linuxserver/boinc ¶

BOINC is a platform for high-throughput computing on a large scale (thousands or millions of computers). It can be used for volunteer computing (using consumer devices) or grid computing (using organizational resources). It supports virtualized, parallel, and GPU-based applications.

Supported Architectures¶

We utilise the docker manifest for multi-platform awareness. More information is available from docker here and our announcement here.

Simply pulling lscr.io/linuxserver/boinc:latest should retrieve the correct image for your arch, but you can also pull specific arch images via tags.

The architectures supported by this image are:

Architecture	Available	Tag
x86-64	✅	amd64-<version tag>
arm64	✅	arm64v8-<version tag>
armhf	❌

Application Setup¶

This image sets up the BOINC client and manager and makes its interface available via Guacamole server in the browser. The interface is available at http://your-ip:8080 or https://your-ip:8181.

By default, there is no password set for the main gui. Optional environment variable PASSWORD will allow setting a password for the user abc.

It is recommended to switch to Advanced View in the top menu, because the Computing Preferences don't seem to be displayed in Simple View.

Sometimes, the pop-up windows may open in a tiny box in the upper left corner of the screen. When that happens, you can find the corner and resize them.

GPU Hardware Acceleration¶

Intel¶

Hardware acceleration users for Intel Quicksync will need to mount their /dev/dri video device inside of the container by passing the following command when running or creating the container: --device=/dev/dri:/dev/dri We will automatically ensure the abc user inside of the container has the proper permissions to access this device.

Nvidia¶

Hardware acceleration users for Nvidia will need to install the container runtime provided by Nvidia on their host, instructions can be found here: https://github.com/NVIDIA/nvidia-docker We automatically add the necessary environment variable that will utilise all the features available on a GPU on the host. Once nvidia-docker is installed on your host you will need to re/create the docker container with the nvidia container runtime --runtime=nvidia and add an environment variable -e NVIDIA_VISIBLE_DEVICES=all (can also be set to a specific gpu's UUID, this can be discovered by running nvidia-smi --query-gpu=gpu_name,gpu_uuid --format=csv ). NVIDIA automatically mounts the GPU and drivers from your host into the BOINC docker container.

Options in all KasmVNC based GUI containers¶

This container is based on Docker Baseimage KasmVNC which means there are additional environment variables and run configurations to enable or disable specific functionality.

Optional environment variables¶

Variable	Description
CUSTOM_PORT	Internal port the container listens on for http if it needs to be swapped from the default 8080.
CUSTOM_HTTPS_PORT	Internal port the container listens on for https if it needs to be swapped from the default 8181.
CUSTOM_USER	HTTP Basic auth username, abc is default.
PASSWORD	HTTP Basic auth password, abc is default. If unset there will be no auth
SUBFOLDER	Subfolder for the application if running a subfolder reverse proxy, need both slashes IE `/subfolder/`
TITLE	The page title displayed on the web browser, default "KasmVNC Client".
FM_HOME	This is the home directory (landing) for the file manager, default "/config".
START_DOCKER	If set to false a container with privilege will not automatically start the DinD Docker setup.
DRINODE	If mounting in /dev/dri for DRI3 GPU Acceleration allows you to specify the device to use IE `/dev/dri/renderD128`

Optional run configurations¶

Variable	Description
`--privileged`	Will start a Docker in Docker (DinD) setup inside the container to use docker in an isolated environment. For increased performance mount the Docker directory inside the container to the host IE `-v /home/user/docker-data:/var/lib/docker`.
`-v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock`	Mount in the host level Docker socket to either interact with it via CLI or use Docker enabled applications.
`--device /dev/dri:/dev/dri`	Mount a GPU into the container, this can be used in conjunction with the `DRINODE` environment variable to leverage a host video card for GPU accelerated appplications. Only Open Source drivers are supported IE (Intel,AMDGPU,Radeon,ATI,Nouveau)

Lossless mode¶

This container is capable of delivering a true lossless image at a high framerate to your web browser by changing the Stream Quality preset to "Lossless", more information here. In order to use this mode from a non localhost endpoint the HTTPS port on 8181 needs to be used. If using a reverse proxy to port 8080 specific headers will need to be set as outlined here.

Usage¶

To help you get started creating a container from this image you can either use docker-compose or the docker cli.

docker-compose (recommended, click here for more info)¶

---
version: "2.1"
services:
  boinc:
    image: lscr.io/linuxserver/boinc:latest
    container_name: boinc
    security_opt:
      - seccomp:unconfined #optional
    environment:
      - PUID=1000
      - PGID=1000
      - TZ=Etc/UTC
      - PASSWORD= #optional
    volumes:
      - /path/to/data:/config
    ports:
      - 8080:8080
      - 8181:8181
    devices:
      - /dev/dri:/dev/dri #optional
    restart: unless-stopped

docker cli (click here for more info)¶

docker run -d \
  --name=boinc \
  --security-opt seccomp=unconfined `#optional` \
  -e PUID=1000 \
  -e PGID=1000 \
  -e TZ=Etc/UTC \
  -e PASSWORD= `#optional` \
  -p 8080:8080 \
  -p 8181:8181 \
  -v /path/to/data:/config \
  --device /dev/dri:/dev/dri `#optional` \
  --restart unless-stopped \
  lscr.io/linuxserver/boinc:latest

Parameters¶

Containers are configured using parameters passed at runtime (such as those above). These parameters are separated by a colon and indicate <external>:<internal> respectively. For example, -p 8080:80 would expose port 80 from inside the container to be accessible from the host's IP on port 8080 outside the container.

Ports (`-p`)¶

Parameter	Function
`8080`	Boinc desktop gui.
`8181`	Boinc desktop gui HTTPS.

Environment Variables (`-e`)¶

Env	Function
`PUID=1000`	for UserID - see below for explanation
`PGID=1000`	for GroupID - see below for explanation
`TZ=Etc/UTC`	specify a timezone to use, see this list.
`PASSWORD=`	Optionally set a password for the gui.

Volume Mappings (`-v`)¶

Volume	Function
`/config`	Where BOINC should store its database and config.

Device Mappings (`--device`)¶

Parameter	Function
`/dev/dri`	Only needed if you want to use your Intel GPU (vaapi).

Miscellaneous Options¶

Parameter	Function
`--security-opt seccomp=unconfined`	For Docker Engine only, many modern gui apps need this to function as syscalls are unkown to Docker.

Environment variables from files (Docker secrets)¶

You can set any environment variable from a file by using a special prepend FILE__.

As an example:

-e FILE__MYVAR=/run/secrets/mysecretvariable

Will set the environment variable MYVAR based on the contents of the /run/secrets/mysecretvariable file.

Umask for running applications¶

For all of our images we provide the ability to override the default umask settings for services started within the containers using the optional -e UMASK=022 setting. Keep in mind umask is not chmod it subtracts from permissions based on it's value it does not add. Please read up here before asking for support.

User / Group Identifiers¶

When using volumes (-v flags), permissions issues can arise between the host OS and the container, we avoid this issue by allowing you to specify the user PUID and group PGID.

Ensure any volume directories on the host are owned by the same user you specify and any permissions issues will vanish like magic.

In this instance PUID=1000 and PGID=1000, to find yours use id your_user as below:

id your_user

Example output:

uid=1000(your_user) gid=1000(your_user) groups=1000(your_user)

Docker Mods¶

We publish various Docker Mods to enable additional functionality within the containers. The list of Mods available for this image (if any) as well as universal mods that can be applied to any one of our images can be accessed via the dynamic badges above.

Support Info¶

Shell access whilst the container is running:
```
docker exec -it boinc /bin/bash
```
To monitor the logs of the container in realtime:
```
docker logs -f boinc
```

Container version number:

docker inspect -f '{{ index .Config.Labels "build_version" }}' boinc

Image version number:

docker inspect -f '{{ index .Config.Labels "build_version" }}' lscr.io/linuxserver/boinc:latest

Updating Info¶

Most of our images are static, versioned, and require an image update and container recreation to update the app inside. With some exceptions (ie. nextcloud, plex), we do not recommend or support updating apps inside the container. Please consult the Application Setup section above to see if it is recommended for the image.

Below are the instructions for updating containers:

Via Docker Compose¶

Update images:

All images:
```
docker-compose pull
```
Single image:
```
docker-compose pull boinc
```

Update containers:

All containers:
```
docker-compose up -d
```
Single container:
```
docker-compose up -d boinc
```

You can also remove the old dangling images:
```
docker image prune
```

Via Docker Run¶

Update the image:

docker pull lscr.io/linuxserver/boinc:latest

Stop the running container:
```
docker stop boinc
```
Delete the container:
```
docker rm boinc
```
Recreate a new container with the same docker run parameters as instructed above (if mapped correctly to a host folder, your /config folder and settings will be preserved)
You can also remove the old dangling images:
```
docker image prune
```

Via Watchtower auto-updater (only use if you don't remember the original parameters)¶

Pull the latest image at its tag and replace it with the same env variables in one run:

docker run --rm \
  -v /var/run/docker.sock:/var/run/docker.sock \
  containrrr/watchtower \
  --run-once boinc

You can also remove the old dangling images: docker image prune

Warning

We do not endorse the use of Watchtower as a solution to automated updates of existing Docker containers. In fact we generally discourage automated updates. However, this is a useful tool for one-time manual updates of containers where you have forgotten the original parameters. In the long term, we highly recommend using Docker Compose.

Image Update Notifications - Diun (Docker Image Update Notifier)¶

Tip

We recommend Diun for update notifications. Other tools that automatically update containers unattended are not recommended or supported.

Building locally¶

If you want to make local modifications to these images for development purposes or just to customize the logic:

git clone https://github.com/linuxserver/docker-boinc.git
cd docker-boinc
docker build \
  --no-cache \
  --pull \
  -t lscr.io/linuxserver/boinc:latest .

The ARM variants can be built on x86_64 hardware using multiarch/qemu-user-static

docker run --rm --privileged multiarch/qemu-user-static:register --reset

Once registered you can define the dockerfile to use with -f Dockerfile.aarch64.

Versions¶

03.04.23: - Rebase to KasmVNC base image. Deprecate armhf build as the new base does not support it. Add bzip2 and xz-utils.
14.11.22: - Fix opencl driver.
18.09.22: - Rebase to jammy.
24.02.22: - Rebase to focal.
31.01.22: - Improve device permissions setting verbosity.
23.03.21: - Rebase to rdesktop-web baseimage. Deprecate GUAC_USER and GUAC_PASS env vars. Existing users can set the new var PASSWORD for the user abc.
01.04.20: - Install boinc from ppa.
17.03.20: - Add armhf and aarch64 builds and switch to multi-arch image.
16.03.20: - Clean up old pid files.
15.03.20: - Initial release.

Last update: November 21, 2023
Created: February 5, 2019

linuxserver/boinc¶