A guide for mining efficiently on P2Pool, includes FUD repellent and FAQ

[gyverlb]

Update: include report of a remote node with RTT between remote node and miners up to 32ms and latency >110%.

Mining on a remote node should be doable with a RTT <40ms. I'd welcome reports on efficiency with RTT>40ms (please include your configuration details).

[gyverlb]

BFL SC (ASIC) have huge latencies making them unsuitable for P2Pool mining. Guide updated.

[grue]

any updates with avalon? are they suitable for p2pool?

[-ck]

any updates with avalon? are they suitable for p2pool?

No

[PatMan]

I hear gpu's with getwork are stable.......

[zvs]

Update: include report of a remote node with RTT between remote node and miners up to 32ms and latency >110%.

Mining on a remote node should be doable with a RTT <40ms. I'd welcome reports on efficiency with RTT>40ms (please include your configuration details).

sure, I mine on a remote node at 200ms

my DSL alone has base latency of 35ms

ed: ok, more like 30-32ms

oh, it also gets like this in the evenings:

[gyverlb]

Update: include report of a remote node with RTT between remote node and miners up to 32ms and latency >110%.

Mining on a remote node should be doable with a RTT <40ms. I'd welcome reports on efficiency with RTT>40ms (please include your configuration details).

sure, I mine on a remote node at 200ms

my DSL alone has base latency of 35ms

Can you share the efficiency you reach with your bitcoind version and settings (if not default ones) and p2pool settings if tuned?

[zvs]

Update: include report of a remote node with RTT between remote node and miners up to 32ms and latency >110%.

Mining on a remote node should be doable with a RTT <40ms. I'd welcome reports on efficiency with RTT>40ms (please include your configuration details).

sure, I mine on a remote node at 200ms

my DSL alone has base latency of 35ms

Can you share the efficiency you reach with your bitcoind version and settings (if not default ones) and p2pool settings if tuned?

well, if you include the evenings of 500ms ping times and the packetloss, it averages out to around 5-6% DOA (weekends are worse than weekdays), add in 2-3% worth of orphans and so then theoretically efficiency would be anywhere from 110-117.  (this would have p2pool as a whole ranging from 18 to 25% doa/orphans)

it's hard to say what mine is exactly, since i have multiple people using my pool.  the 108% right now is worse than normal, but that's because 2 out of the first 5 were DOA.  i reset it this morning at 300 shares, 4 orphans, and like 50 DOA.   the DOA mostly from ASIC not working properly with p2pool

theoretically with a 1 second delay, you should only get 10% DOA?  if you're mining on a european node with plenty of bandwidth that's set up properly, you shouldn't get more than 2-3% orphans.   so, you'd still have higher than 100% efficiency

i use maxblocksize 5000, but i restarted this morning to experiment with 3000.

i run p2pool with about 60 nodes added as --p2pool-node and allow another 20 outgoing and 10 incoming

[gyverlb]

i use maxblocksize 5000, but i restarted this morning to experiment with 3000.

i run p2pool with about 60 nodes added as --p2pool-node and allow another 20 outgoing and 10 incoming

It's the complete opposite of what I advise to do.
I have the same efficiency you have (between 110 and 115%), with nearly 10x less connections and 2000 times more maxblocksize. What makes you thing reducing maxblocksize help your efficiency? Or are you trying to solve another problem?

[zvs]

i use maxblocksize 5000, but i restarted this morning to experiment with 3000.

i run p2pool with about 60 nodes added as --p2pool-node and allow another 20 outgoing and 10 incoming

It's the complete opposite of what I advise to do.
I have the same efficiency you have (between 110 and 115%), with nearly 10x less connections and 2000 times more maxblocksize. What makes you thing reducing maxblocksize help your efficiency? Or are you trying to solve another problem?

what makes you think you know the answer to everything?

you state here you have the same efficiency as I do, yet you mention something earlier to the effect of not mining on a node that has >40ms latency?

how about this (ed: consolidated into one image):



Go ahead and get 115% efficiency with 500k blocksize on that, chief

that's called oversold DSL bandwidth and sunday afternoon/evening... the last hour is called game of thrones

[gyverlb]

what makes you think you know the answer to everything?

I don't: this is why I ask questions. That's called the scientific method: I make an hypothesis and try to find out if it matches reality.

you state here you have the same efficiency as I do, yet you mention something earlier to the effect of not mining on a node that has >40ms latency?

