Installation

This document provides a step-by-step process for installing a version 10.2.x or newer Folding@home Work Server on Debian Linux. Some familiarity with the F@H Architecture is assumed.

System Requirements

A F@H WS should have at least the following

  • 32GiB of RAM.

  • 10TiB of storage, although more may be required. The disk space can be networked if the network is sufficiently fast. I/O rates can reach 200MiB/sec (megabytes).

  • A dedicated high speed connection to the public Internet.

  • A static IP address.

  • Debian (>= Bullseye) (RedHat support is depreciated.)

We recommend:

  • 128GiB of RAM.

  • 50TiB of storage on RAID 6.

  • A 1Gib network connection.

  • The latest Debian Stable release.

Network Requirements

  • One static IPv4 address.

  • TCP ports open to the world: 80, 443, 8080, 8084.

  • TCP port 22 open to at least:

    • assign1.foldingathome.org

    • assing2.foldingathome.org

    • db.foldingathome.org

  • Unrestricted outbound traffic.

  • Ping recommended

  • Public domain name

  • Reverse DNS entry (PTR record)

Typical average transfer rates on an active WS are in the range of 500Mib/sec (megabits) up and down.

The disk space can be networked if the network is sufficiently fast. I/O rates can reach 200MiB/sec (megabytes).

SSL certificates are acquired automatically by the software from LetsEncrypt.

Acquire the software

The latest binary release of the Work Server software can be requested by emailing joseph@cauldrondevelopment.com.

If you have been granted access to the source code you can build it yourself using insturctions found here: Building from Source.

Install the package

First install the prerequisites:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y ssl-cert curl

Then, install the package:

sudo dpkg -i fah-work_10.2.3_amd64.deb

Firewall Setup

In order for Folding@home client to be able to access your WS you will need to open and forward the network ports and save the firewall configuration. This can be done automatically with the following commands:

sudo fah-work-ports
sudo apt-get install -y iptables-persistent

If your institution has a firewall external to your WS you will need to have the following ports open to the world: 80, 443, 8080 & 8084.

If your institution filters ssh connections by IP address then they must allow both ping and ssh from the folowing addresses:

  • 65.254.110.241 (db.foldingathome.org)

  • 65.254.110.245 (assign1.foldingathome.org)

  • 18.218.241.186 (assign2.foldingathome.org)

Server Account

Finally, create and configure the server account with:

sudo fah-create-server

Configure the WS before starting it for the first time.

Upgrading

To upgrade, simply install a newer software package.

GROMACS

The GROMACS 2020 tools are need for 0xa8 core projects. Build and install these tools with the following procedure:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y wget build-essential cmake libfftw3-dev
mkdir build
cd build
wget http://ftp.gromacs.org/pub/gromacs/gromacs-2020.2.tar.gz
tar xf gromacs-2020.2.tar.gz
cd gromacs-2020.2
mkdir build
cd build
cmake .. -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local/gromacs-2020.2
make -j 32
sudo make install

Then add the following to /etc/fah-work/config.xml:

<project-path v="/usr/local/gromacs-2020.2/bin:/usr/bin:/bin"/>

Finally, restart the WS with:

sudo service fah-work restart