Boinc cannot enable RPC access to start client or manager

[ikesterhaney]

Boinc Manager and Boinc Client cannot start in Xubuntu 20.10 due to an RPC issue.
Boinc Manager starts with a connection error - gui_rpc_auth.cfg exists but cannot be read. Check the file permission. - The file is a link and flagged as root/root in the var/lib/boinc and points to the /etc/boinc as root/boinc

a sudo boinc leads to the following messages on the terminal.

10-Sep-2020 10:05:17 [---] Starting BOINC client version 7.16.11 for x86_64-pc-linux-gnu
10-Sep-2020 10:05:17 [---] log flags: file_xfer, sched_ops, task
10-Sep-2020 10:05:17 [---] Libraries: libcurl/7.68.0 OpenSSL/1.1.1f zlib/1.2.11 brotli/1.0.9 libidn2/2.3.0 libpsl/0.21.0 (+libidn2/2.3.0) libssh/0.9.3/openssl/zlib nghttp2/1.41.0 librtmp/2.3
10-Sep-2020 10:05:17 [---] Data directory: /etc/boinc-client
10-Sep-2020 10:05:17 [---] CUDA: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (driver version 450.66, CUDA version 11.0, compute capability 7.5, 4096MB, 3958MB available, 13448 GFLOPS peak)
10-Sep-2020 10:05:17 [---] CUDA: NVIDIA GPU 1: GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (driver version 450.66, CUDA version 11.0, compute capability 7.5, 4096MB, 3958MB available, 14231 GFLOPS peak)
10-Sep-2020 10:05:17 [---] OpenCL: NVIDIA GPU 0: GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (driver version 450.66, device version OpenCL 1.2 CUDA, 11019MB, 3958MB available, 13448 GFLOPS peak)
10-Sep-2020 10:05:17 [---] OpenCL: NVIDIA GPU 1: GeForce RTX 2080 Ti (driver version 450.66, device version OpenCL 1.2 CUDA, 11016MB, 3958MB available, 14231 GFLOPS peak)
10-Sep-2020 10:05:17 [---] Creating new client state file
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] libc: Ubuntu GLIBC 2.31-0ubuntu11 version 2.31
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] Host name: ian-X299-FTW-K
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] Processor: 18 GenuineIntel Intel(R) Core(TM) i9-10980XE CPU @ 3.00GHz [Family 6 Model 85 Stepping 7]
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] Processor features: fpu vme de pse tsc msr pae mce cx8 apic sep mtrr pge mca cmov pat pse36 clflush dts acpi mmx fxsr sse sse2 ss ht tm pbe syscall nx pdpe1gb rdtscp lm constant_tsc art arch_perfmon pebs bts rep_good nopl xtopology nonstop_tsc cpuid aperfmperf pni pclmulqdq dtes64 monitor ds_cpl vmx est tm2 ssse3 sdbg fma cx16 xtpr pdcm pcid dca sse4_1 sse4_2 x2apic movbe popcnt tsc_deadline_timer aes xsave avx f16c rdrand lahf_lm abm 3dnowprefetch cpuid_fault epb cat_l3 cdp_l3 invpcid_single ssbd mba ibrs ibpb stibp ibrs_enhanced tpr_shadow vnmi flexpriority ept vpid ept_ad fsgsbase tsc_adjust bmi1 avx2 smep bmi2 erms invpcid cqm mpx rdt_a avx512f avx512dq rdseed adx smap clflushopt clwb intel_pt avx512cd avx512bw avx512vl xsaveopt xsavec xgetbv1 xsaves cqm_llc cqm_occup_llc cqm_mbm_total cqm_mbm_local dtherm ida arat pln pts avx512_vnni md_clear flush_l1d arch_capabilities
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] OS: Linux Ubuntu: Ubuntu Groovy Gorilla (development branch) [5.8.0-18-generic|libc 2.31 (Ubuntu GLIBC 2.31-0ubuntu11)]
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] Memory: 251.41 GB physical, 2.00 GB virtual
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] Disk: 781.93 GB total, 599.80 GB free
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] Local time is UTC -4 hours
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] VirtualBox version: 6.1.14_Ubuntur140239
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] Config: GUI RPCs allowed from:
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] No general preferences found - using defaults
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] Reading preferences override file
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] Preferences:
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] max memory usage when active: 128722.83 MB
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] max memory usage when idle: 231701.09 MB
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] max disk usage: 599.70 GB
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] don't use GPU while active
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] suspend work if non-BOINC CPU load exceeds 25%
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] (to change preferences, visit a project web site or select Preferences in the Manager)
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] Setting up project and slot directories
dir_open: Could not open directory 'slots' from '/etc/boinc-client'.
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] Checking active tasks
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] Setting up GUI RPC socket
10-Sep-2020 10:05:18 [---] gui_rpc_auth.cfg is empty - assigning new GUI RPC password
10-Sep-2020 10:05:47 [---] GUI RPC bind to port 31416 failed: 98
10-Sep-2020 10:05:48 gstate.init() failed
Error Code: -180

Xubuntu 20.10 is current as of 10-09-2020 at 10pm EDT.

