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Setting up a Quarkcoin Miner on VPS for Absolute Noobs
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Before You Begin

• Download PuTTY (http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html) (putty.exe) so you can connect to your VPS when the time comes.
• Sign up for a DigitalOcean (https://www.digitalocean.com/?refcode=dbe99a6e91ee) or Linode (http://www.linode.com/?r=02323a0949ca9d51f753e28f944693aa08e84269) account.
  
  • During the creation process, be sure to create a node running Ubuntu 13.04 x64 (not x86)
  • Pick whichever hardware configuration you like (number of CPUs, RAM, etc)
• If you signed up for DigitalOcean, check your email for your root password.  If you signed up for Linode, your password will be what you specified.
• Run PuTTY and paste the node's IP address into the "Host Name" slot, then hit "Open" at the bottom. (figure 1) (https://i.imgur.com/TTmKrnd.png)
• PuTTY will ask you to confirm the SSH key, press Yes (it will only ask once) (figure 2) (https://i.imgur.com/rZ1j1Dc.png)
• Type or paste your password into PuTTY and press enter.  To paste, simply right click.
  
  • Note: You will not see the password characters!  This is normal.

http://goo.gl/62aGBQhttp://goo.gl/qMHVgJ

Getting Down to Business

• If you chose DigitalOcean, it's time to change the root password!  Type passwd, press enter, then enter a new password.  Just like before, the password characters will not show up. (figure 3) (https://i.imgur.com/vsNlOBV.png)
• Copy this automated setup script (http://pastebin.com/raw.php?i=iggH4B75) to notepad. (highlighted version (http://pastebin.com/iggH4B75))
• At the top of the script, there are fields starting with "QUARKCOIN_".  Fill these out with your desired info.  Be sure to keep the quotes!
  
  • QUARKCOIN_USERNAME is your quarkcoind username.  It's required for quarkcoind to work properly!
• Copy the entire modified script from notepad and paste it into your PuTTY window (right click), then hit enter.
• The setup is now running.  It will take approximately 10 minutes to complete.
• Once the script completes, you will see a brief help message and list of commands. (figure 4) (https://i.imgur.com/7ukU7q0.png)

Congratulations!  You're now mining for quarkcoins!
It may take a few minutes before you actually begin mining.  This is normal.  Quarkcoin needs to download the blockchain before it can begin doing work.  After it's caught up, you should be able to run ./peek and see that it's generating quarks.

If you'd like to maximize your mining potential, please see my mini-guide on How to Clone DigitalOcean Droplets (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=284831.msg3045081#msg3045081).

---

What Now?

• If you haven't already, download the latest version of the Quarkcoin client.
  
  • You can download it from the forum thread (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=260031.0).
• To "merge" your quarkcoin accounts into one, you'll need to gather the private keys from your VPS nodes
  
  • Log into your droplet like you did at the beginning of the setup.  This time your password will be what you set it to.
  • Run ./peek to verify that quarkcoind is running.  If it isn't, run ./start-quarkcoind and wait a few moments.
  • Run ./myinfo to dump your addresses and private keys values. (figure 5) (https://i.imgur.com/ip8X0no.png)
  • Copy the private key value (the random text after "PrivKey:") by highlighting it with your cursor.
  • On your main computer, open Quarkcoin and import the private key.
    
    • From the main Quarkcoin screen, click Help -> Debug Window
    • In the new popup, select Console
    • Type importprivkey YOUR_PRIVKEY SOME_LABEL and wait a few seconds.  YOUR_PRIVKEY is what you copied from PuTTY and SOME_LABEL is what you want the address to appear as in your address book. (figure 6) (https://i.imgur.com/cn3urrt.png)
    • Repeat this for as many private keys you wish to import.  Once finished, close and re-run the Quarkcoin client.  You should see the new addresses under "Receive".
  • Note: if an instance of quarkcoind mines a block, it may not be under the address you exported.  Wait for the block to be confirmed, then dump your addresses again.  Alternately, modify the notify-wallet script to FTP a backup of your wallet.dat file.
• Occasionally you may wish to update your quarkcoin miner when new versions or patches are released.  To do this...
  