No: in the guide IIRC (didn't reread myself) I say it's safe below 40ms because I had reports up to 40ms. My questions are meant to find out if I can advise people with larger latencies to use a remote node too (without hurting their income in the process).

how about this (ed: consolidated into one image):



Go ahead and get 115% efficiency with 500k blocksize on that, chief

What's that? Your DSL latency with a random host? with your P2Pool node? Your P2Pool node latency with a random host?
Seriously, if you want to tell me I'm over my head, at least try to present your case clearly: depending on which latency you are showing me my answers/questions will be totally different.

[zvs]

Hop 1 is to my router which is <1ms and I've removed.  Hop 2 would be my DSL latency, the last hop is the latency to the IP running p2pool.

Here is a log of my shares from roughly 4:00PM central time onwards:

log:2013-06-11 16:15:59.144244 GOT SHARE! MrT bab783a2 prev 92e2927f age 2.89s
log:2013-06-11 16:51:13.272338 GOT SHARE! Pandaemonium a6d3cf72 prev 0b640f2b age 1.66s
log:2013-06-11 17:16:53.168319 GOT SHARE! Pandaemonium c2aed4f2 prev 60efa42f age 16.31s
log:2013-06-11 17:25:01.871837 GOT SHARE! Altgard b0c4413f prev ea8fd70e age 2.77s
log:2013-06-11 17:25:36.690128 GOT SHARE! Altgard 5f0dfbfc prev 4ededa38 age 21.35s
log:2013-06-11 17:27:45.292548 GOT SHARE! MrT badbc46c prev bb3fe3aa age 4.02s
log:2013-06-11 17:48:34.515212 GOT SHARE! Pandaemonium fcd0270f prev e5bb6882 age 1.12s
log:2013-06-11 17:51:26.236705 GOT SHARE! Pandaemonium 018c1e21 prev 0b9a5cfc age 9.90s
log:2013-06-11 18:20:53.325194 GOT SHARE! Altgard 748c3653 prev ef7d5934 age 2.62s
log:2013-06-11 18:31:44.319511 GOT SHARE! MrT 69a9e53d prev 24e36d6e age 3.19s
log:2013-06-11 18:39:11.042228 GOT SHARE! Brusthonin 07d7bf61 prev e53450f7 age 15.11s
log:2013-06-11 18:46:31.711466 GOT SHARE! Altgard 31b3c8dd prev bd8899a2 age 7.47s
log:2013-06-11 18:54:19.677511 GOT SHARE! Brusthonin 23a09aac prev ea2c121a age 11.17s DEAD ON ARRIVAL
log:2013-06-11 19:10:09.639655 GOT SHARE! MrT 3cfea1bc prev da6f80d3 age 4.88s DEAD ON ARRIVAL
log:2013-06-11 19:15:58.787474 GOT SHARE! Pandaemonium cf3a066f prev 6704c588 age 6.58s
log:2013-06-11 19:34:18.549763 GOT SHARE! Pandaemonium 49edf44c prev 69f93d41 age 3.59s
log:2013-06-11 19:36:24.742229 GOT SHARE! Brusthonin af01fd65 prev ba206f9c age 1.38s
log:2013-06-11 19:45:09.319976 GOT SHARE! Pandaemonium b5cdefd9 prev adeef95e age 42.91s
log:2013-06-11 19:54:32.633016 GOT SHARE! Pandaemonium 12c9a260 prev aa6e334a age 20.10s
log:2013-06-11 19:55:14.390967 GOT SHARE! MrT a04f910d prev 0188a750 age 3.51s DEAD ON ARRIVAL
log:2013-06-11 19:58:04.727155 GOT SHARE! Pandaemonium bef8f8e9 prev a93386e1 age 7.55s
log:2013-06-11 20:24:09.943406 GOT SHARE! Pandaemonium bbd76a15 prev 0ff6593f age 12.61s
log:2013-06-11 20:36:33.468076 GOT SHARE! MrT 999e3378 prev 5d842f0d age 4.39s DEAD ON ARRIVAL
log:2013-06-11 20:51:52.202080 GOT SHARE! Altgard 6f508a8b prev 4f2ccadc age 7.23s
log:2013-06-11 21:14:23.426968 GOT SHARE! Altgard 16814b6a prev f0105104 age 25.33s
log:2013-06-11 21:37:40.949988 GOT SHARE! Pandaemonium 327e8884 prev 813d06be age 5.36s
log:2013-06-11 21:37:55.679323 GOT SHARE! Pandaemonium a55a51b9 prev 0048847b age 7.25s
log:2013-06-11 22:17:32.027947 GOT SHARE! Pandaemonium 01e23d8b prev dd322bbe age 3.29s
log:2013-06-11 22:21:09.732581 GOT SHARE! Brusthonin e61cad93 prev c7d57bc7 age 12.48s
log:2013-06-11 22:45:33.521705 GOT SHARE! Pandaemonium 89a2bc49 prev da8e5127 age 2.79s
log:2013-06-11 22:47:03.131315 GOT SHARE! MrT e675329d prev 1fabbb1a age 6.71s

