Bitcoin Forum

I am sure this has been covered, but I can run the client on multiple machines on the same network, correct?  each has it's own "bitcoin address".

That's correct. Each bitcoin client have their own wallet.

So what's all the stuff about NAT translations, etc.  Brief summary.

Short answer:  you don't have to worry about it.

Long answer:  if you want to worry about being as network-bandwidth-efficient as possible, run one node normally, and run all the rest with the -noirc -connect=IP.AD.DR.SS flags so they connect only to the one 'master' node.  All the network traffic will then go through the master node.

Additional question on this matter: if I have multiple of my own machines I'd like to use to generate coins, it looks like there's a few ways to go... 

• Just run the client on all of them, with each machine aiming at completing a block and earning 50 BTC.  Using the -connect parameter to save on network traffic
• Set up a pool for all my machines... although I wouldn't need to allocate/track winnings
• Something else?  I've seen mention of having separate miners using a "getwork" call, but not much detail on how one should configure that on a home network or which software is needed

Can anyone point me in the right direction here towards what makes the most sense and what are the benefits?  I assume the first method has some level of wastefulness to it that I can bypass by making my machines collaborate instead of compete... is this true?

Maybe you also want to use -addnode option, which results in a non-exclusive connection, so it still does connect to others. I use this option, so a connections are established faster when there is at least one other node available in your network.