Adding or Editing a SETI@home Location

Adding or Editing a SETI@home Location

Adding or editing a SETI@home location is done via a dialog box. This window consists of several pages where all options are clearly arranged.

Add/edit dialog.

The first page, Location, presents general settings of the SETI@home location. Mandatory entries are Description, which must contain a descriptive name for your SETI@home location, and Seti@home Directory, the directory where the SETI@home client is located. Optionally you can use the Browse button to the right of the edit box to select the SETI@home directory. Make sure that each SETI@home location has a unique color by pressing the Color button and selecting a color you like. This color will be used in the skymap window to mark the position in the sky where the work units have been recorded.

By default, Ksetiwatch assumes that the name of the SETI@home client executable is setiathome, and tries to start the client it finds in the corresponding SETI@home directory. If you have renamed the client executable, or moved it somewhere else, you can customize the file path and the name of the executable by checking SETI@home client executable. Name and path can be entered in the edit box below.

The second page, SETI@home Client, allows to adjust the settings and options for the SETI@home client. For instance, Ksetiwatch can start the SETI@home client for you at start-up. Enable this by checking Invoke SETI@home Client at Startup. Similarly, you can tell Ksetiwatch to stop the SETI@home client whenever you close Ksetiwatch by checking Stop SETI@home Client on Exit. This is useful if you are running a multi-user PC, and you don't want to hog the machine with running SETI@home clients while other users are working on it.

Add/edit dialog.

The priority of the client process can be adjusted by a slider. It is recommended to use a low priority for the client so as to allow other applications to use the CPU when they need it.

If you are connecting to the SETI@home server via a proxy server, you can enable the use of the proxy settings by clicking on the Proxy Server checkbox, and entering the server's URL and port in the respective edit boxes.

Command line arguments for the SETI@home client can conveniently be selected by several checkboxes. You can choose from:

-stop_after_process If a work_unit.sah file is present, the client processes this work unit and stops after processing is complete. Results are not returned. If the client is started with this option, and there is a completed result.sah file present, the client will first return the results, then pick up a new work unit, process to completion, then exit.

-stop_after_send Enabling this option causes the client to finish up your current work unit, and to return the result. A new work unit is not downloaded.

-email Sends an email (to the login email address) on errors. This option is not available for all clients.

-graphics Generates a data stream for the xsetiathome graphical interface (see README.xsetiathome). This option is not available for all clients.

If command line parameters are required which are not covered by the GUI elements on this page, additional arguments can be passed to the client by entering the desired options in the Command Line Arguments edit box. See the SETI@home README file for details on valid command line parameters.

Note

You have to restart the SETI@home client to make any changes in the settings take effect.

Add/edit dialog.

The third page, finally, is dedicated to the logging of completed work units. By default, Ksetiwatch logs completed work units automatically. If you prefer not to log completed work units, or you are doing your logging with other programs, you can switch off this feature by unchecking Enable logging of work units. Starting with version 2.2.0, there is a new feature that allows you to redirect the log files to directories other than the default folder of the location. Enable this by checking Redirect Log Files to:. Of course, you will have to enter the new log directory in the edit box below or select a directory via the browse button. This feature is especially useful if you don't have write permission in the default folder (maybe on a remote computer), or you want to collect the logs of many different SETI@home locations in one big log file.

Clicking the OK button saves all entries to disk and closes the dialog. All settings are reloaded automatically whenever you restart Ksetiwatch. Clicking Cancel discards all changes made in this dialog window.

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