121: This predates me, and my understanding may not be accurate. I believe this was originally an external mega prime project that was later merged into PrimeGrid. The 2 k's were picked because they were "high weight". As a mega prime project, PPS-MEGA is better, in my opinion. I personally wouldn't have a problem with shutting 27/121 down.



27;121 had two forms: plus one and minus one. The plus-one form, 27*2^n + 1 and 121*2^n + 1, is nothing more than a Proth search.



What was the relation between the 27;121 projects on PRPNet and the Proth projects PPS and MEGA on BOINC? Are the BOINC projects excluding the specific multipliers 27 and 121? It appears that PRPNet 27;121 worked on higher exponents (n around 6 to 8 million) than the BOINC projects?



It is OK that 27;121 stays closed. We should make sure that PPS and MEGA treat those two k just like all other multipliers.



/JeppeSN

Generally, double-check ability of BOINC is why we move from PRPNet to BOINC, and we should keep it that way.



WWWW - I would really like to see it back when it is usable. With PG BOINC push and considerable more participants (ie. those badge hunters alone), should shortly become most complete search. Only GPU version is ok.



Primorial/Factorial - same reason, should be most advanced search when it runs on BOINC.

Since PFGW is not LLR (not as highly optimized, not MT), running it on older servers sounds convenient (ie. keep Coffee Lakes warm on LLR).



27;121 - no extra interest (even my third largest prime so far found back in 2009)

____________

My stats

Badge score: 1*1 + 5*1 + 8*3 + 9*11 + 10*1 + 11*1 + 12*3 = 186

Since PFGW is not LLR (not as highly optimized, not MT), running it on older servers sounds convenient (ie. keep Coffee Lakes warm on LLR).

I understood that PFGW uses gwnum like LLR/Prime95, so apart from not having multi-thread enabled, it should make good use of available CPU instructions.



Iain had a go at making PFGW multi-thread, in a similar way to how it was implemented on LLR. http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=22607

I'm no programmer or mathematician, so can't comment on that any beyond giving the link. If there eventually comes a Windows version, I'd certainly help out in any testing.

I understood that PFGW uses gwnum like LLR/Prime95, so apart from not having multi-thread enabled, it should make good use of available CPU instructions.



Iain had a go at making PFGW multi-thread, in a similar way to how it was implemented on LLR. http://www.mersenneforum.org/showthread.php?t=22607

I'm no programmer or mathematician, so can't comment on that any beyond giving the link. If there eventually comes a Windows version, I'd certainly help out in any testing.



Yeah, not much effective with multi-threading from what Iain found so far.

Latest Win version I found is 3.8.3 from 2016 with gwnum v28.6 (from 2015), that is not multi-threaded.

____________

My stats

Badge score: 1*1 + 5*1 + 8*3 + 9*11 + 10*1 + 11*1 + 12*3 = 186

I was literally thinking a few minutes ago about how nobody has asked or complained about PRPNet.



Here's my question to everyone: WWWW is down until it's modified to produce a meaningful residue so it can be double checked reliably. If and when it returns, it's conceivable it might run on BOINC rather than PRPNet.



That leaves only 27, 121, primorial, and factorial running on PRPNet.



How strong is the demand to run any of those 4?



I'm not saying we'd necessarily turn it on anytime soon (there's some issues), but I do want to know how important it is to all of you.



Personally, I’ve been eagerly watching for the return of PRPNet, specifically the k=27 project. It was my goal to get to #1 and/or find a top 50 prime. Simplistically the lack of a double-check on PRPNet meant that my slower machines couldn’t be “beaten to the finish line” if they did find a prime (I do, however, see the logic in double-checking!)

If PRPNet returns, I’d carry on crunching k=27 but also understand that it may not be worth the time/effort required to run this project...

