prime95 in a Docker container issue/question

[daxmick]

I'm experimenting on different way to run/deploy prime95 and I thought maybe having the program in a LXC or Docker container would be an easy way to deploy to many machines.

However, I have an issue. It appears that a Docker containers are non-persistent. (Meaning that any changes written to disk within the container are lost at the next power down of that container.) Yes, you can "mount" another folder outside of the container but that kind of defeats the purpose I'm trying to get at... UNLESS, there is a way to run mprime within the container, along with some of the permanent files (like prime.txt) but then store the non-permanent files (like local.txt and worktodo.txt) in a mounted directory outside of the container (thus they would persist after a power down of the container).

Sorry, a bit long winded. In short, is there a way to put local.txt, worktodo.txt (and other changing files) in a different directory than where mprime runs?

[S485122]

Yes, This is explained in readme.txt and undoc.txt.

Jacob

[daxmick]

Originally Posted by S485122

Yes, This is explained in readme.txt and undoc.txt.
Jacob

Thank you for the reminder, and this might help others who have failed to read all the information available before posting a question. That said, I have read all the txt files in the folder and I think my question is still a valid one. Obviously I may have missed the command line argument you are suggesting I use. Could you be more specific than just RTFM?

I'm assume you are referring to the '-W' command line argument but that appears to refer to loading ALL the configuration files from a different directory. I want to leave prime.txt where it is and only read local.txt, worktodo.txt, (and the temporarily created files) from a different directory. That said, am I reading the '-W' option incorrectly?

I just thought of a possible "alternative" way to accomplish what I'd like BUT I'm not sure of its ramifications. I guess I could create a softlink (ln -s) for the local.txt and worktodo.txt files but I don't know if this solution would be possible for the other dynamically generated files.

[Dubslow]

This might be a sufficiently valuable question to be moved to the software forum. Although I mostly lurk the GIMPS fora these days, I believe docker-ization would be quite useful to increasing general GIMPS participation -- yet this is the first I've heard of it for Prime95. You might get better exposure in the Software forum rather than the question and answer forum. (And not just because of the dockerization thing -- I believe the specific problem here you're asking about is non-trivial, though as I intimated above I haven't read the docs for Prime95 in a few years. You say that you have, and your comments align with my memory, hence my suggestion.)

[S485122]

undoc.txt starts with some options to store some files elsewhere :

"In prime.txt you can force the program to use different filenames for 6 files.
You can also change the working directory (identical to the -W command line
argument).
prime.ini=your_filename
local.ini=your_filename
worktodo.ini=your_filename
prime.log=your_filename
prime.spl=your_filename
results.txt=your_filename
WorkingDir=your_directory_name"

But don"t forget that prime.txt contains two settings about the machine : HardwareGUID and WindowsGUID. You should look up FixedHardwareUID=1 in the documentation.

Not sure how you could achieve what you want (use "Docker" for deployment...)

Jacob

[daxmick]

Originally Posted by S485122

undoc.txt starts with some options to store some files elsewhere :

"In prime.txt you can force the program to use different filenames for 6 files.
You can also change the working directory (identical to the -W command line
argument).
prime.ini=your_filename
local.ini=your_filename
worktodo.ini=your_filename
prime.log=your_filename
prime.spl=your_filename
results.txt=your_filename
WorkingDir=your_directory_name"

But don"t forget that prime.txt contains two settings about the machine : HardwareGUID and WindowsGUID. You should look up FixedHardwareUID=1 in the documentation.

Not sure how you could achieve what you want (use "Docker" for deployment...)

Jacob

Thank you for a more detailed response! I really do appreciate it. So, if I read you correctly, I could put in the "your_filename" a complete path to the file, yes? If so, that would certainly solve this issue.

[Dubslow]

Originally Posted by daxmick

Thank you for a more detailed response! I really do appreciate it. So, if I read you correctly, I could put in the "your_filename" a complete path to the file, yes? If so, that would certainly solve this issue.

Should be, yes. Those strings should be directly passed to the C lib functions, which should be in turn directly passed to the relevant syscalls, which can certainly handle relative or absolute paths on the fly with no problem.