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

[aboron]

I'm running my own p2pool for both bitcoin and litecoin.

I pulled the latest github master from today and I'm happily running away on the BTC instance.
My bitcoin asics are getting vardiff balanced out to around 250-400 depending on what kind they are.

The litecoin instance I ran from the same root folder.  (I didn't forget to compile the scrypt stuff first)
My scrypt asics are all coming in from one machine running cgminer 4.3.5 customized for zeus (but not by them).
This cgminer version works fine connecting to other external p2pools for litecoin.

However, when I connect locally to my p2pool for litecoin, it keeps telling the miners to set difficulty to 0.0 and it is creating havoc since my miners are backing up the usb buses trying to throw that many crappy little shares.
This has been going for 20 minutes and I only ever see messages from my p2pool for difficulty like:

Code:

 [2014-09-13 12:33:03] Pool 0 difficulty changed to 0.0

Nothing I add to the end of my litecoin address has any effect on initial or continuing vardiff, it just keeps sending me to 0.0.  Resulting in some very bad stats:

Code:

 cgminer version 4.3.5 - Started: [2014-09-13 12:42:56]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 (5s):7.224M (1m):7.207M (5m):8.857M (15m):11.98M (avg):10.70Mh/s
 A:11441  R:21  HW:94363  WU:0.0/m
 Connected to 10.21.1.47 diff 0 with stratum as user L-removed-nnnnnnnnnn+128
 Block: 8a77fac5...  Diff:28.3K  Started: [13:04:13]  Best share: 22.8K

Does anyone has any ideas about how to fix this?

[aboron]

Since I'd rather be mining than screwing around, I ended up editing cgminer.c to check stratum for diff < 1 and forcing diff=256 to my asics.  This way I can still switch to a fallback pool and not lose anything.

[zvs]

Since I'd rather be mining than screwing around, I ended up editing cgminer.c to check stratum for diff < 1 and forcing diff=256 to my asics.  This way I can still switch to a fallback pool and not lose anything.

the same thing is happening to me, re: litecoin.  i didnt want to post here since i figured it was just something dumb i was doing.

in my case, it starts at 0 and slowly increases and then evens out around 0.002 difficulty,  which gets some godawful number of HW failures and about 1/2 hash rate.

"fix-protocol": true,

in the config file fixes this,  that is, using  longpolling instead of stratum

it's at nogleg.com:9326 atm.  tried setting up some stratum proxy that failed miserably too, hence the 9326 port.  no clue.  long polling works but it creates a ton of connections.  it also seems to get more DOA, but then, i usually don't get 16mhash from my X3

ed: i was running a doge scrypt p2pool like 3 days ago, w/o any problems.  i also need to fix my --p2pool-node list, but not until i get stratum working properly ^_^

[smoothrunnings]

Is latency on a P2Pool really only for when miners are connected to it from the outside or is it something more?

Thanks,

[zvs]

Latency is the time it takes for y to reach z.  I could run a local p2pool with 1ms local latency, but have some godawful amount of latency to all the other p2pool nodes, since I have jack shit for upstream.  Hence, it's better for me to use a remote server.

Since I'd rather be mining than screwing around, I ended up editing cgminer.c to check stratum for diff < 1 and forcing diff=256 to my asics.  This way I can still switch to a fallback pool and not lose anything.

I don't suppose you ever figured this out?  I'm still using --fix-protocol and longpolling.  Guess it's not a huge issue, seeing as how long polling is much faster, anyway ..  15.0 + 733, 15.733 MH/s... never saw those numbers with stratum.

though it would be nice for ppl to be able to randomly mine on my node without getting spammed out w/ the 0 difficulty shares.  

I guess I probably just need to change some minimal difficulty setting in the networks.py file, eh.  Oh, I'm finally done resetting server too, got p2pool-nodes set up nicely

ed: oh, with --fix-protocol (or "fix-protocol": true,  .. I think in .conf file) the difficulty setting works properly w/ longpolling, re: Litecoinaddress+0.05 or whatever.

[Nerull]

I just updated to the newest p2pool and for some reason my asic runs fun but if i just try to run a few gpu miners i just get continuous hw errors. I left 1mhs of gpu run like this all day and still got no shares. The older versions used to do that too, but only when initially starting up mining on the server.

Has anyone else had this problem?

[jontran]

========================
Security

Don't use the node's wallet, always configure p2pool to pay an address (use the "-a" parameter) you can secure appropriately (big fat wallets on a public server are not a good idea).
========================

What does it mean by "big fat wallets on a public server are not a good idea"?

I need some advice on rebuilding a node. I'm rebuilding my p2pool node, a home server. Can I point my asic miners at an public node to keep up with the shares with a same pay address until the home node completed? Is it a good idea to do?

Thanks,
J.

