Bitcoin Forum

As mentioned in the main i0coin thread,  now that i0coin supports merged mining I've modified my existing pool software to merge mine Bitcoin, Namecoin, i0coin, IXcoin and Devcoin. Payment is 'Pay Per Share' rather than the proportional system used by my other bitparking pools. Details at http://mmpool.bitparking.com.

There may be bugs in the i0coin merged mining implementation or the pool software so there may be a few ups and downs in the pool at this early stage as I stamp them out. Contact me via email (email is on the pool website) if you have questions/problems.

Thanks, DC!  Will try this out when I get home!

If anyone is using old versions of cgminer, please update to the latest version before using a merged mining pool like mmpool. The older versions don't always respond to the longpoll notifications from the pool. This was an optimisation used in cgminer but it breaks with merged mining. Notifications will occur when auxiliary chains have a new block but cgminer will think because the primary chain hasn't changed it can continue mining. You'll get higher numbers of stales with these cgminer versions.

The merged mining pool found its first bitcoin block a few blocks ago, and its first namecoin block a few hours ago, so I can confirm that merge mining is working successfully.

Thanks!  I'm drinking $1 Great Lakes xmas ales, but I hope to setup all my miners tomorrow to point towards your pool tomorrow!!!

Is this only cgminer related ?

I am getting about 15-20% stales using Phoenix miner (Version 1.6.2). Almost after every "LP: New work pushed" the first share send is rejected. Tried out the new Version (1.7.0) but it drops from 300 MHash down to 200 MHash and does not produce any shares. Read that the new Version seems to be still buggy.

Anyone else having that issue with Phoenix?

So guess i should change my miner, any prefered suggestions ? - Which is most appropriate miner for merged mining ?

My pool always seem to show higher stales with Phoenix, I'm not sure why. Namebit also saw the same thing with their pool software. The method the merge pool is using to handle longpolls combined with stale shares is a bit inefficient too (related to the merge mining proxy I'm using) - something I plan to improve on.

Fees for i0coin on the pool have dropped from 10% down to 5%, the same as bitcoin and namecoin, now. I'll monitor how that goes over the next day or two.

Awesome!  We should be able to merge mine Ixcoin within the week/year!  Do you think you'll add ixcoin to this pool?  Or will you setup a new pool for the transition?

Might try this pool out.  Only thing it needs is merged mining with Devcoin. (when that is implemented)

Ixcoin is all set to go, just waiting for the chain switch on block. It'll be interesting to see how the extra coin will impact mining with the increase in long polls. I'll monitor that and decide whether to keep it or move it to another pool at that point.

New users of mmpool can register now and add an ixcoin address. It'll be used when it is turned on. Current users will need to re-register under a different name to add an ixcoin address. I'll have to work out some way of dealing with 'dust' in old accounts.

I was keen at one point to implement merged mining in devcoin. But there turned out not to be a stable source repository for it and one of the official clients had an invalid checkpoint making downloading the block chain not possible. It looks difficult to contribute to as a result. If there were a stable repository, accepting pull requests, it'd be more likely to happen.

Have you talked with Unthinkingbit or markm about that?

Yes, there was a discussion in the devcoin thread about it when I asked about source code repositories to contribute.

That's quite unfortunate.

I think it's early days for devcoin and it'll improve over time. Probably a good thing since it might avoid the hype/bust cycle of other coins.

I just registered one and it worked fine. PM me the name(s) you tried if you want me to investigate, and the error message you got. I can't allow adding an IXcoin address like that otherwise people can try and guess others names and add their own ixcoin address which can't be changed. The cost of me avoiding passwords on the site.

I consider the names to be 'throwaway' so I don't think the burden of registering new ones occasionally to get new features is too great. At some point I'll have the 'dust' in old accounts automatically be sent to the relevant addresses so it won't be lost. I just need to work out the best way of doing that without paying fees for small amounts.

Yes, there are a lot of ways of doing it but I've decided with the pools I've run to make it minimal registration and passwords as possible. Even having to register to allow multiple addresses is more than I wanted but it was the easiest way of doing it at the time. It has upsides and downsides, all part of the fun of choosing which pool to go with.

Made an account, but I cannot connector to it with a miner.
If I put the username into the page to check my balances it comes up correctly, but I get an RPC Invalid User error when I try to point a miner at it.

Can you paste or PM me the command line you are using? The username is case sensitive so make sure that is right.

Capitalizing the first letter of the username fixed it, now it can connect!
Interesting, as the view-your-balances link doesn't care about capitalization at all.

Phoenix isn't very happy and doesn't seem to be delivering work very well, but I suspect that is an issue at my end.