4 DOAs in ~30 shares.  I'm showing 2 orphans out of 90 shares total.  I'm not sure which 2 were orphaned, but I guess you could say I had 4.33 DOA/orphaned in 30 shares...  that's still >100% efficiency at all times (I don't think I've ever seen p2pool under 13.5% orphan/DOA, at least in the last 6 months).  Not 110-115%, but a couple weeks ago I also wasn't dealing with oversold bandwidth.  4.33 out of 30 would probably usually be around 105% efficiency or so.

Here's what the link looked like for those times:



This is in response to the thing about latency needing to be under 45 or whatever.  With my normal latency (180ms, and much less packetloss), I get about 5% DOA, instead of 10-15%.....

basically my argument about why the most important thing in choosing a node is the node's orphan rate..  then you look at your latency and see how much DOA that should result in...  but I don't see any reason why someone should have <100% unless they're on a satellite connection or something

I should really just be mining on a normal pool until my link is fixed, just too lazy to change everything around

ed:  added two more, link is still crap, 500ms+...  this is worst time of day actually, it'll clear up in about 2 hours

ed2: well, more like 2 1/2 hrs.  my theory is summer break

[gyverlb]

I'm doing 13h work sessions interleaved with long commute times and sleep right now so don't have much energy left for anything else. My first quick reading makes me think I'll have to update the guide. I'll take the time to read your post more thoroughly later this week after resting a bit.

Thanks.

[zvs]

I'm at 32 shares, about 25 being my own, w/ 1 dead share, thru the early morning hours-4PM.  Now is when my link gets really crappy, so will probably be around 15-20% DOA from here on out.

Anyway, ^^ is luck.  But it's 10s per cycle, so 180ms latency shouldn't cause a whole lot of DOA.  Packetloss will.

[freshzive]

Is a Intel Atom D525 CPU (1.8 GHz, dual-core) processor just not enough to run p2pool/bitcoind?

I have one of these: http://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-Intel-Barebone-Mini-PC-ZBOX-ID41-U/dp/B004WO8O9Y/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371350342&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=zotac+zebox with an SSD.

Loads are around 0.8 constantly on Ubuntu 12.04 x64 (the computer isnt used for anything else). My efficiency is shit (like ~75%). Tried setting up QoS and tuning with your guide, but it didn't seem to help I'm thinking maybe the computer simply isn't powerful enough to handle p2pool/bitcoind.

[gyverlb]

Is a Intel Atom D525 CPU (1.8 GHz, dual-core) processor just not enough to run p2pool/bitcoind?

I have one of these: http://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-Intel-Barebone-Mini-PC-ZBOX-ID41-U/dp/B004WO8O9Y/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1371350342&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=zotac+zebox with an SSD.

Loads are around 0.8 constantly on Ubuntu 12.04 x64 (the computer isnt used for anything else). My efficiency is shit (like ~75%). Tried setting up QoS and tuning with your guide, but it didn't seem to help I'm thinking maybe the computer simply isn't powerful enough to handle p2pool/bitcoind.

It may not be enough: these CPUs are weak.
How many shares did you get when your efficiency was 75%? With your efficiency if you didn't have at least 50 shares, the value is probably not reliable yet.

[gyverlb]

Just updated the guide with a reference to zvs results with 300-350ms latency between node and miners.

Added more details about what/how to tune and why instead of blindly lowering getblocklatency without understanding the consequences.

[zvs]

OK, so right now, my server is reading:

Node uptime: 3.124 days Peers: 73 out, 19 in

Shares: 256 total (3 orphaned, 14 dead) Efficiency: 116.2%

I started pinging the first hop (not counting my actual router) instead of the server, so the ping times are about 180ms lower than what I'd get to nogleg.com.  I set the packetloss scale to 10%, since local packetloss is rly, rly bad (a remote ping would show 10x as much packetloss).  Started doing this so I can give this info to ISP, which continues to deny bandwidth exhaust issue...

but, anyway:



Out of those 256 shares, about 85% are mine & the number of orphans/DOA from the other people wasn't disproportionate to my own.

