Please follow these step-by-step instructions, which will guide you through the process of downloading and running model simluations on your computer, using the BOINC* interface:

1. Firstly download the 'BOINC' interface that will control the running of your simulation and communication with our project server, from here; this will take you to the BOINC download page as illustrated in the figure below. From there, download the latest version of BOINC for Linux (we strongly recommend using at least version 5.2.6) by clicking the appropriate Download link and saving the resulting executable to your computer.

   

2. Once saved, run this executable to begin installing BOINC. Do this at the command line by issuing the command ./boinc_X.X.X_i686-pc-linux-gnu.sh, where X pertains to the BOINC version (you may also first need to change permission on the file; e.g. chmod 755 boinc_X.X.X_i686-pc-linux-gnu.sh). This will create a directory at that location called /BOINC.
   
   
3. In this /BOINC directory, issue the command ./run_manager. this will launch the graphical user interface to the BOINC Manger which is used to manage and run your simulations. After a few moments a window prompting you to Attach to Project will appear as shown in the figure below. Click on the Next> button to continue.

   

4. Next, you are prompted for the URL of our project. This is where simulations are attached from. Enter the URL http://attribution.cpdn.org as shown in the figure below:

   

5. Next, BOINC will communicate with our server and you will be asked for your Account information. Here you can create an account by selecting Create new account and providing an email address and password. Alternatively if you had already created an account, then select Use existing account and enter the details for that account.
   
   
6. If your details were accepted, then you will see a window like this:

   

   Select Finish to complete the attachment process. A Finish account setup webpage will then appear like the one shown below. Enter your details, and select OK.

   

7. A Your account webpage will then appear from where you can set several very useful preferences for the project, as shown below.
   In particular, following the View or edit general preferences link within this page will allow you to set the simulation to run only after your computer has been idle for a number of minutes (do this by setting the Do work while computer is in use? preference to no), and to only run only between specified times of the day. The current default is for the simulation to run continuously.

   

   Once finished, close this webpage or return to the project main page (by, e.g., following the link at the bottom of this webpage). To set preferences at any later stage, follow the Your account link at the left of the project main page.
   
   
8. BOINC should now be managing a simulation on your computer. Depending on the preferences you have just set, the simulation may or may not be currently running.
   You can check from the Messages tab in the BOINC Manager as to the status of you simulation, and the Work tab will show the progress. From the left hand panel in the Work tab, the Show graphics button will launch a visualization of your simulation and display its status (model date, number of timesteps completed etc.), as shown below. In the visulization window, press H for a list of options.

   

9. You can now leave BOINC to manage the running of your simulation whilst you continue with your usual computer activities. Simply minimize the BOINC Manager.
   If you wish to completely exit BOINC (and so stop simulations from being managed and run) select Exit from the File menu in the BOINC Manager. To relaunch BOINC at a later time, reissue the command ./run_manager from the /BOINC directory. The simulation will then re-start from its last checkpoint (checkpoints are every 144 timesteps of a simulation, beginning at timestep 0).
   
   Alternatively, if you do not wish to have this BOINC Manager GUI open continuously but do want BOINC to continue managing your simulation, then again select Exit from the File menu in the GUI to exit BOINC. Then issue the command nohup ./boinc from the /BOINC directory. This will relaunch BOINC at the command line and it will continue to run even if you exit your terminal. This also now allows you to open and close the BOINC Manager GUI (e.g. to look at the visualisation) without causing BOINC to exit. If you choose to run BOINC in this way, then to completely exit it, you will have to manually kill the ./boinc process (e.g. kill -9 [pid]).
   
   

That's it!. A single simulation run continuously takes approximately 3-4 weeks on a computer with a Pentium 4 processor (see system rquirements for more details). Once completed, BOINC will communicate with our server to upload the results (around a 25MB upload) back to us via the internet, but you do not need to be continuously connected to the internet whilst the simulation is in progress otherwise. You will also be able to see a summary of your results on this web site.

If you have any problems or issues with your participation then please post on our Questions and answers pages and see our Message boards. You may also like to visit the How BOINC works and BOINC Wiki pages which contain a wealth of further information about BOINC and the features of the BOINC manager.

*click here for an overview of BOINC