Thanks for the help!

I'm working on improving the stale count and delivery of work so hopefully this will improve from the pool end soon.

I've added the ability to include a devcoin (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=34586.0) address when registering. Devcoin merge mining turns on at block 25,000 (currently it's at block 23,874). I don't know if I'll enable it on the pool yet, but if I do and you want devcoins you can re-register and include a devcoin address. Note that bitcoin addresses are valid devcoin addresses so for all existing registered users I can set the devcoin address to their bitcoin address. Then if you want to claim your share you can import the private key from bitcoin into devcoin.

At this stage I'm thinking of enabling merge mining for devcoin, and monitor the effect. If it causes an increase in stales or other issues I'll disable it until my work on reducing pool stales is done then re-enable it.

ixcoin has reached block 45,000 and mmpool (http://mmpool.bitparking.com) is now merge mining ixcoins along with bitcoin, namecoin and i0coin.

Very impressive, and extremely low stales. Nice job doublec! Thanks.

last hrs i had a very high stale-rate at the mmpool: ~ 12 % and rising
 
in the beginning it was only: ~ 1 %

12 % is too much, if there is no improvement, i have to change the pool

What miner (and version of that miner) are you using? I was running another process on the pool server for a while which impacted performance quite a bit until I noticed and killed it. This may be a reason for increasing stales today.

KIV's GUI-miner/W7-64 OpenCL - with this miner i had max. 1 % stales, at some pools near to 0 %

Edit: version 2011-07-01

Edit2: let's have a look after the stale-rate from now on ;)

I also have much stales

shares: 3906
Stales: 468

When ixcoin was added the stales were increasing

two hrs later: stales < 1 %

it's fine again  ;D

what ever you did doublec,
it worked !!

till today i had about 15%+ stales

since restart of my miner today cause i finaly added ixcoin, i have done >300 shares with 0 stales !!!

great work, thank you!

I've made some changes to the pool backend to try and improve getwork throughput when longpolling is informing users of a found block. Previously the pool would slow down as it suffered a 'thundering herd' of users asking for work for a few seconds. Hopefully this impact is reduced now. If you see any problems post here, PM or email. If you've been getting messages from your miner about the pool not being able to provide work fast enough I'd be interested in knowing if the frequency of this has reduced or increased.

i found little bug on pool:
1. Did 0.67 BTC withdraw - finished with http 502 error. Pool web was unaccesible few minutes.
2. After few minutes web was accessable again. BTC balance was still 0.67 BTC, so did another BTC withdraw. Result was the same as before.
3. After few minutes web was accessable again and BTC balance was again 0.67 BTC.
4. So i looked into blockchain and found out that both 0.67 BTC transactions were sent - and later really arrived into my wallet.

DoubleC - i own you 1.34 BTC. Sent me address to send to.

Seems like a nice 51% double spend attack on the pool. LOL.

The 502 was because of crashes happening due to issues with the new backend. I've hopefully stomped on all them now. You can keep the 1.34 BTC as reward for testing :)

Any plans to MM the following :

BTC
NMC
IXC
I0C
DVC

???

What other pools are doing MM with the 4 coins ? I think Eligius is also MM BTC, NMC, IXC and I0C ?

Thanks !

I'm currently MMing BTC, NMC, IXC and I0C. DVC isn't merge mineable yet but I'm planning to enable it when it is to see how it goes. You'll have to ask Eligius what exactly they're merge mining.

Exactly.  I mine on Eligius and I'm pretty sure they are only paying out Bitcoins and Namecoins right now.  If they are merged mining I0coins & Ixcoins, they aren't paying them out yet.

But I may need to go coin sign a Ixcoin & I0coin address to my bitcoin address to get payouts or something.  I haven't been following them as much, b/c doublec's is the best at the moment.

Does anyone recall Eligius's payout system and/or fees?  I believe they were established as a proportional payout with zero fees, but lately I've been thinking they are pay per share potentially with fees.  Please advise if you happen to have time to research.

Thanks!

Hey DubC, are you going to re-open the Bitparking Ix/I0 exchanges?

I've added the ability to have a Coiled Coin (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=56675.0) address when registering. Those that register with this new coin can start receiving them when/if the pool starts merge mining them.

Site is down

And those who are already registered must register again to receive Coiledcoins?

Is site gonna come up soon? also, seems miner is still working, the shares gonna be counted properly?
Thanks

site is back up and my shares where counted correctly !


BTW, great work Doublec !