So, now I'll set maxblocksize to 1000000 (!!), and restart the server.  Not a huge deal anymore since even with my 6.7c or so electricity, bitcoins are just marginal profit nowadays.  Don't mind a lot more DOA/orphans for the next day or two for the sake of showing that this setting kills.

I apologize to the other ppl that are pointed to my server atm.  Maybe come back in a few days?

[gyverlb]

So, now I'll set maxblocksize to 1000000 (!!), and restart the server.  Not a huge deal anymore since even with my 6.7c or so electricity, bitcoins are just marginal profit nowadays.  Don't mind a lot more DOA/orphans for the next day or two for the sake of showing that this setting kills.

I'm extremely curious about the results. If it indeed kills your efficiency, we'll have to understand why it happens on your setup and not mine (I even lowered mintxfee and minrelaytxfee to make it easier for bitcoind to fill the blocks). I'm still at 110+ efficiency with getmininginfo confirming that the block templates generated by bitcoind are indeed ~1MB.

I only know of 2 reasons why it could kill your efficiency:

• it generates too much traffic, filling your pipe (reduce your bitcoind and p2pool number of connections). It can happen even with large pipes if your hoster have some peering limitation.
• your CPU is maxed out (you should have one core free for P2Pool to be safe)

Maybe we will find another one to document in the guide.

[zvs]

So, now I'll set maxblocksize to 1000000 (!!), and restart the server.  Not a huge deal anymore since even with my 6.7c or so electricity, bitcoins are just marginal profit nowadays.  Don't mind a lot more DOA/orphans for the next day or two for the sake of showing that this setting kills.

I'm extremely curious about the results. If it indeed kills your efficiency, we'll have to understand why it happens on your setup and not mine (I even lowered mintxfee and minrelaytxfee to make it easier for bitcoind to fill the blocks). I'm still at 110+ efficiency with getmininginfo confirming that the block templates generated by bitcoind are indeed ~1MB.

I only know of 2 reasons why it could kill your efficiency:

• it generates too much traffic, filling your pipe (reduce your bitcoind and p2pool number of connections). It can happen even with large pipes if your hoster have some peering limitation.
• your CPU is maxed out (you should have one core free for P2Pool to be safe)

Maybe we will find another one to document in the guide.

Well, it's doing better ATM, with 19 shares and just 1 dead.

But, it's also adding a lot of load to the system and I can tell that if you took a large enough sample it'd be worse...    simply because (if nothing else):

2013-06-17 06:45:57.826722 New work for worker! Difficulty: 1.586613 Share difficulty: 1237.801257 Total block value: 25.956635 BTC including 1204 transactions
2013-06-17 06:45:57.914912 New work for worker! Difficulty: 1.586613 Share difficulty: 1237.801257 Total block value: 25.956635 BTC including 1204 transactions
2013-06-17 06:45:58.003061 New work for worker! Difficulty: 1.586613 Share difficulty: 1237.801257 Total block value: 25.956635 BTC including 1204 transactions
2013-06-17 06:45:58.091624 New work for worker! Difficulty: 1.586613 Share difficulty: 1237.801257 Total block value: 25.956635 BTC including 1204 transactions
2013-06-17 06:45:58.182583 New work for worker! Difficulty: 5.000000 Share difficulty: 1237.801257 Total block value: 25.956635 BTC including 1204 transactions

vs

2013-06-17 08:06:45.156392 New work for worker! Difficulty: 1.170742 Share difficulty: 1063.111336 Total block value: 25.207522 BTC including 280 transactions
2013-06-17 08:06:45.180769 New work for worker! Difficulty: 1.170742 Share difficulty: 1063.111336 Total block value: 25.207522 BTC including 280 transactions
2013-06-17 08:06:45.204890 New work for worker! Difficulty: 1.170742 Share difficulty: 1063.111336 Total block value: 25.207522 BTC including 280 transactions
2013-06-17 08:06:45.229186 New work for worker! Difficulty: 1.170742 Share difficulty: 1063.111336 Total block value: 25.207522 BTC including 280 transactions
2013-06-17 08:06:45.256788 New work for worker! Difficulty: 5.000000 Share difficulty: 1063.111336 Total block value: 25.207522 BTC including 280 transactions