  • Log into your DigitalOcean droplet
  • Run ./stop-quarkcoind to stop the quarkcoind process
  • Run ./build-quarkcoin to update and rebuild quarkcoind
  • Run ./start-quarkcoind to start your quarkcoind process again
  • Wait a few minutes and run ./peek to make sure it's running correctly
• If you'd like to remotely backup your wallet.dat file whenever you mint a new block, check this short guide (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=261179.msg2796507).

Changelog

• 27 August, 2013
  
  • Cron reboot script now works properly.  (Damn you cron and your newlines!)
  • ~/peek no longer shows orphaned blocks.  Balance will only include transactions with one or more confirmations.
  • ~/myinfo now shows all addresses, not just those in the last ~100 transactions.  The pattern matching has been made more generic, so it works with just about any coin on main/testnet.  It also only does a lookup on addresses that generated a block or received currency.
  • Now includes a ~/restart-quarkcoind script
• 20 August, 2013
  
  • Tweaked apt-get package names to grab most compatible package for the given install setup
  • Package list now includes fail2ban by default for some semblance of security
  • Package list now includes nano as a text editor.  Why some installs don't come with this is beyond me.
  • Swapfile now persists after reboot.
  • Auto reboot on kernel panic
• 15 August, 2013 - Now Amazon EC2 compliant.  Also adds quakcoin miner to server startup.
• 13 August, 2013 - Lots of updates!  Applied changes similar to those in the Primecoin script.
• 30 July, 2013 - Initial release

Notes
The images in this guide are from my other primecoin guide and are slightly dated.  The images serve to illustrate, but shouldn't be taken as definitive.


If you have any questions or comments, feel free to speak up.

Trying it now. Certainly would make things easier!

I am now running a 2Cpu Digital Ocean droplet. Will give status update in a couple of hours.

muchly appreciated this guide. Have it running my droplet now, will post back with results in 24 hours or so :)

Well i am quiting this crap it has been running for 5 days on a i7 3770k and got not even one block

It seems looks like mining with minerd also not working ....

with this script, i've hit 2 blocks overnight, so kudos :)

Mining on 2 droplets for 18 hours. Nothing yet.
ps fu showing quark is running.

I'm hoping they fix getmininginfo in the future so it actually shows hashing speed.   :-\

Don't expect many blocks using a VPS given the high difficulty now. Also since the price is so low, I doubt if it is really profitable.

People said that about Primecoin too, but I'm looking at 5 minted blocks in the last ~24 hours, so I'm ok if you'd like to sit this one out.  ;)

For ./myinfo i suggest to use this code, so mined coins will appear in the windows wallet, after you launch import.bat


To import keys need following:
1. add to quarkcoin.conf (in %USERPROFILE%/AppData/Roaming/Quarkcoin) an options:
2. Start quarkcoin-qt
3. Put import.bat into the folder where quarkcoind.exe are placed on the pc with your main windows wallet and run it
* if your wallet are encrypted, you need to remove "rem" occurences from the import.bat before run it.

--

If you do not want to write private keys to file, there is a simpler script:

You would need to copy-paste line by line output of ./myinfo to quarkcoin-qt debug console window on main wallet

--
* fixed: more that 10 addresses to show

Great work now showing hashespersec

fixed thanks

Lots of updates!

Changes include pretty much everything from the primecoin script that's been added in the last two weeks.  That includes better ~/peek and start/stop scripts along with some cosmetic tweaks.

Minor updates today.

The script is now test and is Amazon EC2 compliant.
It also includes adding quarkcoin to startup.

Another minor update.  I've noticed that some hosting providers (DigitalOcean) occasionally result in a Kernel Panic on boot.

I've modified the script to auto-reboot in case of a kernel panic so mining can continue as usual.
Secondly, the swapfile will only build once.  Updates are as simple as re-running the whole script.

You need to replace the A in the grep of the myinfo script


with a Q to get quarkcoin addresses.

BTW, after rerunning your updated script I cannot get any connections in a digital ocean droplet. Are the nodes working?

Thanks

Good catch, I've updated the script.  That's what I get for copy/pasting.

I'm not certain about the node list.  I haven't updated it since the initial script build.  It may no longer be needed, but to my understanding Quarkcoin always takes a while to find peers.

Misc stability/compatibility tweaks.

Now includes fail2ban by default to prevent brute-force login attempts.

