BOINC Drupal Release

RPC regressions causing Android client to not attach to project

Details

Description

Two server-side regression occurred as part of the new ‘consent to Terms of use’ code merges.

  1. create_account RPC broke due to a bug introduced by me: authenticator not being returned for existing accounts.
  2. get_project_config.php not returning master_url.

I believe this regression was introduced when Oliver, at my request, updated the BOINC upstream HTML/ code as part of the merging. As part of PR 1731 (Bootstrap) , David A. added this commit, which made $master_url a global variable. In get_project_config.php, it uses require_once("../inc/util.inc") to load the global variable.

This construction does not work for us in Drupal. This is probably due to how we are loading get_project_config: include_boinc('user/get_project_config.php')

We use PHP include() to load the get_project_config.php file. This in turn runs require_once() on the html/inc/util.inc file, which loads the master_url variable. But somehow in how PHP loads things, the Drupal implementation does not run this ‘require_once’ on util.inc. Most likely because it has already been ‘required’ sometime earlier.

As a result the get_project_config RPC for einstein (and albert but see below) do not return the master_url which is needed by the Android client.

re Albert: albertathome.org/get_project_config.php uses drupal codebase, so there is no master_url. But albert.phys.uwm.edu/get_project_config.php uses the BOINC web code, thus there is a master_url.

re Android client: The 'real solution' is to fix the code in the client to use the correct variable, web_rpc_url_base. However, our code should still return the master_url.

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Shawn Kwang added a comment - - edited

Tristan Olive, can I ask for your PHP help?

We use PHP include() to load the get_project_config.php file. This in turn runs require_once() on the html/inc/util.inc file, which loads the master_url variable. But somehow in how PHP loads things, the Drupal implementation does not run this ‘require_once’ on util.inc. Most likely because it has already been ‘required’ sometime earlier.

As a result there is no master_url variable in our get_project_config.php.

Do you have any insights as to a potential solution?

Links:

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Shawn Kwang added a comment - - edited Tristan Olive , can I ask for your PHP help? We use PHP include() to load the get_project_config.php file. This in turn runs require_once() on the html/inc/util.inc file, which loads the master_url variable. But somehow in how PHP loads things, the Drupal implementation does not run this ‘require_once’ on util.inc. Most likely because it has already been ‘required’ sometime earlier. As a result there is no master_url variable in our get_project_config.php. Do you have any insights as to a potential solution? Links: Drupal boincwork_get_project_config() includes upstream BOINC get_project_config.php file. BOINC get_project_config uses require_once on the util.inc file. util.inc loads variable master_url
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Tristan Olive added a comment -

I think it may be a scope issue. Try defining the $master_url as global where it is initialized, i.e.:

global $master_url;
$master_url = parse_config(get_config(), "<master_url>");

We had to do this historically for prefs variables so that they were available to Drupal, otherwise they were global variables in the BOINC scope, but not in Drupal.

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Tristan Olive added a comment - I think it may be a scope issue. Try defining the $master_url as global where it is initialized , i.e.: global $master_url; $master_url = parse_config(get_config(), "<master_url>"); We had to do this historically for prefs variables so that they were available to Drupal, otherwise they were global variables in the BOINC scope, but not in Drupal.
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Shawn Kwang added a comment - - edited

Thanks Tristan: I had to add it to two places. I'll create a PR for this for BOINC upstream.

But do you have any idea if this will affect the upstream BOINC web code in an adverse way?

Update: GitHub PR 2580 created should fix this master_url issue for us.

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Shawn Kwang added a comment - - edited Thanks Tristan: I had to add it to two places . I'll create a PR for this for BOINC upstream. But do you have any idea if this will affect the upstream BOINC web code in an adverse way? Update: GitHub PR 2580 created should fix this master_url issue for us.
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Tristan Olive added a comment -

There should be no adverse effects, but I can only offer the aforementioned commit 9798b829 to support that, too. I can't really find any PHP documentation on globals that says you need to use the global keyword to declare a global variable when it will be used by an including script... and I think that isn't even true normally, so there is just something different about what Drupal is doing.

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Tristan Olive added a comment - There should be no adverse effects, but I can only offer the aforementioned commit 9798b829 to support that, too. I can't really find any PHP documentation on globals that says you need to use the global keyword to declare a global variable when it will be used by an including script... and I think that isn't even true normally, so there is just something different about what Drupal is doing.
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Shawn Kwang added a comment -

Update: GitHub PR 2580 has been merged.

Deployment: This requires updating the upstream BOINC Web code on our systems.

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Shawn Kwang added a comment - Update: GitHub PR 2580 has been merged. Deployment: This requires updating the upstream BOINC Web code on our systems.
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Oliver Behnke added a comment - - edited

Changes deployed both sites. Will update the BOINC web code on Monday.

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Oliver Behnke added a comment - - edited Changes deployed both sites. Will update the BOINC web code on Monday.
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Oliver Behnke added a comment -

Web code updated on both sites and <master_url> now being returned as expected. Will let our users know...

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Oliver Behnke added a comment - Web code updated on both sites and <master_url> now being returned as expected. Will let our users know...
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Shawn Kwang added a comment -

Have we received any field reports about whether or not Android clients may now connect for the first time?

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Shawn Kwang added a comment - Have we received any field reports about whether or not Android clients may now connect for the first time?
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Oliver Behnke added a comment - - edited

Not in the forum threads [1][2] I know of. I'll have a look again...

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Oliver Behnke added a comment - - edited Not in the forum threads [ 1 ][ 2 ] I know of. I'll have a look again...
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Shawn Kwang added a comment -

User reports they can connect a new Android BOINC client to our project.

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Shawn Kwang added a comment - User reports they can connect a new Android BOINC client to our project.

People

  • Assignee:
    Oliver Behnke
    Reporter:
    Shawn Kwang
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