Custom Innosilicon A2 Terminator image - Anx Edition

[MarkAz]

First off, this is not to be confused with Emdje's firmware, which you can check out here:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=672969.0

The big difference with his (and it's a big difference) is that he's building newer versions of CGMiner, since he has the source to the A2 - super cool, but it doesn't work on all my devices, plus while it's definitely nice to be running a newer CGMiner plus over/underclocking, for me some of the bigger issues were things beyond that.

And as with his, use at your own risk - although mine uses the stock cgminer binaries available on Zoomhash:

http://zoomhash.com/pages/a2-and-mini-a2-software-setup

Specifically the Mega and Mini one - but everything seems to work fine on all the A2's I have (new 110's, old 110's, and 88's - but I don't have a Mini to test on).  So, what different?  This is really meant to be just a cleaner and bit more manageable version of the original firmware - I've cleaned up the UI a bit (not much really), and added the following things (all via the WebUI):

v09-01-2015:
    * All graphs now use the same timebase, so it's easier to see if failures are related
    * Log viewing now available for Messages and Syslog
    * Removed swapfile and system logs now stored in tmpfs, so more SD card friendly operation
    * Timezone can now be specified to all the times are easier to figure out
    * CGMiner will auto-restart on exit, and reports how many restarts happened and at what time
    * More CGMiner graphs
    * Network graphs for both latency to gateway and latency to Internet (Google)
    * Support for spaces in password for pools (for selecting additional options)

v08-01-2015:
    * DHCP by default (can be set to static IP in the web UI, default static IP is 192.168.1.100)
    * Hostname can be specified, makes finding machines on your network much easier
    * Allows underclocking to 500Mhz (in 100 Mhz steps)
    * Switch between Failover and Balance pool strategy
    * Switch CGMiner logging on and off
    * Helper function to swap Pool 1 and Pool 2 (when using Failover)
    * Device profile, specify speed (88MH/110MH), number of boards, etc
    * User field for 'Location' of device, helpful for tracking machines down when something is wrong
    * Reboot option
    * Benchmark option (CGMiner function for ~60 seconds) with separate logging
    * General system information, free HD space, free memory, average CPU load and temps
    * RRD graphs of CPU load and temps
    * RRD graphs of each blade (stacked) and avg temperatures on dashboard
    * Historical RRD graphs/data for one year
    * Hardware error rate shown on RRD historical page

Here's where you can the latest version (09-01-2015) ~254.5MB:
https://mega.nz/#!3VkjgaJT!PH4ixphRQFT23tgTwpnSwrkJPG0gB2VXsmN9BxagftI

Here's where you can get the previous version (08-01-2015) ~308.9MB:
https://mega.nz/#!PFVjBBYC!iHabEKCwgJbXGOTJ6d2wvz0QsxyN_Tx-RjmMLRULTCk

Install is easier than the stock image, just unzip, write it to an SD card using whatever app you prefer (I use Win32 Disk Imager), stick it in your A2 and boot it up - everything should be pretty self explanatory.  The graphs will show up as broken links for the first ~5 minutes, until it generates the initial data - from then on it's all on autopilot.

If you run into any issues, ideas, suggestions or whatever - make sure to post them on the thread!   Hope everyone enjoys it!

[thesmokingman]

Thanks for posting this MarkAz. I tried using Emdje's firmware on my new A2 110 before reading the full thread and how it doesn't work on the newer systems, so looking forward to giving this one a run. I can help with any logs etc you may need to improve future versions, just let me know.

Will give it a go later this evening when I get home and let you know how it works out

[thesmokingman]

MarkAz- My miner has been running since last night on your release and everything appears to be running smoothly! I really like the addition of the graphs and the ability to download the cgminer logs.

I have the A2 Mega that I bought from (http://zoomhash.com/products/110mhs-scrypt-asic-plug-and-play-1000w-a2mega-door-to-door-within-3-5-business-days) but they are telling me it uses the same firmware as the Terminator. "IF" that is the case, I'm having two minor issues with this release as follows:

1. Static IP - I change the drop down box to Static IP and input the IP address that I would like to assign to the miner. I click the "Apply" button and then the screen refreshes, but my IP remains the same/DHCP. I disconnected the ethernet cable after setting the static IP to see if the box would reconnect with the static IP, but it renewed its same DHCP lease. Again, not sure if this is due to possible differences between the A2 Terminator and A2 Mega (if any).

