These instructions will help setup and manage Folding@home SMP clients on HP Cloud Servers from a Windows 7 system. View Getting Started with HP Cloud Services for more information about HP Cloud Services and signup here.

This assumes you already have access to HP Cloud Services private beta and have created servers. I used Ubuntu 10.10 (64-bit) on two standard.2xlarge and one standard.xlarge servers. I created another thread to setup and monitor the SMP clients with HFM.NET.
 
Create a new folder called PuTTY on your Windows 7 system. Save all files to this location.

Download PuTTY and PuTTYgen.
http://the.earth.li/~sgta...y/latest/x86/putty.exe
http://the.earth.li/~sgta...atest/x86/puttygen.exe

Go to https://manage.hpcloud.com/compute/ select Manage Servers and follow the Creating a Key Pair instructions. I named the Key Pairs (.pem file) after the compute cluster location because only one key is needed for each compute cluster location (US West 2 - AZ2 and US West 2 - AZ1 or az-1.region-a.geo-1 and az-2.region-a.geo-1).  
 
Open PuTTYgen and select Conversions and Import Key. Select the Key Pair (.pem file) you created and then select Save private key. Ignore the warning.
I saved the files as USWest2-AZ2.ppk and USWest2-AZ1.ppk because only one key is needed for each compute cluster location.
Close PuTTYgen.

Copy your server's Public IP address.

Open PuTTY.
Paste your server's Public IP address into the Host Name (or IP address) field.

Expand SSH under Connection and select Auth.
Select Browse under Private key field for authentication and select your private key USWest2-AZ2.ppk or USWest2-AZ1.ppk

Select Session, enter the server's Public IP  address under Saved Sessions and select Save.

Select Open and yes on the Security Alert.
Logon as root
 
Update the OS and installed the SMP client with the following commands.

apt-get update
apt-get upgrade -y

mkdir -p /folding
cd /folding
wget www.stanford.edu/group/pandegroup/folding/release/FAH6.34-Linux64.tgz
tar xzf FAH6.34-Linux64.tgz
chmod +x fah6

Start the SMP client with the following command. Replace the # with 4 or 8 depending on the number of vCPU you're using. Ensure you enter your username, team # 111065 and your passkey.

screen ./fah6 -smp # 

screen allows us to enter new commands and close PuTTy while keeping the SMP client running.

After the SMP client is running hold the Crtl key down and press A then D to detach the screen. Always detach the screen before you close PuTTy.

Enter screen -r if you need to return to the SMP client.
 
Right-click on the PuTTy window and select Close to end the session. If you Saved your Sessions you will be able to simply double-click on the Saved Session name when you open PuTTy. Remember to logon as root and enter screen -r to return to the SMP client if needed.
 
I added the additional information for those that are not familiar with Linux and the CLI.
Use the following commands to navigate to the folding directory and start the SMP client.

  cd /folding
screen ./fah6 -smp #

  Ctrl+C will shutdown the SMP client.

The reboot command will restart the system. Type reboot, press Enter and wait a couple minutes for the system to restart. Right-click on the Putty window and select Restart Session. If you receive “Network error: Connection timed out” then you didn’t wait long enough.

 
The top command will show you running tasks. It's like the Task Manager in Windows. Press Ctrl+C to exit.
cat /proc/cpuinfo will display your CPU information. 

What CPU potential do they give you during the beta?
 

two standard.2xlarge and one standard.xlarge servers

Signed up for the beta even though your explanation is chinese to me. I'll figure it out 
EDIT: 
HP sent me this:

Thanks for your interest in the HP Cloud Services private beta and for completing the sign-up. The response to our private beta has been great, and we’ve already reached the initial target number of participants. We will certainly keep you informed as beta access becomes available.

 

 

Sleinous

Wow, so you have 20 cores in total, I assume that's what they give you and you can share teh 20 cores out however you like? Not sure but in any case that must be netting you some serious PPD. Also I signed up but they say private beta slots attained so I assume they won't accept any new applications.

Stop browsing the forums at work! 
Sincerely,
Your lady baws

Nice guide there david, I applied for testing. Let's see if I get to try this baby . Have you managed to get a PPD estimate from the 3 servers you're provided with?

david12857

I added some pretty pictures to help.

Sleinous  Wow, so you have 20 cores in total, I assume that's what they give you and you can share teh 20 cores out however you like? Not sure but in any case that must be netting you some serious PPD. Also I signed up but they say private beta slots attained so I assume they won't accept any new applications.

The hardware profiles are already configured and we select from the drop-down list. Hopefully we're allowed to make custom profiles in the future. Like when they start charging. It will be interesting to see the PPD performance. I signed up whenever HPCS started folding and received the invite yesterday.

Ah yes, however I mean how many of those 8 cores and 4 core profiles are you allowed to make?
 
Have you been able to measure how much PPD you're making from those 3 profiles?
 
EDIT: Woops just saw your reply, 9K for all 3 combined? That seems a tad low :(

Ok hang on a sec :P Coz i'm very confused. 9K from a GPU? I thought HP Cloud was just CPU's? Also 25K points but have you been folding anywhere else other than on the cloud?
 
EDIT: Ohhh do you mean 9K before you started the cloud?

I assume you doubled the number of CPUs by using AZ1 as well as AZ2, although the email I received mentioned something about only using AZ2, not sure though.

This definately sounds interesting, paying people to do the dirty work haha. Takes some of the fun out of folding imo but it could definately be used to give you a boost during Chimp Challenge and stuff. 

Ugh, I gave up trying to get PuTTY to work; so I just installed Ubuntu as a VM 

 http://fah-web.stanford.edu/cgi-bin/main.py?qtype=userpage&username=Illutian&teamnum=111065
 
http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/user_summary.php?s=&u=549964
 
I like the results. Wish I had gotten in earlier. :(

Hopefully, EVGA will start a new Folding Round for this year. 

What kind of PPD are you getting?

I'm still waiting for my beta invite 
One of their community managers promised me a code 2-3 days ago and still nothing..
I wonder what the cost will be in the final version 

Nice guide.  Anyone else have this running that can post avg PPD?  I haven't been able to get in yet but am seriously considering this if the price is right.  I had 4 gpu's going in my small room and the heat is bad even in the winter.  Sleinous your rigs could probably heat a small community!

I just got an invite from HP on my initial application and fired up the same three systems as in OP. Thanks for the guide!
 
I should be getting 55-65K PPD through this. Hope it lasts long! :D

Yeah i'm getting around 25K per 8 core and 9-10K PPD on the core. If you pick up the big SMP you get qround 28K PPD on teh 8 core and 10K on the 4 core.
 
Hopefully they will create a 16 core profile because then a bigadv can be launched on there.