KBoincMgr 0.1.6 review

BOINC Team release a cross-platform GUI to control the BOINC clients

License: GPL (GNU General Public License) File size: 0K Developer: gonebush

0

BOINC Team release a cross-platform GUI to control the BOINC clients. And, as always, one size doesn't fit all. The operation of the standard BOINC manager software lacks the ease of use one comes to expect when used to KDE applications. Additionally, the standard manager software is lacking in some areas.

To overcome these actual and perceived deficiencies, KBoincMgr was born into this world. The advantages of KBoincMgr are too few to mention, but if they weren't, they would include the following gems.

The one instance of KBoincMgr can manage multiple BOINC clients. This prevents the Taskbar from becoming cluttered with many instances of boincmgr with the subsequent confusion inflicted upon the long suffering user, ie, you.

Not only is KBoincMgr imbued with this startling feature, but on startup KBoincMgr will attempt to connect to all configured clients.

How can sliced bread compete with that?

Access to the Internet is sometimes controlled by some authorisation / authentication server. It the author's case, this is a Cisco PIX server. If the authentication lapses, completed results queue until the user authenticates with the server again. As with most things to do with security, it is a great idea and would be even better if it didn't make things harder to use.

In a futile attempt to make life easer, KBoincMgr contains a facility whereby an authorisation script can be specified for each managed BOINC client. This script can be run manually or automatically whenever a result is completed.

Since such scripts will probably contain password and other sensitive data, the user can specify which items are to be secured and KBoincMgr will store that information in the KDE KWallet facility.

From time to time, it is also necessary to log onto the BOINC client machine. To assist in this, each managed BOINC client can have its own embedded "Konsole" window.

Now if that's not enough to get you using KBoincMgr you must be a few kangaroos short in the top paddock!

What's New in This Release:
Changed so that wallet only open when required
Internal changes to Statistics Graph facility
Disable "Authenticate" button if authentication not configured