2. Host Name - I changed the hostname to A2 and clicked "Apply", but the hostname was not passed to my router. Again, not sure if this is due to possible differences between the A2 Terminator and A2 Mega (if any).

Recommendations:

Add a legend for the charts so we know what the lines and colors represent.
Move the "Stop Mining" button up next to the "Start Mining" button.

Other than that, I'm liking the new version alot. I'm a noob miner (3 weeks old), but willing to send you a few Litecoins as a donation for your dev efforts on this, especially if your able to upgrade cgminer and overclocking options.

Thanks again!

[MarkAz]

1. Static IP - I change the drop down box to Static IP and input the IP address that I would like to assign to the miner. I click the "Apply" button and then the screen refreshes, but my IP remains the same/DHCP. I disconnected the ethernet cable after setting the static IP to see if the box would reconnect with the static IP, but it renewed its same DHCP lease. Again, not sure if this is due to possible differences between the A2 Terminator and A2 Mega (if any).

For the DHCP/IP change, it requires you to reboot in order to take effect.  I read alot of problems with people hitting the apply button on that by mistake on their firmware, so I decided to not have it reboot after you hit apply, just in case you made a mistake.  Let me know if you don't see it working when you reboot.

2. Host Name - I changed the hostname to A2 and clicked "Apply", but the hostname was not passed to my router. Again, not sure if this is due to possible differences between the A2 Terminator and A2 Mega (if any).

Same as IP address, should be reflected after you reboot it.

Recommendations:

Add a legend for the charts so we know what the lines and colors represent.
Move the "Stop Mining" button up next to the "Start Mining" button.

Other than that, I'm liking the new version alot. I'm a noob miner (3 weeks old), but willing to send you a few Litecoins as a donation for your dev efforts on this, especially if your able to upgrade cgminer and overclocking options.

Yeah, I'm working a new version right now with some more graphs (accepts and rejects), and I'm also planning on starting to clean up the pages, so it's easier to switch between things like the main view, CG miner live stats, etc.

On the "Stop Mining" button - any particular reason you'd like it next to start?  Right now if you hit Start, it will stop the miner before applying them and then start it again.  I moved it away so it couldn't be hit by mistake, but I agree it makes more consistency sense to have it in the same location.

One other thing I'd like to add is the ability to set the timezone, that way it's a bit easier to see when something happens, instead of UTC.  I've also been toying around with the idea of adding some scheduling, but I already wrote something on the PC that changes the speed and starts/stops mining, so I'm not as inclined to do that.  Plus even with mining off, the device consumes a fair bit of power, so not as much value except I like to let it cool down a bit before I turn them off (avoid thermal shock).

As far as overclocking - I probably will add 1300 which I think I can do with the existing one, but I don't think I can do the fine steps that Emdje's does.  Without the ability to compile my own CGMiner, just adding other packages and tweaking the web interface is about the limit of what I can do.  Who knows, maybe whoever was cool enough to hook up Emdje with the code will do the same for me... One can hope! 

Thanks for the feedback and glad it's making your mining life a bit better - the A2 is a pretty cool device IMO, the software just needed a bit of TLC.

[emdje]

Nice to see someone else improving the A2's 
Definitely going to try 


I do have a question. Are you using my CGminer build in your image?
The underclock options you provide are not hard-coded in the stock software version, that is why I ask.
Stock version only allows for the 1000, 1080, 1100, 1200, 1280, 1300 and 1400MHz frequencies to be set.

If not, where did you get it, never seen another version that is why I ask.

[MarkAz]

Nice to see someone else improving the A2's  
Definitely going to try  

I hope you like it - yours is the Gold standard for the A2's!  

I wish I could have used your image, but I have both new and old Mega's, and I wanted one that would work on all of them.

I do have a question. Are you using my CGminer build in your image?
The underclock options you provide are not hard-coded in the stock software version, that is why I ask.
Stock version only allows for the 1000, 1080, 1100, 1200, 1280, 1300 and 1400MHz frequencies to be set.