vs

2013-06-17 09:22:29.858692 New work for worker! Difficulty: 1.203949 Share difficulty: 1063.354280 Total block value: 25.000000 BTC including 0 transactions
2013-06-17 09:22:29.862099 New work for worker! Difficulty: 1.203949 Share difficulty: 1063.354280 Total block value: 25.000000 BTC including 0 transactions
2013-06-17 09:22:29.865353 New work for worker! Difficulty: 1.203949 Share difficulty: 1063.354280 Total block value: 25.000000 BTC including 0 transactions
2013-06-17 09:22:29.868686 New work for worker! Difficulty: 1.203949 Share difficulty: 1063.354280 Total block value: 25.000000 BTC including 0 transactions
2013-06-17 09:22:29.874997 New work for worker! Difficulty: 5.000000 Share difficulty: 1063.354280 Total block value: 25.000000 BTC including 0 transactions

...  I dunno if it goes by the order it says, but if so, it generates my new work last, and the other four people on my pool before me.  With 1204 transactions, it takes 0.355861 seconds between #1 and #5, with 280 transactions it takes 0.100396 seconds, with 0 transactions it takes 0.016305 seconds.  More people mining at your pool = more pronounced effect.  If my pool was private w/ just myself on it, it'd still generate work, what, about ~.05s slower with all those transactions vs having 0 (though the lowest I'd drop my maxblocksize to would probably have a dozen or so).

In the 1204 case, that's adding 355ms to a 10s cycle, which should result in 3.5% more DOA

ed: didn't check to see whether it was based on # of transactions or size of total transactions.  also, it's adding like *340ms, not 355ms.  machine load could have affected times a bit, but there's still the trend that's plain to see.  not doing anything else on it atm besides running bitcoind and p2pool

ed2: there's also the bizarre thing where now i'm suddenly receiving more data than sending.   logically (to me at least) that seems like it'd result in more orphans?    what's up w/ that, anyway?  anyway, based simply on the ^^ up there that indicates i'm receiving work probably about 150ms slower on average, i'm going to cut this short and reduce my maxblocksize again.  even if you go with an extreme best case scenario and say I find a block w/ 1BTC in transaction fees...  when I receive less than 1/100th of the total pie, that isn't worth 1.5% more DOA..  

though I suppose one could make a case for going with 10000, 20000, or 30000 maxblocksize...  (or setting the minimum relay fee much higher, and then setting maxblocksize to 1000000)

ed3:  oh, and while I was typing ed2, I did just pick up an orphan.  heh.

ed4:  6 transactions

2013-06-17 10:17:59.878132 New work for worker! Difficulty: 1.589736 Share difficulty: 1259.470588 Total block value: 25.004000 BTC including 6 transactions
2013-06-17 10:17:59.881803 New work for worker! Difficulty: 1.589736 Share difficulty: 1259.470588 Total block value: 25.004000 BTC including 6 transactions
2013-06-17 10:17:59.885549 New work for worker! Difficulty: 1.589736 Share difficulty: 1259.470588 Total block value: 25.004000 BTC including 6 transactions
2013-06-17 10:17:59.891466 New work for worker! Difficulty: 1.589736 Share difficulty: 1259.470588 Total block value: 25.004000 BTC including 6 transactions
2013-06-17 10:17:59.898578 New work for worker! Difficulty: 5.000000 Share difficulty: 1259.470588 Total block value: 25.004000 BTC including 6 transactions

0.020446 seconds

2013-06-17 10:23:14.937386 New work for worker! Difficulty: 1.336302 Share difficulty: 1245.582868 Total block value: 25.045000 BTC including 6 transactions
2013-06-17 10:23:14.940579 New work for worker! Difficulty: 1.336302 Share difficulty: 1245.582868 Total block value: 25.045000 BTC including 6 transactions
2013-06-17 10:23:14.943615 New work for worker! Difficulty: 1.336302 Share difficulty: 1245.582868 Total block value: 25.045000 BTC including 6 transactions
2013-06-17 10:23:14.946616 New work for worker! Difficulty: 1.336302 Share difficulty: 1245.582868 Total block value: 25.045000 BTC including 6 transactions
2013-06-17 10:23:14.952521 New work for worker! Difficulty: 5.000000 Share difficulty: 1245.582868 Total block value: 25.045000 BTC including 6 transactions

0.015135 seconds..   0 transactions probably comes with some base amount, i doubt the 6 adds much time at all