Networking Prime95 14.4:
PrimeNet Server 2.6
The Original Parallel Technology for the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search
Updated 1998/06/01

PrimeNet 2.6 Demographics*

101 installed server sites


31 U.S. ISP users (13.com, 18.net)
20 unspecified domain type sites
18 international ISP users
... (4:de,3:nl,2:no,1:au,be,ca,ch,cz,fr,it,th,uk)
10 commercial businesses
6 .edu universities
1 .mil U.S. military base
1 .org dialup ISP

*as of 10/22/97 - download server names
excluding repeats for updates, Parallel Test
Challenge sites and source code built sites
(221 run-time licenses downloaded)

          

Contents

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Introduction

If you are interested only in testing Mersenne numbers for the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search (GIMPS), you can skip directly to Internet PrimeNet Server free software section. You will find free, ready-to-use Windows, Linux and OS/2 software for testing Mersenne numbers for GIMPS on the Internet. We provide the server and manage the testing for you!

In 1997, I developed PrimeNet Version 2.6 as a free software package to automatically distribute and manage concurrent, parallel Mersenne number primality and factoring tests for GIMPS.  It uses George Woltman's Prime95 and NTPrime Version 14.4 programs. Complete documentation for installation, configuration and administration of a working PrimeNet 2.6 test network is provide on this web site.

This software package does not work with Prime95 15.x, NTPrime 15.x, MPrime 15.x and other software based on version 15 test programs. These programs did not exist until PrimeNet 2.6 was already in widespread use, and were developed specifically for the official GIMPS Internet PrimeNet Server (IPS) 3.0.  IPS 3.0 was written by Entropia.com using PrimeNet 2.6 as a prototype.  Other ambitious programmers should have no trouble generalizing PrimeNet 2.6 to their own distributed computing projects.

THINGS TO DO USING PRIMENET 2.6

PrimeNet has two parts: the PrimeNet server, and the PrimeNet client DLL. Both are currently available for Windows NT and Windows 95/98.

The software is free, including the source code, so long as you do not sell it, or sell parts of it, or use it as part of a sold product or service. If you know anything about writing software, you will probably notice the source code reflects several programming no-nos. I'm quite out of practice, and PrimeNet is just for fun anyway.

Use of PrimeNet is assumed to be in conjunction with the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search project. The more familiar you are with Prime95.exe 14.4, the easier it will be for you to network several of them using PrimeNet. If you will be setting up PrimeNet so that the client and server are in different NT domains, some NT security admin expertise might be important.

This server implementation works on NT 4.0 or 3.51 servers or workstations and Windows 95 workstations (in console mode) for:

The client can be another NT Server, NT workstation or Windows 95. I have not tried the RPC with a non-Win32 client, but clearly non-Win32 client support is desirable.

Here's what Prime95 needs for a collection of parallel test systems before and after installing PrimeNet:

non-PrimeNet
n-Parallel
each of n machines has:
  PrimeNet
n-Parallel
each of n machines has:
PrimeNet
network server has:


PrimeNet
control console
(often at the server) has:
prime95.exe
p(exponent)
q(exponent)
database
*factors
results.txt





c:\winnt\prime95.ini

*when factoring

  prime95.exe
p(exponent)
q(exponent)

*factors
results.txt
PrimeNet.dll
PrimeNet.bin
PrimeNet.spl


c:\winnt\prime95.ini

*when factoring

primesvc.exe


database.bin

results.net


primesvc.log
myOnlineReport.txt

c:\winnt\PrimeNet.ini


primecom.exe





PrimeNet.dll




c:\wintnt\prime95.ini


There are a few changes in which files are used by Prime95 when using PrimeNet:

The PrimeNet 2.6 database is 64 bits per record. You periodically merge updates from the 32-bit databases that George Woltman distributes into this database using the command console.

Protocol and server identification is done on the PrimeNet client side configuration. I've tested the TCP/IP configuration on an NT Internet server but I don't know how loose the firewall must be. The RPC dynamically assigns a port number greater than 1024, so when using proxys it must support the 'default' port to let the server assign it.

Special thanks to:

Good luck and happy hunting. Send me bugs, suggestions, setup problems & ideas.

- Scott Kurowski
kurowski@entropia.com


PrimeNet 2.6 Software

When installing updated versions of PrimeNet over earlier versions please check the Installing Updates to Earlier Versions section to see if there are special steps necessary to update the software. Free e-mail support help, as well as known problems or bugs in earlier versions of PrimeNet, are described in the Tips & Help section.

Download Free Software:

PrimeNet Freeware License Agreement: PrimeNet software and source code are licensed for free use if you do not sell it, sell parts of it, or include it as a part of a sold product or use it for a sold service. PrimeNet source code, intact or modified, is licensed for use solely with the Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search project. No warranties or liabilities are assumed, offered or implied. Use of PrimeNet software and/or source code constitutes implicit agreement with the terms of this freeware license.


What's in PrimeNet 2.6
Updated 10/26/97

The last major enhancement to PrimeNet 2.6 will be it's hierarchial server support. This will enable PrimeNet 2.6 servers to be a client of a PrimeNet 3.0 server, which will assign block exponent test ranges and collect block test results.

PrimeNet 2.6 currently contains these incrementally delivered features:

Unfinished Work List
Updated 9/23/97

There are several areas where someone could contribute to the project:

  1. Develop your own enhancements.

  2. Adding an install script or wizard.

  3. Check into non-Win32 RPC for UNIX prime testing clients. The source code includes the Interface Definition Language file rpcsvc.idl for the RPC but if this is not enough I can probably offer some help.

  4. General testing of new versions PrimeNet and Primecom.exe server control console application.

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*Windows NT and Windows 95 are trademarks of Microsoft, Inc.

> 6 April 1997.