If not, where did you get it, never seen another version that is why I ask.

Interesting - I don't think it's yours because it works on both new and old miners, but I obviously didn't build it so maybe it is one of your older versions.  I literally just took the image from Zoomhash, and started editing that, so it's whatever one they include... If you don't already, it probably would be worth it to change the revision string to include your name on your cgminer builds.  One super annoyance I had when building this is that I bought 20+ A2's (Mega's and 88's), and I must have had 5 different OS versions and no idea which was newer/older, what changed, etc.  So my initial plans were just to build my own use firmware to normalize everything, but then I figured if it were useful for me, it probably would be for some other people as well (particularly those with new A2 Mega's that can't run your firmware).

As far as the underclocking goes - I literally just replaced the speed in the .php and it works as expected, the hash rates reduce and the power consumption does as well.  I had just assumed that they had included it in their build, but only in coarse resolution, and you had basically taken it to the next level.  I can say that the stock image didn't offer any under/overclocking options, just basically the 1000/1100 and 1200 speeds...

If you want to incorporate anything from my image in yours, feel free - although I would hold off on the html for a bit, as I'm working on a new one right now.  I added a couple more graphs, and finally got a workable solution for setting the timezone through the web interface, etc.  Once I've basically got all the features implemented, then I plan to split it up into several pages, to clean things up a bit and move the things that are rarely changed (like network settings, etc).

[Marvell1]

Played with the image and liking it so far, one thing though it defaults to 1200mzh
Which my miner with a weak psu cuased it to go into a die loop before I could find the ip and set it to 1100

I ended up throwing in a new psu just so I could try your firmware

P.s how come no over clock options? Either way really nice work

[emdje]

Nice to see someone else improving the A2's  
Definitely going to try  

I hope you like it - yours is the Gold standard for the A2's!  

I wish I could have used your image, but I have both new and old Mega's, and I wanted one that would work on all of them.

I do have a question. Are you using my CGminer build in your image?
The underclock options you provide are not hard-coded in the stock software version, that is why I ask.
Stock version only allows for the 1000, 1080, 1100, 1200, 1280, 1300 and 1400MHz frequencies to be set.

If not, where did you get it, never seen another version that is why I ask.

Interesting - I don't think it's yours because it works on both new and old miners, but I obviously didn't build it so maybe it is one of your older versions.  I literally just took the image from Zoomhash, and started editing that, so it's whatever one they include... If you don't already, it probably would be worth it to change the revision string to include your name on your cgminer builds.  One super annoyance I had when building this is that I bought 20+ A2's (Mega's and 88's), and I must have had 5 different OS versions and no idea which was newer/older, what changed, etc.  So my initial plans were just to build my own use firmware to normalize everything, but then I figured if it were useful for me, it probably would be for some other people as well (particularly those with new A2 Mega's that can't run your firmware).

As far as the underclocking goes - I literally just replaced the speed in the .php and it works as expected, the hash rates reduce and the power consumption does as well.  I had just assumed that they had included it in their build, but only in coarse resolution, and you had basically taken it to the next level.  I can say that the stock image didn't offer any under/overclocking options, just basically the 1000/1100 and 1200 speeds...

If you want to incorporate anything from my image in yours, feel free - although I would hold off on the html for a bit, as I'm working on a new one right now.  I added a couple more graphs, and finally got a workable solution for setting the timezone through the web interface, etc.  Once I've basically got all the features implemented, then I plan to split it up into several pages, to clean things up a bit and move the things that are rarely changed (like network settings, etc).

Thnx for the kind words.
I indeed never put in my name in the cg builds. Maybe zoomhash used mine maybe they also got the source code from somewhere. I might check it with md5 don't know yet. When I have some more time I will check yours out, from the comments it sounds promising
If I use anything from you I will city you.

[MarkAz]

Thnx for the kind words.
I indeed never put in my name in the cg builds. Maybe zoomhash used mine maybe they also got the source code from somewhere. I might check it with md5 don't know yet. When I have some more time I will check yours out, from the comments it sounds promising
If I use anything from you I will city you.

