177 | | }}} |
| 172 | |
| 173 | === Virtual machines for BOINC apps === |
| 174 | |
| 175 | Mostly we talked about two approaches: |
| 176 | |
| 177 | * A "inner" BOINC client (or some other queueing system client) runs in the VM. The outer BOINC client views it as a single (potentially infinite) job, and doesn't know anything about files etc. This approach will be important at CERN, where they need to run the PANDA queueing system to get people to use it. |
| 178 | * The (outer) BOINC client knows about jobs, input/output files etc. Only the app runs in the VM. |
| 179 | |
| 180 | Each approach has some requirements and issues. |
| 181 | In the 1st approach we need to pass account ID, user prefs, etc. into the VM. |
| 182 | In the 2nd approach we need be able to move files to and from the VM |
| 183 | (according to Reinhard, Virtual Box provides this capability). |
| 184 | It wasn't clear how to do screensaver graphics in either approach. |
| 185 | |
| 186 | VMWare provides a rich API (web service) with features like suspend, resume, and checkpoint. |
| 187 | |
| 188 | We agreed that app versions should have info (plan_class?) saying which VM player is needed, |
| 189 | and that the BOINC client should detect VM players. |