How is the rig identified?

[OldChap]

What I want to do is.....

Install on a usb flash drive using puppy or fatdog, set up to run Boinc etc in memory with backup to the stick every say 6 hours, hopefully obviating the need for ssd or hdd. Give it a vnc server so it can run headless and make everything autostart.

I think I understand how to do this but it seems to be an operation in which it is easy to make errors so....

Having achieved it once, can I replicate the files on one flash drive to another then remove just the rig identifier on the new stick or is there more to it than that?

The purpose of this is to maybe host a single, ready to go boinc set up that is portable and thus available to anyone.

I shall do puppy (32bit) first then attempt the same in fatdog64

I invite comments, especially from you Linux adepts out there.

[Evantaur]

move boinc data folder to a new one and make sure it starts to use it (boinc --dir /new/boinc/data)

if it's from linux to linux there shouldn't be any complications

windows to linux doesn't work

[PoppaGeek]

I believe the identifier is the hosts name or machine name. In linux it is kept in /etc/hostname

"hostname" on the command line will return the hostname and "hostname newhostname" will set the hostname

[OldChap]

Perhaps just detach from wcg once it is set up before making any copy ??

[PoppaGeek]

Maybe copy before you attach?

EDIT:
Another thought. A First Boot script that asks for and sets the hostname?