It will be interesting to see what you find when you check it out, as I said, one of the challenges is that there are multiple versions of cgminer, that definitely do different things, yet all basically report the same version info...

TBH I didn't do anything super complicated in my build - just basically cleaned up the php and added some features to it - and then added a couple of other packages, the one that took the most time was cgmrrd - but more because I've never really used Python before and it hasn't been updated in a while.  

One super annoying thing for me is that the code and html are combined on all these things, so in time what I'd like to do is basically switch everything over to being JSON, and then just make a more modern CSS/JS interface - plus that makes automation much cleaner.  One other thing I'd like to do is something akin to what Bitmain did with cgminer on there, basically throwing it inside of a loop so if it dies for some reason it automatically starts back up.  The only other thing I would love would be if the physical hardware is actually setup to be able to turn off the PSU (or if they just bridged the switch pin).  I would LOVE to be able to remotely shut down the machine, as even when it's not hashing, it still consumes a solid amp of power.

[thesmokingman]

For the DHCP/IP change, it requires you to reboot in order to take effect.  I read alot of problems with people hitting the apply button on that by mistake on their firmware, so I decided to not have it reboot after you hit apply, just in case you made a mistake.  Let me know if you don't see it working when you reboot.

Thanks. Rebooting the A2 after clicking apply worked and used the new IP address that I assigned it.

Same as IP address, should be reflected after you reboot it.

This worked as well.

On the "Stop Mining" button - any particular reason you'd like it next to start?  Right now if you hit Start, it will stop the miner before applying them and then start it again.  I moved it away so it couldn't be hit by mistake, but I agree it makes more consistency sense to have it in the same location.

I just felt it was easier to click the stop button if it was next to the start button vs. scrolling down to the bottom of the page to click it.

Everything else is working great though! System has been running 24/7 since the 4th on your version with no ill effects. Here's to hoping emdje will allow us to use his newer version of cgminer in future builds!

[quarksoft]

Was wondering where I can find details on login information for this image so I can make some changes and maybe contribute to the image.

Thanks!

[MarkAz]

It's the same login information as the original, username "pi" password "innosilicon".

I'll have a new version next week - I've change the default startup speed from 1200Mhz to 1000Mhz, so it doesn't start off balls-out.  I've also added some more graphs, and added the ability to specify the timezone, which is handy for the graphs.

Let me know if there's a particular thing you're looking for in it, and I could also add the package to the distro... I did a fair bit of housekeeping with the last one to reduce the image size, but I still think it's way over the mark and would like to get it even smaller.

[2x2lcallingcq]

It's the same login information as the original, username "pi" password "innosilicon".

I'll have a new version next week - I've change the default startup speed from 1200Mhz to 1000Mhz, so it doesn't start off balls-out.  I've also added some more graphs, and added the ability to specify the timezone, which is handy for the graphs.

Let me know if there's a particular thing you're looking for in it, and I could also add the package to the distro... I did a fair bit of housekeeping with the last one to reduce the image size, but I still think it's way over the mark and would like to get it even smaller.

Installed this in my A2 when it was released and it is the greatest. I'd like to tip you some fedoracoin what is your addi? Additionally I was wondering if someone could point me in the direction of remote access to the A2?

[MarkAz]

Installed this in my A2 when it was released and it is the greatest. I'd like to tip you some fedoracoin what is your addi? Additionally I was wondering if someone could point me in the direction of remote access to the A2?

Glad you like it, there's still alot to do, but it's a good starting point and it certainly makes working with the A2's a whole lot more pleasurable.  As far as tips, ironically I pretty much do BTC most of the time, so my BTC addy is: 168vZUJ4PNioJzYicdmYFCbsbfjWUS39vG

As far as remote access, just ssh to the IP of your machine, the username and password are the defaults from Innosilicon (user "pi" pass "innosilicon").  Enjoy!

