Hello all,
have a lab of computers that have been deployed using Ghost and they all have the same Host ID (not surprising ). I am after some way to reset them in bulk. Be much appreciated if someone can point me to suggestions on how to do this and how to prevent it in future.

Thanks in advance
Graeme

Not sure; have the clients connected to BAM and/or the projects yet? I would think that the project might be able to see that there are multiple hosts trying to connect and issue a new host ID--but maybe not if we're talking about an entire lab of identical computers. Is there a particular reason you need to manage the computers individually? I would think that to be a rather tedious chore; if you are doing mass imaging I'd think the best way to manage groups of computers would be to give each image with the desired attributes a different name. That way, if BAM is still identifying them all as though they were the same host, you could sned out updates via BAM that way.

I had introduced an idea to distribute BOINC on a large scale (600 computers), but got shot down by the higher-ups. Would like to know how things goes, just in case I ever get the chance in the future. Assuming I get my job back

Noderaser, thanks for the reply,

As each computer in the lab connects to BAM it updates the host name in my host list to its name. Last time I looked Lab-01 was the last one connected but early this morning it was Lab-23. I think I can managed the hosts ok as it is but this morning Climate predication.net brought up a server database error when trying to attach so don't know which end is causing that error.

I don't care about managing each computer individually but I do want to be able to present information to management about how much computing power the school is supplying to the projects. With the current focus on climate change the do go feel that management can portray by donating unused computer time to Climate prediction.net is the clincher for us.

Hope this helps

Regards
Graeme

Try this:
Stop BOINC (!), go to the BOINC directory, open acct_mgr_login.xml, randomly change the host_authenticator value (different of course for every host (except one which can have the current ID)), and finally restart BOINC. This should create a new BAM! host ID. I'm not sure because I did not code it this way, but just checked and it should work.

This does not change you Host ID at the projects, if they are a problem too then use delayed detach and re-attach.

Thanks Willy, that worked. I found I could just delete the host_authenticator value and it recreated a new random one.

Regards
Graeme

Not sure what your organizational structure is like, but to have detailed stats you could create a team for your organization, and then an account for each lab or department whose contributions you want to monitor as a portion of the whole. I think trying to sort out host stats in an organization like that could be a full-time job.

Noderaser, thanks for the reply,

I don't know how far I want to/can go so am just trying out a few things. Without each host being recorded properly in the host list they didn't "seem" to be generating any credit. Credit is important for generating the positive feedback I need to procced further.

If I get the positive feedback I may try an account for each site (school) and then a team for all the sites combined. At the moment the hosts are running under my personal account which is of course incorrect and will need to be moved to an account that reflects who truly owns them (Victorian Government Schools, Australia). Any way this part of the discussion which is important is best left for another thread.

Regards
Graeme