[ikesterhaney (ikesterhaney)]

Some research unearthed a reason and possible solution -

This error happens when the user has no permission to use the RPC port number, or forgotten to allow it through the firewall.
Happens in combination with Gstate.init() failed, error code: -180

To set BOINC to use a specific port number, one different from the default 31316, do:
boinc --gui_rpc_port N, example given boinc --gui_rpc_port 37777, this starts the BOINC client with TCP port 37777.

If you don't want to use any GUI to check on this BOINC from a remote location, you can also start BOINC without any GUI RPC:
boinc --no_gui_rpc

Source - https://boinc.mundayweb.com/wiki/index.php?title=GUI_RPC_bind_to_port_31416_failed:_98

[ikesterhaney (ikesterhaney)]

By manually extracting the password from the file in /etc/boinc-client and entering it into Boinc Manager does connect it to the client. So this might be a minor configuration issue.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

[M. Weinberg (mrwein56)]

I had the same problem in Ubuntu 20.10 and was able to get boinc working again by doing the following:

1. Stop boinc service and kill any boinc processes
2. Remove the gui_rpc_auth.cfg from /etc/boinc (It would probably be safer to change its name to gui_rpc_auth.cfg.old or something.)
3. Reboot computer.
4. Start boinc-client

After doing it, I found that the gui_rpc_auth.cfg was recreated with a password in it. This is a system generated password, not one that the user knows anything about.

I didn't have to change firewall settings.

Perhaps the reason that boinc didn't work in 20.10 was because a corrupted gui_rpc_auth.cfg file was included in the distribution. I noticed that the gui_rpc_auth.cfg file before I removed it in Step 2 above had a byte size of one byte. After is was recreated it was still a small file, but larger than one byte.

I probably had to temporarily change permissions in /etc/boinc, so this isn't a solution for a multi-user system, but hopefully it will give the package maintainers a clue on how to resolve this. Without a fix, boinc simply doesn't work in 20.10.

[Bryan Quigley (bryanquigley)]

This seems really similar to https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=720849 but I just realized that was from 6 years ago..

[ikesterhaney (ikesterhaney)]

This bug specifically references a case where the password is created
properly. The password that auto generates oui r is put in manually is
inaccessible by the boinc manager. This is due to it being owned by root
and only viewable by the boinc group. The boinc client is run under the
boinc username and group and can thus edit the file. Boinc Manager is run
under the local username and thus cannot access the password in the file.
Creation if the files password or lack thereof is technically a different
bug.
The possible solutions that come to mind are
1. Make the file world readable or at least readable to the local user
group.
2. Make Boinc Manager an elevated task much like the package manager apps.
I'm sure there are other solutions but I am not a programmer or packager.

On Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 12:20 PM Bug Watch Updater <email address hidden>
wrote:

> ** Changed in: boinc (Debian)
> Status: Unknown => New
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to the bug
> report.
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1895157
>
> Title:
> Boinc cannot enable RPC access to start client or manager
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/boinc/+bug/1895157/+subscriptions
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[Bryan Quigley (bryanquigley)]

Actually this does seem to be a recent change -https://github.com/BOINC/boinc/issues/4021 as the other debian bug you've found mentions to.

[shanen (Shannon Jacobs) (shanen)]

The minimal solution of comment #4 did not work for me. I also tried manually changing the permissions of the file to make it "Read and write", but I didn't look for the BOINC group, so I'm going to try that next...

[Bryan Quigley (bryanquigley)]

All that it took for me was to put any text in /etc/boinc-client/gui_rpc_auth.cfg

[shanen (Shannon Jacobs) (shanen)]

Tried the suggestion in comment #9 and that produced the error message "Invalid client RPC password. Try reinstalling BOINC."

I already did a reinstall using aptitude.

I also found a version of the file at a higher level, but messing with that one didn't help, either.

[Bryan Quigley (bryanquigley)]

Try setting the /etc/boinc-client/gui_rpc_auth.cfg to just
boinc

[Derek James (derek-r-james)]

Latest version of development release fixes this bug - https://launchpad.net/~costamagnagianfranco/+archive/ubuntu/boinc
7.16.15+dfsg.is.7.16.11+dfsg+202011100036~ubuntu20.10.1

[Stéphane (stephane-treboux)]

In the meanwhile I reverted to the older version from focal:
boinc_7.16.6+dfsg-1_all.deb (from https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/boinc)
boinc-client_7.16.6+dfsg-1_amd64.deb (from (https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/boinc-client)
boinc-manager_7.16.6+dfsg-1_amd64.deb (from https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/boinc-manager)
libboinc7_7.16.6+dfsg-1_amd64.deb (from https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/libboinc7)
This solves the issue for me.

I don't use PPA and I prefer to use officially released packages but thanks for hinting that the issue should become history with hirsute.

[Stéphane (stephane-treboux)]

After upgrading to impish (21.10) reverting to the older version from focal (20.04 LTS) still solves the issue for me.
boinc_7.16.6+dfsg-1_all.deb (from https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/boinc)
boinc-client_7.16.6+dfsg-1_amd64.deb (from (https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/boinc-client)
boinc-manager_7.16.6+dfsg-1_amd64.deb (from https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/boinc-manager)
libboinc7_7.16.6+dfsg-1_amd64.deb (from https://packages.ubuntu.com/focal/libboinc7)