JeppeSN wrote: What was the relation between the 27;121 projects on PRPNet and the Proth projects PPS and MEGA on BOINC? Are the BOINC projects excluding the specific multipliers 27 and 121? It appears that PRPNet 27;121 worked on higher exponents (n around 6 to 8 million) than the BOINC projects?

The residues from k=27 and k=121 where c=1 are fed into BOINC and those candidates are doublechecked as part of either the PPS or PPS Mega subprojects. Obviously, we don't retest primes.



The donations tally seems to be stuck at 12.1 percent. Do we need a reminder for people to donate as we appear to have a long way to go to reach our target?

Yes, please, Turn it on, turn it on, turn it on again...

All I need is a Primegrid show, that and the radio

Down on my luck again, down on my luck again

....



oups.. sorry...I digress... :)

<Music off>



Seriously, PSA is a great project for especially one reason. I can run it on computer where I don't have Internet access (or limited). It canbe even used on computer without install right.



I set up a configuration on a computer with internet access to sync WU. I then use a usb key to feed the other computer. Far more complicated with BOINC.



About projects,wwww,Primorial and Factorial.

____________

Badge Score: 1*2 + 10*5 + 4*6 + 2*7 + 2*8 + 1*9 = 115

The residues from k=27 and k=121 where c=1 are fed into BOINC and those candidates are doublechecked as part of either the PPS or PPS Mega subprojects. Obviously, we don't retest primes.



Excellent!



Then unless PrimeGrid wants to create a general search for primes of the form k*2^n - 1 for all "small" k, in my opinion, we can drop the minus forms of 27 and 121. And for the plus forms, we know PPS and PPS-MEGA will handle them eventually.



/JeppeSN

vaughan wrote: The donations tally seems to be stuck at 12.1 percent. Do we need a reminder for people to donate as we appear to have a long way to go to reach our target?

The "Server colocation for 2017 October - 2020 September" bar was at 56.8% a few minutes ago.

I've just made a humble contribution.

Let's see is the bar moves.

Rytis, can you please check if the donation I made on June 27th, via PayPal, got through ?

It was my fist transaction on PayPal.

Also, I'm anxious to wear a crown :)



WE ARE MOVING!!!



This Friday we will be migrating PrimeGrid to the new servers.



Expect both PrimeGrid and PRPNet to be completely offline for several hours, or even a day or two if things go sideways badly. Everything will be down, including the forums. We'll keep you informed of progress on our Discord server.



If you're wondering what time on Friday, I don't know yet. However, Jim and I both live in the -5:00 timezone, and we're not going to do this while we're sleeping.



____________

My lucky number is 75898524288+1

Will this impact the Leonids challenge???

____________





Tonight's lucky numbers are



555*2^3563328+1 (PPS-MEGA)



and



58523466^131072+1 (GFN-17 MEGA)

Will this impact the Leonids challenge???



Shouldn't cause that challenge ends in 14 hours and this downtime is scheduled for this Friday.

Expect the new server to be a little rough around the edges at first. There's a lot of non-essential functions we won't configure until after the move. Getting and returning tasks will work, database replication will work, and the web pages and forums will mostly work. Non-essential services such as statistics and charts will come online a bit later.

____________

My lucky number is 75898524288+1

DOH!



Thanx Chase

____________





Tonight's lucky numbers are



555*2^3563328+1 (PPS-MEGA)



and



58523466^131072+1 (GFN-17 MEGA)

So on Black Friday aye?



For those who may not understand, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving where all common sense comes to an end and shopping frenzy takes over. I know of people who plan for this all year long.



Cheers

____________

@AggieThePew





So on Black Friday aye?



For those who may not understand, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving where all common sense comes to an end and shopping frenzy takes over. I know of people who plan for this all year long.



Cheers



:) Yes, I will be doing some shopping myself. It's only a day, maybe 2 or 3. Not a loss. As with any move or upgrade I'm sure things will be improved. Looking forward to a happy new home for the server.