[MarkAz]

Quick question for anyone who has an opinion - my next version has 6 graphs on the main dashboard page, they are:

Accepts and Rejects
Hashes/s and Blade temp
CPU load and CPU temp

I've also normalized them so they're all showing the same time period (so CPU temp is the same time window as Blade temps, etc).  Plus you can now set your timezone, so the times on the graphs are all local - making it much easier to figure out when something was acting up.  The hashes/s display isn't super useful, as it's basically just 6 colored blocks - but it is helpful in seeing if one of the blades is down or not functioning the same as the others (a heads up that it should be checked out and might fail soon).

Are there any other things that you would like to see?  Ideally I'd like pairs, so if you have one, then try to pick a second graph to pair with it.  Basically anything from the Realtime statistics page is a candidate, so peruse them and see if they look good.

I was also considering putting something in there that might be network related - like perhaps some graphs of ping times to each pool, as well as maybe your gateway and google.  That way if there was a network issue, you could spot it - and all the pools I use respond to ping so that's workable (but I'd ideally like to have another 'network' or 'system' related graph to pair with in).

Let me know your thoughts!

[2x2lcallingcq]

Installed this in my A2 when it was released and it is the greatest. I'd like to tip you some fedoracoin what is your addi? Additionally I was wondering if someone could point me in the direction of remote access to the A2?

Glad you like it, there's still alot to do, but it's a good starting point and it certainly makes working with the A2's a whole lot more pleasurable.  As far as tips, ironically I pretty much do BTC most of the time, so my BTC addy is: 168vZUJ4PNioJzYicdmYFCbsbfjWUS39vG

As far as remote access, just ssh to the IP of your machine, the username and password are the defaults from Innosilicon (user "pi" pass "innosilicon").  Enjoy!

sending you 0.01186765btc. thanks for the hard work.

[CoinLeaf]

Made an account here to thank you for your work. I couldn't get the stock image working at all with my new A2Mega. I mean there's not much to it... set a pool and hit "Start Mining". It would try to start up and I would refresh the page a couple minutes later and it wouldn't be running anymore. They're actually recommending your image now on the set-up page.

[CoinLeaf]

I noticed the "Balance" mode in Pool Choice cycles through the pools. Is there a way to set it up so two boards are dedicated to each pool?

[MarkAz]

Made an account here to thank you for your work. I couldn't get the stock image working at all with my new A2Mega. I mean there's not much to it... set a pool and hit "Start Mining". It would try to start up and I would refresh the page a couple minutes later and it wouldn't be running anymore. They're actually recommending your image now on the set-up page.

Glad it's working for you - I was in much the same situation as you, which is the main reason I made this.  That and because I really like the Terminator's, I think it's a great box that suffered from not enough love on it's web interface.    Keep an eye on the thread, as I'll be putting up a new version in a week or two, with some more improvements.

I noticed the "Balance" mode in Pool Choice cycles through the pools. Is there a way to set it up so two boards are dedicated to each pool?

This is really controlled by CGMiner, and it doesn't have the option to do that - although I agree, that would be pretty slick to be able to assign it in that way.  Right now it basically switches back and forth between the two, but it does a good job of balancing it out evenly - I was using it with CleverMining and F2Pool, and from F2Pool's worker stats page, it was pretty easy to see it doing it's thing.  If you could do what you're proposing, then instead of getting those oscillating spikes, you really could assign half of your box to one pool, and half to the other.

[MarkAz]

Quick update - my next release should be on the first of September... I've got some good new features, a couple of the changes are particularly nice:

Starting of the miner is done with a bootup cron task bound to the system restarting.  I've also modified it so it will auto-restart if cgminer exits for some reason - I have one A2 that has a bad blade, and it periodically stops hashing and you need to manually restart, and this handles it without any user interaction.   Super handy when uptime is important to you - and let's face it, we're mining, so very little is more important than uptime.    When it does restart, it keeps a log of how many times it had to do recovery restarts, and that is displayed up on the top with the running status - and if you click on it, then it will show you the times that it restarted at.

I now also included ping latency graphs to your gateway, and also to the Internet (Google), so you'll get some idea of how your link is performing, and if there's anything to watch out for.  And the machine uptime and timezone are displayed under the system information.

On a side note, I saw someone selling a Terminator on eBay, and on the screenshot it was running my firmware which brought a smile to my face - pretty cool, especially considering that it's only been available for less than two weeks.