Running apps in VirtualBox virtual machines

Introduction

BOINC supports applications that run in VirtualBox virtual machines. This provides two benefits:

• You don't need to build app versions for different architectures. Develop your app in your environment of choice (say, Debian Linux), and then bundle the resulting executable together with a virtual machine image containing an appropriate runtime environment. The application can then be run on all platforms (Windows, Mac OS X, all versions of Linux) with no additional work on your part.
• Virtual machines provide the strongest available security sandbox; a program running in a virtual machine cannot access or modify the host system. This makes it feasible to deploy untrusted applications.

BOINC's support for VM apps is based on a program called vboxwrapper that interfaces between the BOINC client and the VirtualBox system.

Restrictions

• Commercial operating systems like Windows and Mac OS X have a license with a pay-per-user clause, so in general you can't use them in the VM image. Similarly, you can't include pay-per-user software such as Matlab in the VM image.

• VirtualBox runs only on Intel-compatible processors. If you want to support other processors (such as ARM, SPARC, etc.), you'll need to use non-VM-based app versions.

• Currently you can't run GPU applications in VirtualBox VMs. This may change in the future.

32/64 bit issues

A VM image is called 32- or 64-bit depending on the operating system it contains. The BOINC host population includes 32-bit and 64-bit hosts. 64-bit hosts can run 32-bit VMs, but not conversely. You can choose to provide 32- or 64-bit VM images, or both.

Possible reasons for using 64-bit VM images:

• The 64-bit version of your app runs significantly faster than the 32-bit version.
• Your app uses more than 3 GB of virtual address space.

If you provide only 32-bit VM images, you must still create separate 32- and 64-bit app versions, using the same VM image but different vboxwrapper executables. (vboxwrapper is a C++ program and has different executables for each platform, include 32- and 64-bit; these are available below. The 32-bit vboxwrapper will generally not work on a 64-bit machine).

Packaging options

There are two ways to package VM apps. NOTE: in the following, we use application and application version with their BOINC-specific meanings; we'll use executable to refer to the program that runs within the VM.

• Single-purpose app: Include the executable with the application version. Create a separate application for each executable you want to run.
• Multi-purpose app: Include the executable in each workunit. This allows you to use a single application for as many executables as you like. In this case, consider making the executable file sticky; that way, clients will download it only once.

Creating app versions

You must create app versions for each platform you want to support; the app versions differ in which vboxwrapper executable they use. If you use both 32- and 64-bit VMs, the versions will also differ in the VM image and the application executable.

The application versions for a given platform are of plan class "vbox32" (for 32-bit machines) or "vbox64" (for 64-bit machines). For single-purpose apps, an app version includes the following files:

• The VM image, in VirtualBox format.
  • Must have the copy_file attribute.
  • Should have the gzip attribute for faster download to 7.0+ clients.
  • Must have logical name "vm_image.vdi".
• The application executable to be run in the VM image.
  • This may be a shell script or a binary program.
  • The logical name must be shared/boinc_app.
• Other files needed by the application, all with logical names starting with shared/.
• An XML job description file with logical name vbox_job.xml (see below)
• vboxwrapper, compiled for the platform (executables are available below).
• All scripts and executables must have the execute permission set.

For multi-purpose apps, any of these files except vboxwrapper may be included in the workunit instead of the app version.

Include <dont_throttle/> in the version.xml file; VirtualBox does its own CPU throttling.

Typically you can use the same VM image for multiple applications. This reduces network traffic and client disk usage.

The job description file

The job description file has logical name vbox_job.xml (its physical name should include a version number and other info). It has following structure:

<vbox_job>
   <os_name>name</os_name>
   <memory_size_mb>N</memory_size_mb>
   [ <enable_network/> ]
   [ <enable_shared_directory/> ]
   [ <enable_floppyio>0|1</enable_floppyio> ]
   [ <job_duration>X<job_duration> ]
   [ <pf_guest_port>N</pf_guest_port> ]
   [ <pf_host_port>N</pf_host_port> ]
</vbox_job>

The elements are:

os_name

the name of the guest OS as defined by VirtualBox, e.g. "Linux26", "Linux26_64", "Linux24", etc. To see a list of all available OS names, install VirtualBox on a system, and type "vboxmanage list ostypes".

memory_size_mb

the amount of physical memory allocated to the VM, in megabytes.

enable_network

if present, allow the VM to do network access.

enabled_shared_directory

if present, create a directory that is shared between the host OS and the guest OS. Must be set if your application has input or output files.

enable_floppyio

create a floppy disk image in the VM, containing the contents of init_data.xml.

job_duration

this specifies the maximum elapsed time of the job, after which vboxwrapper will kill the VM and exit normally.

pf_guest_port

enable port forwarding to port N within the VM. This is assumed to be a web server providing application graphics. pf_host_port: host port # for port forwarding. If missing or zero, the host port number is assigned dynamically, and is written to a file vbox_port_forward.xml in the slot directory.