[jonnybravo0311]

It means don't run your public p2pool node on the same machine that holds your wallet.  For example I have bitcoind compiled and built without wallet functionality.  I connect my p2pool node to that daemon.  I start p2pool using

Code:

-a SOMEBTCADDRESS

My miners I point to a different address.  That way if my node gets compromised I won't lose any coin because there are none there.

[kano]

It means don't run your public p2pool node on the same machine that holds your wallet.  For example I have bitcoind compiled and built without wallet functionality.  I connect my p2pool node to that daemon.  I start p2pool using

Code:

-a SOMEBTCADDRESS

My miners I point to a different address.  That way if my node gets compromised I won't lose any coin because there are none there.

You start bitcoind with disablewallet=1 in the bitcoin.conf to have no wallet.

[jonnybravo0311]

It means don't run your public p2pool node on the same machine that holds your wallet.  For example I have bitcoind compiled and built without wallet functionality.  I connect my p2pool node to that daemon.  I start p2pool using

Code:

-a SOMEBTCADDRESS

My miners I point to a different address.  That way if my node gets compromised I won't lose any coin because there are none there.

You start bitcoind with disablewallet=1 in the bitcoin.conf to have no wallet.

I compiled it with no wallet   Pretty much negates the need for disablewallet

[luthermarcus]

Is there a way to set difficulty besides + / net to your address I set my difficulty for one of my miners to 2500 but sets at 1000. Can anyone tell me why? Or how should i set it?
bitcoinaddress+2500/2500
bitcoinaddress+2500
bitcoinaddress/2500

[roy7]

Is there a way to set difficulty besides + / net to your address I set my difficulty for one of my miners to 2500 but sets at 1000. Can anyone tell me why? Or how should i set it?
bitcoinaddress+2500/2500
bitcoinaddress+2500
bitcoinaddress/2500

kano replied to you in the other thread.

address/2500 will set your diff target to the minimum sharechain difficulty when submitting real shares, however it's so much higher than that, using / that low has no effect.

address+2500 will set your pseudo share target to that, for graphing purposes. No effect on actual shares that go on the sharechain for payouts.

[bobby88]

Hello guys ,
I make a noob experiment for p2pool , i rent miners 2 THs and point that to minefast ( which is the p2pool mining pool ) with user name my wallet add and pass x , in the other side i have miner that run on my own node (wallet) with user name and pass same with the miner that i rent ,  the target is i just want to know are the hashing power is miner rent + my miner or they run independently each other. The results of that noob experiment is each miner run independently . the question is how the p2pool networks identify each miner ? cause before i join minefast , i check my address wallet and its appear with the hashing of my own miners , after i join the minefast the hashing powers appear only the rent miner.

regards

[jonnybravo0311]

Hello guys ,
I make a noob experiment for p2pool , i rent miners 2 THs and point that to minefast ( which is the p2pool mining pool ) with user name my wallet add and pass x , in the other side i have miner that run on my own node (wallet) with user name and pass same with the miner that i rent ,  the target is i just want to know are the hashing power is miner rent + my miner or they run independently each other. The results of that noob experiment is each miner run independently . the question is how the p2pool networks identify each miner ? cause before i join minefast , i check my address wallet and its appear with the hashing of my own miners , after i join the minefast the hashing powers appear only the rent miner.

regards

Assuming I read your post correctly, you've got some hash rate (we'll call it X) pointed to one p2pool node using a BTC address (we'll call it A).  You've also got some other hash rate (Y) pointed to another p2pool node using the same address (A).

Each node will report only what the node sees for hash rate for the miners pointed to it.  So, on node 1 you'll see hash rate X.  On node 2, you'll see hash rate Y.  If the node tracks expected payouts, then you'll see the combined expected payout on each node.  This is because you're using the same address to mine to.  The p2pool network as a whole makes payouts to addresses that have valid shares on the share chain.  Since both sets of your miners (your own gear and rented gear) use the same address, p2pool itself knows of just the one address and the shares on the share chain for that address.

By the way, when you look at stats on coincadence, he guesses hash rate by address based on your expected payout.  So, in effect, you'll see about X+Y reported assuming of course you've got a full N value for your shares on the chain.

[igorwhite]

Hello!

Explain to me please:
install mintxfee=0.0005
         minrelaytxfee=0.0005
What doing bad these values?

Node getwork latency becomes  --- 50-120 ms

[rav3n_pl]

There: https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/Transaction_fees

[igorwhite]

I already read this. I do not understand is bad for node - good for getwork latency?
Sorry for my bad English

[rav3n_pl]

Latency is less when when block created is smaller.
Setting higher fees you create smaller block because less transactions will meet restrictions.

[igorwhite]

Hello, rav3n_pl
You are a professional. Tell me please. What are the better value.
If I install:
mintxfee = 0.0001
minrelaytxfee = 0.0001

Node getwork latency= 450- 1000ms

[rav3n_pl]

On non-SSD 3GHz+ processor it is normal value.
You can limit size of block lowering maxblocksize and/or rising mintxfee.
minrealytxfee is not affecting GBT AFIK.