Initially, to start the client, the root authentication is needed, without which, 'sudo' is needed before the command. And the path of boinc-client is needed. Like:

sudo /etc/init.d/boinc-client start

But only by starting a client without account attached, we can't start contribution. To see which account we are attached to, and what task the VM has right now, we can use boinccmd. To use boinccmd, we need to change path to the boinc folder, in our case, the path is /var/lib/boinc.

There’re 3 ways to attach account in boinc, and the 3 ways are used corresponding to 3 types of account. To check the information of account and tasks, use command:

boinccmd --get_simple_gui_info

This kind of account is registered on certain project. To attach, we need the URL of the project. For example, the URL of seti@home would be

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http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/

---

Another thing needed would be the account key. To find the account key, we can use command:

boinccmd --lookup_account URL email passwd

And then we can attach with command:

boinccmd --project_attach URL account_key

However, if an account is already attached, we can't simply change the account or attach a new one. That account is required to be detached first, with command:

boinccmd --project URL detach

To contribute to multiple projects, an account manager is needed, the most widely used one is from this URL:

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https://scienceunited.org/

---

With the email and the password of such account, we can attach with the command:

boinccmd --acct_mgr attach URL email passwd

Same problem happens when an account manager is already, to detach, use command:

boinccmd --acct_mgr detach

The usage of weak key is to login to a normal account to contribute, with the authentication of changing the user information and password. Sometimes people can login with weak key in public computers, to make the account safer. To figure out the weak account key, login to the project URL, and add "weak_auth.php" at the end.

For example, to find the weak key from seti@home, we check the URL:

---

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/weak_auth.php

---

With the weak key, a 'xml' configuration file is also needed in the boinc folder. The file name should be: account_PROJECT_URL.xml. "Project_URL" means to change '/' to '_' in the URL. For example, the file for https://boinc.thesonntags.com/collatz/ should be account_boinc.thesonntags.com_collatz.xml

In this file, write:

---

<account>
<master_url>URL</master_url>
<authenticator>WEAK_ACCOUNT_KEY</authenticator>
</account>

---

And use this command to attach:

boinccmd --project_attach URL weak_account_key