This document is a WORK IN PROGRESS.
This is just a quick personal cheat sheet: treat its contents with caution!

Folding@home¶

Folding@home (FAH or F@H) is a distributed computing project for performing molecular dynamics simulations of protein dynamics. Its initial focus was on protein folding but has shifted to more biomedical problems, such as Alzheimer's disease, cancer, COVID-19, and Ebola. The project uses the idle processing resources of personal computers owned by volunteers who have installed the software on their systems.

Reference(s)

Warning

This cheat sheet might be still Gentoo + Portage + OpenRC oriented, since I just tested it with this setup...

Install¶

apkaptdnfportage + emergenix~~pacman~~ AUR (by hand)yumxbpszypper

TODO

# vi /etc/portage/package.license
    > # (manual) foldingathome
    > sci-biology/foldingathome FAH-EULA-2014 FAH-special-permission
    >
    > ...

# vi /etc/portage/package.accept_keywords
    > # (manual) last foldingathome
    > sci-biology/foldingathome ~amd64
    >
    > ...

# emerge -a sci-biology/foldingathome

on NixOSon non-NixOS

# nix-env -iA nixos.fahclient

TODO: see also nixos.fahviewer and nixos.fahcontrol

# nix-env -iA nixpkgs.fahclient

TODO: see also nixpkgs.fahviewer and nixpkgs.fahcontrol

Install with AUR:

$ mkdir -p ~/apps/aur-apps
$ cd ~/apps/aur-apps
$ git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/foldingathome/
$ cd foldingathome
$ makepkg -is # --syncdeps to auto-install deps, --install to install after building

TODO

Config¶

Optionally, get a passkey:

Configure Folding at home:

$ sudo /opt/foldingathome/FAHClient --configure
# /opt/foldingathome/config.xml # e.g. it might result in:
    > <config>
    >   <!-- User Information -->
    >   <passkey v='optional_passphrase'/>
    >   <team v='0'/>
    >   <user v='Anonymous'/>
    >
    >   <!-- Folding Slots -->
    >   <slot id='0' type='CPU'/>
    > </config>

TODO

Add the foldingathome user to the video group!

Use¶

Monitor your foldingathome client:

$ firefox https://client.foldingathome.org/

Get all commands details

$ sudo -u foldingathome /opt/foldingathome/FAHClient --help

Get send command details

$ sudo -u foldingathome /opt/foldingathome/FAHClient --chdir "/opt/foldingathome/" --send-command help

Run

$ sudo -u foldingathome /opt/foldingathome/FAHClient --chdir "/opt/foldingathome/"

Gracefully stop, after completing current steps, on an already running client:

$ sudo -u foldingathome /opt/foldingathome/FAHClient --chdir "/opt/foldingathome/" --send-finish

Immediately stop an already running client:

$ sudo -u foldingathome /opt/foldingathome/FAHClient --chdir "/opt/foldingathome/" --send-command "shutdown"

Run folding at home only at night (from 0 to 6):

$ sudo contab -e
    > ...
    > 0 0 * * * sudo -u foldingathome /opt/foldingathome/FAHClient --chdir "/opt/foldingathome/"
    > 0 6 * * * sudo -u foldingathome /opt/foldingathome/FAHClient --chdir "/opt/foldingathome/" --send-finish

OpenRCRunitSysVinitSystemD

Start
```
# rc-service foldingathome start
```
Stop
```
# rc-service foldingathome stop
```
Run Folding at home in the background at boot:
```
# rc-update add foldingathome default
```

Depending on your runit implementation, either run:

# ln -s /etc/runit/sv/foldingathome /service

or run:

# ln -s /etc/runit/sv/foldingathome /var/service

or run:

# ln -s /etc/runit/sv/foldingathome /run/runit/service

Start
```
# sv up foldingathome
```
Stop TODO

Start
```
# service foldingathome start
```
Stop
```
# service foldingathome stop
```
Run Folding at home in the background at boot:
```
# chkconfig foldingathome on
```

Start
```
# systemctl start foldingathome
```
Stop
```
# systemctl stop foldingathome
```
Run Folding at home in the background at boot:
```
# systemctl enable foldingathome
```

Troubleshooting¶

If getting this kind of error: PRAGMA synchronous=NORMAL, database is locked, then foldingathome run multiple instances, try to stop them:
```
$ sudo killall FAHClient
$ sudo -u foldingathome /opt/foldingathome/FAHClient --chdir "/opt/foldingathome/"
```
If getting this kind of error: http://www.gromacs.org/Documentation/Errors#There_is_no_domain_decomposition_for_n_nodes_that_is_compatible_with_the_given_box_and_a_minimum_cell_size_of_x_nm Then you can try to lower the number of used CPU (e.g. from 16 to 12):
```
# vi /opt/foldingathome/config.xml
    > ...
  + >
  + > 
  + > <slot id='0' type='CPU'>
  + > <cpus v="12"/>
  + > </slot>
```

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