Gigawatt please can you make a linux step by step guide for solo mining quark with this cpu miner ?  also if you put your quark address in sig then people can donate them to you if they dont own prime or bitcoins

taken from quark thread
-------------------------------------------------------------
It's fast, I'll post then all in one place,

the source code:
http://stonefoz.myfastmail.com/cpuminer-quark.zip
the binary: please check if it loads the right libraries. "minerd-bin" is the real thing and "minerd" is a script to set the LD_LIBRARY_PATH current directory. Who knows? you might already have libjannson installed.
http://stonefoz.myfastmail.com/cpuminer-quark-bin.zip
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Can I just recommend something that *might* speed things up?

https://github.com/ilikenwf/apt-fast

It would require a few extra install steps, but it makes grabbing packages so much faster.

Matthew:out

not a team of ~ / myinfo http://imgur.com/BYy5I29 (http://imgur.com/BYy5I29)

Updated script to keep it in line with main Primecoin script.  See main post for details.

~/myinfo only shows the addresses and keys that have earned QRK coins, since you haven't mined any yet it shows nothing.

-- Is that enough tabs open ;)
-- Might I suggest OneTab https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/onetab/chphlpgkkbolifaimnlloiipkdnihall

There is a small mistake in the script, at the top QUARK_USER is set but further down when it is used it says QUARKCOIN_USER so no username is saved to the config file

I cant seem to get the ~/myinfo command to give any info. everything seems to be mining, getting decent hash speed but no address

Have you received any coins or successfully mined a block with that wallet?

~/myinfo only shows an address if it's received coins in some way or another, so if your balance has always been a flat 0, it won't return anything.

Good to know, sorry Im stupid. I thought since it wasn't showing an address it couldn't mine anything. so I imported private key and tried that way. Lol patience is my downfall

Hi

Everything is working, but myinfo doesnt work. I tried ~/myinfo and ./myinfo.

I had the same issue, i was told once a block is mined, your address and coin will so in the myinfo command. So aslong as your hashing, its working

The post right before you was the same problem and the same solution just as i3lome said, myinfo only shows private keys to addresses with a balance so if ~/peek shows a balance of 0 ~/myinfo will be blank

Do you have tutorial for windows vps?

OP can I give you Pool Mining Script for VPS, I have it down to a copy and paste method that uses some of your guide to setup

You might be interested in my Securecoin pool mining guide in my signature.
Securecoin and Quarkcoin use the same hashing algorithm, so you can just point the miner to a Quarkcoin pool and be good to go!

I guess this tutorial is for VPS "solo" mining ?

Could you please help in configuring a pool mining ?

Hi Gigawatt,

thank you for the great script. I have just bought a VPS at Linode and it's running at 45k hps. Another node is running at my home PC in a virtual LUBUNTU box at 20k hps.

The script compiled quite well at the Linode box, but with many warnings. It seems to be working fine but still, is it ok? I don't have so much experience with linux so it might be a stupid question :)

Building LevelDB ...

db/log_reader.cc:181:26: warning: comparison between signed and unsigned integer expressions [-Wsign-compare]

blake.c:886:8: warning: invalid conversion from ‘void*’ to ‘unsigned char*’ [-fpermissive]

blake.c:944:1: warning:   initializing argument 1 of ‘void blake64_close(sph_blake_big_context*, unsigned int, unsigned int, void*, size_t)’ [-fpermissive]

update-rc.d: warning: /etc/init.d/cron missing LSB information

Thank you.

gigawatt you legend is this on our forum ?

? ? ?

http://quark.freeforums.net/  i will sticky it !  in the Tech section we badly need help !

inundated with community members  come and see for yourself !

people will tip you !

So little informations...
What QUARK_USERNAME="" means? Where to get that?
How to join pool and where to write my worker username and password?

Lol guess the script is noobproof but not derpproof  :D

Dude i follow pdf instructions from qrk forums Super Easy Quark mining SETUP

and when i go this:

./configure CFLAGS="-O3"
make

i get

root@XXX:/usr/local/quarkcoin-cpuminer# make
make: *** No targets specified and no makefile found.  Stop.


Am noob so what? You was pro when u started mining? cmon... get real

Further up there should be more errors. Are you running on Ubuntu 13.10?

I had to load up 13.10 otherwise automake was not the most recent version and compilation fails.

i started 2 days ago and have already 0 QRK. Is that normal ?

with ~/peek i get this: