Welcome to our FAQ!
The FAQ is mostly just a rehash of the one that is found in the (D2OL)™ Support Forum, but since I wrote that one, there is no reason why I cannot use it here. If you have any questions not answered here or wish to have something added to the FAQ; please e-mail me and I will be happy to get back to you with an answer.
Sneaker-netting the (D2OL)™ client.
OK TFY ladies and gents, this is a down and dirty step-by-step guide on how to run the (D2OL)™ client on a no-net / sneaker-netted machine. This will of course require that you have one computer connected to the Internet to download tasks and upload completed results. You may look below and see a lot text and think that running the (D2OL)™ client no-net is a pain. Really it is not, I am just being descriptive. With the exception of downloading and uploading, it is really a two minute process.
Some of the Team Frozen Yogurt members have been known to download a set of tasks and e-mail them to another member to crunch. If you are in a situation that you need this service, ask on the #tfy channel at irc.arstechnica.com or via e-mail by the contact list above.
First thing you need to do is install (D2OL)™ on a machine with Internet access. I suggest using a folder different from the default, something like C:/D2OLNoNet/, you get the idea. Install as you normally would. When you start up the client the first thing you want to do is toggle the task engine off. The client should have already started to download fifty tasks, which is the default. We are going to want to up the candidate queue size to something larger, ether 500, 1,000 or 2,000. This can be done by selecting the Properties check mark in the GUI Agent or by right clicking on the (D2OL)™ icon in the Notification Area and selecting Properties.
After the client has downloaded the default fifty tasks, we want it to get the new task assignments and download the number we set in the queue. To do this ether click the Status graph bar icon in the GUI Agent or again by right clicking on the (D2OL)™ icon in the Notification Area and selecting Status. Perform a Manual Update to get the new task assignments and download the additional tasks. Downloading 2,000 tasks will take a bit of time, even on a broadband connection, because the TRI servers limit the amount of bandwidth.
Once the task queue is filled with everything you requested, go ahead and exit the client. Now comes the fun part. Browse to the folder you installed (D2OL)™ to. Using the above example, it would be found at C:/D2OLNoNet/D2OL/. You will want to copy out the entire /res/ folder to a CD, flash drive or whatnot. 2,000 tasks should be about 10MB. All of the tasks already come in a compressed state, so zipping them up will not decrease the size by anything noticeable. If you are doing this for several machines at one time, make sure you put each /res/ folder into its own folder. For example, my flash drive is J:/, so I would use J:/1/res/, J:/2/res/, J:/3/res/ and so on.
After that is done you want to Flush all Tasks. To do this start the client back up and again toggle the task engine off. Then perform the task flush via selecting Flush all Tasks, found in the Status area. Again to do this ether click the Status graph bar icon in the GUI Agent or again by right clicking on the (D2OL)™ icon in the Notification Area and selecting Status. Once the tasks are deleted, exit the client.
Now that you have the tasks on your removable drive, let's go to the computer that has no Internet access. Go ahead and install the (D2OL)™ client on the machine per the defaults. When the install is done, it will exit and the Agent will start up and ask you for your e-mail address. What you want to do is cancel at this point by closing the window or clicking the X in the upper-right corner. Now take one of your /res/ folders on your removable drive and copy it on top of the /res/ folder on your no-net machine, which should be under C:/Program Files/SengentD2OL/D2OL. Once that is done you can start up the (D2OL)™ client and start crunching.
When the tasks are done, which may be weeks depending on your CPU speed and how many tasks you downloaded, just exit the (D2OL)™ client and find the resultQueue.dat file in the C:/Program Files/SengentD2OL/D2OL/res/ folder. This is your result file. Cut or move this file to your portable medium. Again if you are doing this several times, you will want to put each resultQueue.dat file in its own folder. Using my above flash drive example, I would put them into J:/1/resultQueue.dat, J:/2/resultQueue.dat, J:/3/resultQueue.dat and so on.
Back in front of your computer with Internet access. All you need to do is copy one of the resultQueue.dat files from your removable drive into the /res/ folder of your no-net (D2OL)™ install. Start up the client and upload the completed results. Make sure you set the queue to zero beforehand unless you want to download another set of new tasks. If you have another resultQueue.dat file, exit the client and again copy it into the C:/D2OLNoNet/D2OL/res/ folder. Start the client back up and upload those results.
That is basically it. I said it was easier than you think. Hope this helps some. If you have any questions we can field them in the IRC room or via e-mail.
Posted: October 14, 2004