You can always queue up a day or two worth of workunits. Don't count on firsts necessarily, but you could still crunch.

Please advise how long a queue we will need to ensure (say) a 99% confidence that we will not be left without work.



Obvs you cannot guarantee against unknown unknowns, but a ball park guess is more likely to be helpful if it comes from you than if I do the guessing.



Thanks!!

____________

My computers found:



9831*21441403+1 is a quadhectokilo prime prime, ie >400,000 digits ;)



252031090528237591 + 65521*149*23*19*17*13*11*7*5*3*2*n is prime for every n in { 0..20 } (an arithemtic progression of 21 primes)

Please advise how long a queue we will need to ensure (say) a 99% confidence that we will not be left without work.



Obvs you cannot guarantee against unknown unknowns, but a ball park guess is more likely to be helpful if it comes from you than if I do the guessing.



Thanks!!



I really don't know. I expect it to be a few hours, but it's hard to be sure. Personally, I'll load 24 hours worth of work onto my own computers. I'm not expecting it to take that long, but 1 day is a nice round number and I'm all but certain we won't be down that long.

____________

My lucky number is 75898524288+1

Please advise how long a queue we will need to ensure (say) a 99% confidence that we will not be left without work.



Obvs you cannot guarantee against unknown unknowns, but a ball park guess is more likely to be helpful if it comes from you than if I do the guessing.



Thanks!!

Michael stated one or two days, which looks to me as a 90% confidence interval. Assuming a simple exponential distribution for down time, 99% would be around 4 days.

Michael stated one or two days...



No I did not. Or, wait, I actually did, but I meant that only if things go unimaginably wrong. I can't actually think of anything that would take that long. The 99% confidence level is less than 18 hours. 90% is 6 hours. 50% is 4 hours.



I'm putting one day's worth of work on my computers. If there's anything critical to the move that can't be solved in the first day, chances are we won't be confident about solving it on Saturday either, so we'd probably just turn the old servers back on and regroup to make a new plan. Most items that aren't already done aren't critical, and we can do them after the move. The new server's already working and tested. We've run BOINC tasks on it. The only critical, absolutely must-do items that need to be done is to copy the latest data over and change the name and DNS to that of the live server. Everything else can wait until after the move if there's a problem.





(What those estimates really mean is "My best guess is 4 hours, unless something is a lot harder than expected. By 6 hours I'll probably be sick of it and be ready to just turn it on and fix everything else later. 18 hours is when if it's still not working we'll have turned the old server back on and gone to sleep.")

____________

My lucky number is 75898524288+1

Michael stated one or two days...



No I did not. Or, wait, I actually did, but I meant that only if things go unimaginably wrong. I can't actually think of anything that would take that long. The 99% confidence level is less than 18 hours. 90% is 6 hours. 50% is 4 hours.

I certainly did not mean that you would not work safely and efficiently, as I am very confident.

But I tend to be very conservative when users ask for a 99% confidence interval, as I have been through nightmarish upgrades where the fallback also went wrong.



Yeah and congratulations!



Here's to an uneventful migration :)

Special badge for the first person to get a workunit from the new server?

Special badge for the first person to get a workunit from the new server?



LOL You know that will be Mike or Jim testing right?

Michael says.

... The 99% confidence level is less than 18 hours. 90% is 6 hours. 50% is 4 hours...



So 18 hours is good enough for me. YMMV



____________

My computers found:



9831*21441403+1 is a quadhectokilo prime prime, ie >400,000 digits ;)



252031090528237591 + 65521*149*23*19*17*13*11*7*5*3*2*n is prime for every n in { 0..20 } (an arithemtic progression of 21 primes)

Special badge for the first person to get a workunit from the new server?



You ask that as if I haven't already run tasks from the new server. :)

____________

My lucky number is 75898524288+1

Hi,



Just wondering when today you plan to do this work...



What time zone are the volunteers effecting the move working on?



Are you basically on European or American time?



