BOINC client file structure

The client runs in a BOINC data directory. It looks for configuration files and initialization files in this directory. It creates the following files and directories:

• prefs.xml: The user's general preferences; see below.
• client_state.xml describes of the files, application, workunits and results present on this client.
• Account files describes the participant's account in each subscribed project, including the resource share and project-specific preferences. It contains no host-specific information. The name of the account file is account_PROJECT.xml, where PROJECT is an encoded version of the project's master URL.
• A directory projects, which contains a project directory for each subscribed project. The name of a project directory is an encoded version of the project's master URL. The project directory contains all files (inputs, outputs, executables) related to the project.
• slots: this directory contains one subdirectory for each result in progress. The subdirectories are named 0, 1, ... N-1. Each task executes in particular slot directory. The client creates 'soft link' files in the slot directory, linking to the corresponding files in the project directory.

Format of account files

The format of an account file is as follows:

<account>
    <master_url>http://www.myproject.com/</master_url>
    <authenticator>3f7b90793a0175ad0bda68684e8bd136</authenticator>
    [ <project_name>...</project_name> ]
    <project_preferences>
    <resource_share>1</resource_share>
    <project_specific>
        ...
    </project_specific>
    [ <venue>...</venue> ]
    </project_preferences>
</account>

The <project_preferences> field is the 'project_prefs' field of the user database record.