Manual Reservation

[Primeinator]

There is an exponent I am highly interested in reserving. What is the correct pathway to ensuring I can obtain this exponent without having it poached or poaching it from someone else? It does not appear to be assigned as far as I can tell. Thanks!

[S485122]

Check the status of the exponent via Primenet http://www.mersenne.org/report_exponent/

If it is not assigned, add a line to a file you will save as worktodo.add (not worktodo.add.txt !) in the folder of the instance of prime95 you want to assign it to. After a while Prim95 will check the file and integrate the line(s) of the .add file into worktodo.txt file. A communication will assign the work officially. It has not been assigned to somebody else in the mean time. A successful assignment has a long hexadecimal string before the exponent like :

Factor=450F9B80917B7AC788D7BCABCB6A8B83,66999999,68,69

If instead of that hexadecimal string you have NA Primenet could not assign the work-unit to you.

A quicker way to do this is to stop the workers of the prime95 instance you want to add the assignment to, edit the worktodo.txt file, restart the workers and have prime95 communicate with the server. Again check if you did get an AID (assignment ID).


Jacob

[Primeinator]

Thanks. The exponent has been a history, factored to 2^69 dated in March of 2009 but no LL is present. If I add it to my work file, my current work will not be deleted, will it?

[cheesehead]

Also, if there's "N/A" instead of an assignment ID, then in order to avoid inadvertent poaching, you'll need to delete that line from your worktodo.txt to keep prime95 from performing that test, I think.

However, I've gotten refusals to assign even when the exponent is not assigned to anyone else:

When I used the above method to assign myself TF on exponents in both the 9M and 11M ranges, PrimeNet assigned me the 9M, but said the 11M was not available for assignment. I doublechecked both exponent statuses; the 9xxxxxx showed as assigned to me, but the 11xxxxxx still showed no assignment to anyone. Experiments showed that PrimeNet would assign exponents below 9999999 to me, but not any exponent over 10000000.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Primeinator

Thanks. The exponent has been a history, factored to 2^69 dated in March of 2009 but no LL is present. If I add it to my work file, my current work will not be deleted, will it?

If you mean whether any other assignments in your worktodo will be deleted: only if the new total of assignments exceeds the upper limit on number (MaxExponents=) or total days (DaysOfWork= plus UnreserveDays=).

[Primeinator]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

If you mean whether any other assignments in your worktodo will be deleted: only if the new total of assignments exceeds the upper limit on number (MaxExponents=) or total days (DaysOfWork= plus UnreserveDays=).

This is what I meant, thank you.

[Primeinator]

One last question: if another expononet is currently undergoing an LL, will it wait for that one to finish, I assume? I want my dual core (one core of it) to start doing this test as soon as it finishes the one it is on. If it deletes the next in line (which as not been started) that is okay.

[cheesehead]

Originally Posted by Primeinator

One last question: if another expononet is currently undergoing an LL, will it wait for that one to finish, I assume? I want my dual core (one core of it) to start doing this test as soon as it finishes the one it is on. If it deletes the next in line (which as not been started) that is okay.

If you use worktodo.add, the added assignments will be at the end of the worktodo.txt after all assignments previously there.

If you want to change the order in which tests are performed, you need to stop prime95 (which will write save files for all tests in progress before it actually halts), then manually edit the worktodo.txt to put the work lines in the order you prefer, then restart prime95. If you were in the midst of some test when you stopped prime95, and shuffle that test down below first-in-line, it'll simply be resumed from where it stopped (as specified in its save file) when that line eventually reaches the top of worktodo after all tests in front of it are performed.

If you want the new test to start only after the current one finishes, just put the new test's line right after the current test's line, so that the new test is second in order.

[Mini-Geek]

I recommend reserving it from http://www.mersenne.org/manual_assignment/ to more easily avoid an accidental poaching. It will give you a line to put in your worktodo.(add|txt) file.

Originally Posted by Primeinator

One last question: if another expononet is currently undergoing an LL, will it wait for that one to finish, I assume? I want my dual core (one core of it) to start doing this test as soon as it finishes the one it is on. If it deletes the next in line (which as not been started) that is okay.

Yes. If you add the candidate by putting it in worktodo.add, it will put it at the end of the appropriate worker's list of work. Assuming the total work doesn't exceed MaxExponents= or DaysOfWork= plus UnreserveDays=, nothing will be removed.
If you add it by editing worktodo.txt, (have to restart Prime95 to make it take effect) just position it however you want and don't delete anything you don't want to - Prime95 reads from top to bottom for each worker.

[Primeinator]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

If you use worktodo.add, the added assignments will be at the end of the worktodo.txt after all assignments previously there.

If you want to change the order in which tests are performed, you need to stop prime95 (which will write save files for all tests in progress before it actually halts), then manually edit the worktodo.txt to put the work lines in the order you prefer, then restart prime95. If you were in the midst of some test when you stopped prime95, and shuffle that test down below first-in-line, it'll simply be resumed from where it stopped (as specified in its save file) when that line eventually reaches the top of worktodo after all tests in front of it are performed.

Cheers! If I had any champagne I would make a toast, but alas... there is no alcohol allowed on campus grounds.

[lycorn]

Originally Posted by cheesehead

However, I've gotten refusals to assign even when the exponent is not assigned to anyone else:

When I used the above method to assign myself TF on exponents in both the 9M and 11M ranges, PrimeNet assigned me the 9M, but said the 11M was not available for assignment. I doublechecked both exponent statuses; the 9xxxxxx showed as assigned to me, but the 11xxxxxx still showed no assignment to anyone. Experiments showed that PrimeNet would assign exponents below 9999999 to me, but not any exponent over 10000000.

Checking the "Exponents Status Distribution" is a straightforward way to tell whether exponents from a given range will be assigned successfuly upon using any of the methods described above. If we want to reserve, say, an exponent for P-1 on a given range, we should start by checking whether the server has exponents available for that particular range and type of work. In the example you gave, you were trying to reserve exponents from the 11M range for TF. If you check the Primenet status page, you´ll notice that there are no exponents available for TF. On the other hand, the 9M range has loads of exps available for ECM, and I think that for this particular case, the server has treated ECM as if it were TF, and granted you the exponents (the type of work "TF" is not even showing on the report´s header for ranges lower than 10M).
Of course the report won´t tell you exactly which exponents are available, so you may end up being refused a particular exponent that you requested. But at least it gives a sure indication of whether it is worthwhile requesting exponents from a given range and type of work.