Or, if you know more precisely than that, what time in UT do you anticipate retiring the old server?

____________

My computers found:



9831*21441403+1 is a quadhectokilo prime prime, ie >400,000 digits ;)



252031090528237591 + 65521*149*23*19*17*13*11*7*5*3*2*n is prime for every n in { 0..20 } (an arithemtic progression of 21 primes)

https://www.primegrid.com/forum_thread.php?id=7592&nowrap=true#122692

[quote]https://www.primegrid.com/forum_thread.php?id=7592&nowrap=true#122692[/quote



Thanks, I missed that one !!



and as a link ;)

____________

My computers found:



9831*21441403+1 is a quadhectokilo prime prime, ie >400,000 digits ;)



252031090528237591 + 65521*149*23*19*17*13*11*7*5*3*2*n is prime for every n in { 0..20 } (an arithemtic progression of 21 primes)

Welcome back

____________





Tonight's lucky numbers are



555*2^3563328+1 (PPS-MEGA)



and



58523466^131072+1 (GFN-17 MEGA)

That didn't take long. Very nice Mike and Jim and anyone else!

Thanks both, all seemed fairly slick. Do dish any dirt if you have any!

We're on the new servers. Most important things appear to be working. Jim and I have several things yet to configure, but you should be able to do all the the important stuff.

____________

My lucky number is 75898524288+1

That was fast !

Congrats to all envolved in the move.



I overestimated the offline time.

I can't test task fetch and return yet.

Still 10 more hours to finish the current SOB task and 2 days to end a GFN22. :)



____________

"Accidit in puncto, quod non contingit in anno."

Something that does not occur in a year may, perchance, happen in a moment.

The 99% confidence level is less than 18 hours. 90% is 6 hours. 50% is 4 hours.



Actual down time was about 4.5 hours.



____________

My lucky number is 75898524288+1

The 99% confidence level is less than 18 hours. 90% is 6 hours. 50% is 4 hours.



Actual down time was about 4.5 hours.





Impressive guys, well done. They don't usually go so smooth. Lots of planing involved.

____________

My lucky numbers 10590941048576+1 and 224584605939537911+81292139*23#*n for n=0..26



Impressive guys, well done.



+2

Well done to the team. 4.5 hours with all that data meant a lot of foresight. Kudos!

I noticed we seem to be ad free now or at least for the moment.

It looks the cite works much faster )

We picked up some new forum BBCode tags as part of the move. We now support strikethrough, and superscript.



[ s ] strikethrough



[ sup ] 75898524288+1

____________

My lucky number is 75898524288+1

We picked up some new forum BBCode tags as part of the move. We now support strikethrough, and superscript.



[ s ] strikethrough



[ sup ] 75898524288+1



Cool - I can see a use for this already.



and yes feel free to hide this LOL

I do have an actual question. Why is the Task status page only for activity since the move? Did we lose all historical data or was it just not feasible to port it?

I do have an actual question. Why is the Task status page only for activity since the move? Did we lose all historical data or was it just not feasible to port it?



It wasn't feasible to move it.

____________

My lucky number is 75898524288+1

We picked up some new forum BBCode tags as part of the move. We now support strikethrough, and superscript.



[ s ] strikethrough



[ sup ] 75898524288+1

Creativity abound. How high do the superscripts go ;)?

The only limit is the stars



The only limit is the stars





But we do not seem to have a subscript (at least not on the obvs tag)



The only limit is the centre of the Earth

____________

My computers found:



9831*21441403+1 is a quadhectokilo prime prime, ie >400,000 digits ;)



252031090528237591 + 65521*149*23*19*17*13*11*7*5*3*2*n is prime for every n in { 0..20 } (an arithemtic progression of 21 primes)

The only limit is the stars





But we do not seem to have a subscript (at least not on the obvs tag)



The only limit is the centre of the Earth



Correct. No subscripts.



