Ok guys I've been working on an easy to use, point and click version of the Eloipool software pool for the average N00b that wants to try solo mining or experiment with the equipment and get excited about Bitcoin mining. .


This first post may change from time to time.


This release is a full pool running on a VMware machine. All the user needs to do is change the mining address, forward ports, and fire up the machine (and let it sync) to mine.


You will need vmware workstation or vmware player installed or something else that can rum VMware virtual machines. There are copies all over the net. The download is almost 1 gb. My linux fu isn't great enough to shrink it more than that at this time.



Known Issues:
If your computer is slow or older, you will receive stale or bad shares from time to time. SSD drive recommended.
If your hard disk fills up you will get thousands of errors almost immediately, some showing blocks found, but really it's just an error.


So here it is. If you have problems reply and I'll try to help. This isn't a commercial enterprise, I'm just sharing a copy of my own work because I saw requests for an easier to run system. Everything is open source and linux based.  


Download:

http://ul.to/gynukpgs




Instructions:


Fire it up:
Unrar to a hard disk with at least 100GB of space (for the blockchain and room for expansion.)
Power on the virtual machine.
Log in with password: hodedowe


Get your machine's IP address:
Doubleclick on LXTerminal on the desktop
Type sudo su
Enter your password again (hodedowe, in case you forgot)
Type ifconfig
You'll see a big readout that looks like this:
eno16777736 Link encap:Ethernet  HWaddr 00:0c:29:a8:ab:54
          inet addr:192.168.21.19  Bcast:192.168.21.1  Mask:255.255.255.0
          and much more...


The only one you're interested in is the one I bolded above. That's your virtual machine's IP address.
Write that on a piece of paper.


Forward the ports so you have fast, two-way access:
Outside of your virtual machine, click "Edit" on the top left of the VM window
Select Virtual Network Editor
Click on Change Settings in the bottom right hand corner. It has the Admin privileges shield on it.
Select VMNet8 Nat in the top window.
Select Nat settings on the middle right
Click Add
Fill in:
       Port: 8333
       Type: TCP
       Virtual Machine IP Address: The Address on your piece of paper from earlier
       Virtual Machine Port 8333
       Description: Bitcoin Network

Click OK
Click Add again and fill in:
      Port: 3334
      Type: TCP
      Virtual Machine IP Address: Whatever
      Virtual Machine Port 3334
      Description: Miner Access


Click OK
Click Ok on the next 2 windows or until the window closes.


Make it yours:
Back in your Virtual Machine command line window...Type cd /apple/eloipool-server/bitcoindata
Type "bitcoin-qt & disown" without the quotes.
This will let it sync over the next few days and let you see the progress. Go outside and live life for 2 days.
Once it has synced click on the "X" to close bitcoin-qt. If it doesn't fully close after two minutes just restart the virtual machine.
Now run the terminal again (green icon) and type "sudo su" without the quotes.
Enter your password again.
Type "ifconfig" and verify your IP address is the same. If it isn't, you need to forward the ports again (see above).
Type "cd /apple/eloipool-server/eloipool" without the quotes.
Type "gedit config.py" without quotes.
Change TrackerAddr to some wallet address that you own. This is the ONLY address that matters. Nothing else will receive coins.
Not the miner's login address. Not the address in your bitcoin core program, not your grandmother's dog's footprint address.
Only this address.


Start mining!
Now type "cd /apple/eloipool-server/scripts/./startpool.sh" (this starts bitcoind and runs eloipool)
Now wait 5-10 minutes for pool to stabilize before pointing your antminer, etc to the pool by pointing them to your computer's IP address.
This is not the IP address you had on paper. This is your windows computer's ip address.
They should connect great and that's it! Good luck!



ARMORY USERS:
Armory requires you to have two copies of the blockchain on your machine. One in your bitcoin core directory, and one in Armory. If you have this setup you can share the blockchain directory in your VM (virtual machine) and point your Armory client to it. To share the directory...
Open the terminal again and type sudo su.
Type your password.
Type apt-get install samba system-config-samba gvfs-bin gvfs-backends
Reboot
Open the command line again. Type touch /etc/libuser.conf
Type system-config-samba
Click add and browse to /apple
Fill in details, allow full access to everyone on second tab.
Type sudo sudo chmod -R a+rwX /apple
Then in Windows just open My Computer (or File Explorer in Win10)
Now type this in the address bar, where IPaddress is the address of your VM
\\IPaddress
You should see your apple folder. Right click on it and select Map Network Drive
Select a drive letter, like Y:\
Now when you open Armory just make sure to change the path to the bitcoin data directory to Y:\bitcoindata
Tada!

Does it generate empty blocks on a block change?

V0.015 uploaded. Fix for stale shares and some stability fixes.

Welcome! Good luck!


Added instructions for Armory users so they can access the blockchain folder from Windows.

Again, I'm not an uber coder like you Kano. I only learned a little python recently, and mainly for this project. That said, I believe the problem you're referring to (empty blocks) was handled in an earlier revision of Eloipool when Luke-jr moved to "getblocktemplate" from "getmemorypool". An older version did have a problem with empty blocks, giving the miner 25 BTC but no transaction fees (0.000 btc) for mining the block. Any questions more technical than testing results would be better and more fully answered by PMing Luke-Jr.

In testing the blocks generated by my compilation here we had nicely filled blocks and no sign empties.


Thanks for commenting.

This is for running your own pool to your own node (all included). Not for pool mining.