There should, at the least, be some "anti-whammy" protection against the
same machine requesting more #'s than it could reasonably handle in a
certain time period (2 years is more than generous, I'd think).
We've seen this before, have we not? Misconfigured scripts of some sort
which keep retrieving new exponents while deleting the ones it already
got. I just recall a few times when some machines like that were
sucking the pool dry.
Aaron
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:mersenne-invalid-
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of Nathan Russell
> Sent: Tuesday, April 10, 2001 8:25 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Mersenne: PrimeNet vulnerable to client misconfiguration?
>
> I just checked the PrimeNet status page out of curiousity, to find
> that only two 10M-digit numbers are available. When I looked at the
> work completed figures, it became rather obvious that one particular
> user is running machines that are severely misconfigured. I don't
> think this is deliberate abuse, since the user does have several
> machines running a few dozen exponents with nothing apparently wrong
> with them.
>
> However, the sheer number of assignments involved speaks for itself.
>
> yeager {~} > cat status.txt | grep netconx | wc -l
> 2292
>
> What I can't help wondering is whether GIMPS should have some
> restriction on how many assignments can be checked out by a given
> machine per unit time - in this case, the assignments in question are
> being run by only two machines, which appear to be repeatedly losing
> track of the work assigned to them. One likely possibility is some
> sort of automated program that is repeatedly deleting or blanking the
> worktodo.ini file.
>
> Perhaps there should be hard limit, after which the user is given an
> error or sent an email telling them of the situation?
>
> In this case, there are enough exponents involved to take a top-end
> system multiple centuries to complete, and there's no reason why that
> should happen without someone contacting PrimeNet to make special
> arrangments, if for no other reason than to always have work available
> for everyone.
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