____________

My lucky number is 75898524288+1

The only limit is the stars





But we do not seem to have a subscript (at least not on the obvs tag)



The only limit is the centre of the Earth



Correct. No subscripts.





Until now. Subscripts were very, very easy to add. Not sure why BOINC didn't add them in when they put in superscripts. Anyway, feel to do silly things to your heart's content...



Normal downup downup downup downup downup

____________

My lucky number is 75898524288+1

We picked up some new forum BBCode tags as part of the move. We now support strikethrough,..



[ s ] strikethrough ...





Saw this post again today, from the old server... made me wonder did strikethrough always work ?(but undocumented so we never knew)



Or did it originally appear with visible markup, I wonder?



Not that it matters of course...but dukebg obvs typed in the correct BBcode back in April



Anyway it is good to have it more widely known :)

____________

My computers found:



9831*21441403+1 is a quadhectokilo prime prime, ie >400,000 digits ;)



252031090528237591 + 65521*149*23*19*17*13*11*7*5*3*2*n is prime for every n in { 0..20 } (an arithemtic progression of 21 primes)

and at last your lucky number can be written as an explicit power of two :)



75898219

and at last your lucky number can be written as an explicit power of two :)



75898219



It can be hard to read, but you can write stuff like:



3·210829346 + 1 is a factor of 12210829343 + 7210829343.



The last number (an xGF) is so incredibly huge; it has about 1.29·103259957 digits.



/JeppeSN

JeppeSN wrote: ... It can be hard to read ...

The size tag can help (using size=14 here):



3·210829346 + 1 is a factor of 12210829343 + 7210829343 .

The last number (an xGF) is so incredibly huge; it has about 1.29·103259957 digits. ...



____________

"Accidit in puncto, quod non contingit in anno."

Something that does not occur in a year may, perchance, happen in a moment.

Not sure if it is after the server move but anyway.



While testing i7 9700K, HostID 972159, I was looking at Average turnaround time.

It shows 0.00 days for PPS Mega.

Well, ok, 0.01 days is 864 sec and real (not wrongly reported) run times form PPS Mega is ~560 secs so it can shows as 0.00 days.



But 321 tasks are longer and takes around 2 hours on i7 8700K, HostID 248611

321 (LLR) 8.01 windows_x86_64

Number of tasks completed 0

Max tasks per day 3968

Number of tasks today 7

Consecutive valid tasks 68

Average turnaround time 0.00 days



Also not 0 number of tasks completed, but today 7 and consecutive valid 68 - doesn't match.



btw, does it makes sense to delete all "Missing app version" records?

I've over 100 app records under single host.

____________

My stats

Badge score: 1*1 + 5*1 + 8*3 + 9*11 + 10*1 + 11*1 + 12*3 = 186

Not sure if it is after the server move but anyway.



Yes, it is. We moved 8 days ago.



While testing i7 9700K, HostID 972159, I was looking at Average turnaround time.

It shows 0.00 days for PPS Mega.

Well, ok, 0.01 days is 864 sec and real (not wrongly reported) run times form PPS Mega is ~560 secs so it can shows as 0.00 days.



But 321 tasks are longer and takes around 2 hours on i7 8700K, HostID 248611

321 (LLR) 8.01 windows_x86_64

Number of tasks completed 0

Max tasks per day 3968

Number of tasks today 7

Consecutive valid tasks 68

Average turnaround time 0.00 days



Also not 0 number of tasks completed, but today 7 and consecutive valid 68 - doesn't match.



PrimeGrid has never fully used those features, so those fields were never filled in.



btw, does it makes sense to delete all "Missing app version" records?

I've over 100 app records under single host.



It might. There's about 1.5 million host_app_version rows in the database for app_versions that have been deleted. That's about 60% of the total.



EDIT: This has nothing to do with the move, so it is off-topic here. If there's more discussion about this, please create a new thread.

____________

My lucky number is 75898524288+1