Looks like the addition of the extra coin caused issues. I've tweaked some things and we'll see how that goes. Merge mining is now active for coiled coins and the pool is paying shares for it.

good stuff

Nice with clc, but very much longpoll request work restart

Hopefully the difficulty will increase to a point where that becomes less of an issue soon.

I've stopped sending out longpoll notifications for coiledcoin, so there will be less now. It'll mean more stales for the pool but I'll absorb it, and pay out the shares for it, for a while until the difficulty gets a bit higher.

Yet another reason to prefer mmpool

I found the bitparking pool a couple days ago after doing some tests with various pools.

Bitparking is so far the best pool of them all.  I'll be hanging around for a bit.

Thanks for the awesome pool!  :)

I've had to temporarily disable the "Withdraw All" button on the user balance page. You can still withdraw the currencies individually using their own buttons. Once I've resolved the issue with "Withdraw All" I'll re-enable the functionality.

Yeah well i have been like week and im feeling like home to stay :) DoubleC has done great job..

Due to an attack on the coiledcoin chain by luke-jr (https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=56675.msg676981#msg676981) I've stopped merge mining them. I'll continue to accept deposit addresses in case it can be re-enabled in the future.

i think it should be kept on (maybe with payments disabled until the coins can be confirmed) to "beat" the 51% er (luke is it?)

The pool is still mining, it'll just never get any blocks unless luke's pool gets below 50%.

I don't really know how these attacks works but it's very sad.

Mybe coiledcoin come back when coiledcoin have better security ?

All users that mined coiled coins on the mmpool have been compensated BTC at the rate of 0.0002 btc per coiled coin. This has been credited to your bitcoin balance. Sorry for the inconvenience of resetting your addresses for such a short lived chain.

Sorry it all went horribly wrong like this. I really wasn't expecting a 51% attack by one of the major pools.

No worries, it's all a learning experience. I guess that will be the last alt chain for a while.

Any plans to MM the following :

BTC
NMC
IXC
I0C
DVC
CLC

Why are you asking me if I have plans to merge mine currencies I'm already merge mining?

DVC should come soon, CLC i dead, or can i come back ?

he probably didn't read anything and expects us to read for him...

Yes probably, he seems like a tard...

Doublec, is there a change that clc can come back or is it totally dead ?

Time for devcoin ?

Devcoin merged mining seems to be working elsewhere, but no sign yet that it is active at bitparking...?

-MarkM-

Devcoin merge mining is active on bitparking now.

Nice

Yepyep, I have some in my account!

Would you recommend another new account to add a CLC address? 

Is there an exchange where I can get one?

Or do I need to track down a client?

I'm super busy at work and will be going back in tomorrow for a full day on Sunday ><...  So didn't know if I should give CLC any attention yet.

CLC is dead - I'm no longer allowing addresses to be registered. I paid out all existing CLC shares at a BTC rate of 0.0002 per CLC.

Thanks DoubleC!  You rock!  This is exactly the precise answer I needed during my crazy busy work week!

I've adjusted the fees for the pool based on current stale and orphan rates down to 2.5%. Previously it was 5% for bitcoin/namecoin/devcoin and 7.5% for i0coin and ixcoin.

atm the best gpu-pps-fee - 2.5 % -, so far as i can see  ;D

Keep it up!

Is it possible to add a Devcoin address to an existing account not mining them? If so, how?

You have to register a new name, and enter our addresses along with a devcoin address. If you use the same addresses for the other coins as the old account I'll, at some point, combine the values so you won't lose 'dust' in the old account. Hopefully I'll have that implemented some time this weekend.

All right, thanks.

down again?

Is for me.

Here too.

Down for me too. Waiting to hear back from the company hosting the machine.

Pool is back up now. There appears to have been a kernel panic that shut it down as a result of something namecoind related. I'm looking into it.

Pool has problem please check !

Care to elaborate? (feel free to PM me if you want to keep it quiet).

been having high stale last 24 hrs or so. Was up to about 25% last night.... but still hovering around 2.5% stale now which is way worse then I usually get

There's a problem with i0coin causing the daemon to crash. It looks like a large rollback or something to that effect. It was affecting the merge mining of the other coins. I've disabled i0coin for now until it's resolved. I notice the hash rate of the i0coin chain has plummetted so I assume I'm not the only one with the issue.

thanks for the update, stales back to normal levels, just no i0coins :(

Yeah not sure what the problem is yet. I see someone released an i0coin client recently. I'm wondering if there's some incompatibilty between that and the original.

i0coin mining is enabled again.

having problems with stale again for the last 12 hours or so....

Testing mining to the pool using cjdns if anyone wants to be a guinea pig: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=57148.msg969137#msg969137