Requirements of the VM

The VM, when booted, must do the following:

• If the applications has input or output files, mount the shared directory using

mount -t vboxsf shared /root/shared

where "/root/shared" is the path where the shared directory is to be mounted. In this case the VM must contain the VirtualBox "guest additions". Guest additions are required for shared folders to work.

• Run the application.

• When the application is finished, shut down the VM (e.g., by running shutdown on Linux).

These steps are typically done by a startup script in the VM image. An example startup script is given below. This script runs the application by doing the following:

• cd into the shared directory
• execute boinc_app, and wait for it to exit.

Using this script, your application executable must have logical name share/boinc_app.

Doing things this way, the VM image is independent of the application. You can use the a single VM image for many applications.

Creating jobs for VM apps

The input and output files of a VM app must

• Have logical names starting with shared/.
• Have the copy_file attribute.

This causes the BOINC client to copy them to and from the slot/x/shared/ directory.

How it works: example

Using the example startup script, the steps in running a vboxwrapper app are:

1. BOINC client
   • Create slot directory, say slot/0
   • Create slot/0/shared, and copy input files there
   • Execute vboxwrapper in the slot directory
2. vboxwrapper
   • Create and run virtual machine
3. Virtual machine
   • Startup script
     • mounts shared directory
     • cd into shared directory
     • execute boinc_app
     • when boinc_app exits, shut down virtual machine
4. vboxwrapper
   • delete virtual machine
   • call boinc_finish()
5. BOINC client
   • copy output files from slot/0/shared to project directory

Example startup script

The example startup script follows. You can deploy it by appending to /root/.bashrc in the VM image.

echo --- BOINC VM starting
sleep 5

The "sleep 5" gives you time to break into a console session via CTRL-C if you need to make changes to the VM in the future.

echo --- Mounting shared directory
mount -t vboxsf shared /root/shared
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
    echo --- Failed to mount shared directory
    sleep 5
    shutdown -hP 0
fi

echo -- Launching boinc_app
if [ -f /root/shared/boinc_app ]; then
    cd /root/shared
    ./boinc_app
    shutdown -hP 0
else
    echo --- Failed to launch script
    sleep 5
fi
shutdown -hP 0

Creating VM images

The VM image that you distribute need contain only the runtime environment for your applications. In particular, it need not contain:

• Development tools such as gcc
• GUI software such as X11, gtk etc.

Reducing the VM image size reduces the network load on your server and on volunteer hosts, and the disk usage on volunteer hosts.

The easiest way to make a "small" Linux VM is to install the network install of Debian within the VM. You can find the netinst images ​here. Such VMs have VirtualBox and guest additions installed by default. They have the runtime libraries needed to run C and C++ applications.

NOTE: 32- and 64-bit VM images created in this way, and containing all the changes described below, are available (see links below). If you use these VM images, you can skip the rest of this section.

Role Selection

During install you'll be asked what role should this Linux machine be configured for. Make sure all roles are unselected before continuing.

Updating Grub

If you want to speed up the boot process, change the default timeout for grub by modifing /etc/default/grub:

GRUB_TIMEOUT = 0

After saving the update run:

update-grub

Updating Inittab

To configure Linux for automatic login you'll need to install a different terminal handler. mingetty works well for our purposes.

To install mingetty:

root@boinc-vm-image:/etc/default# apt-get install mingetty

Next you'll need to change the terminal handler assigned to the first virtual terminal. Change line:

1:2345:respawn:/sbin/getty 38400 tty1

To:

1:2345:respawn:/sbin/mingetty --autologin root --noclear tty1

Premade vboxwrapper executables

Windows:

x86: vboxwrapper_24259_windows_intelx86.zip

x64: vboxwrapper_24259_windows_x86_64.zip

Mac OS X:

Linux:

x86: vboxwrapper_24259_i686-pc-linux-gnu.zip

x64: vboxwrapper_24259_x86_64-pc-linux-gnu.zip

Premade Linux VM Images

These VM images were built using the above instructions for creating VM images. They contain Debian 4.0, without GCC or any build tools installed. They contain the example startup script.

x86: vmimage_debian40_x86.zip

x64: vmimage_debian40_x64.zip

In most cases, you can use these VM images with no modifications. If your application uses libraries not on the VM images, you can add them as follows:

• Run VirtualBox, and open the VM image
• Hit CTRL-C when see "BOINC VM starting" in the console window
• Install whatever you want (can use apt-get install to install Debian packages).
• when you're done, type

  shutdown -hP 0
  

The VM image now has the additional libraries. Rename it to avoid confusion with the original version.