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

[gyverlb]

[...]
I don't have QoS set on my network but the p2pool and the blade are on the same LAN. Would it be of any help to setup QoS?

Thank you

Between miners and p2pool on a LAN it would probably not help at all. QoS is useful on links were saturation occurs, typically the WAN links.

[semaster]

Hi. Would like to ask about latency
Why going below 0.2s will hurt your income and everyone else's on P2Pool. ?
What is the reason of that?

[HellDiverUK]

Hi. Would like to ask about latency
Why going below 0.2s will hurt your income and everyone else's on P2Pool. ?
What is the reason of that?

It doesn't.

[gyverlb]

Hi. Would like to ask about latency
Why going below 0.2s will hurt your income and everyone else's on P2Pool. ?
What is the reason of that?

It doesn't.

It does because lowering the getblocktemplate latency is a tradeoff.
As explained in the guide with current bitcoind version reducing this latency is done by reducing the number of transactions you include in the template. Doing so you reduce the fees included in the blocks you find : you reduce your own income and everyone else's when this happens.

Today this latency has only a negative effect when a new block is found by the whole network (every ~10 minutes) unless you have a very weak CPU (where CPU usage by bitcoind can slow down P2Pool).
This is the same effect for P2Pool and every other pool : until a getblocktemplate returns a result after a new block, the pool can only work on an empty template (no transaction). Going below 0.2s only tries to reduce this 0.2/600 = 0.03% negative impact on the fees income (the block reward isn't impacted) : including more transactions (which amounts to ~1% of the average block value) simply brings more income to everyone including yourself.

[semaster]

Is there a way to restart p2pool node and to save local shares statistic?

[gyverlb]

Is there a way to restart p2pool node and to save local shares statistic?

I'm not sure I understand the question but it's probably more suited for the main thread.

[smoothrunnings]

Wow this is a great thread!

[cr1776]

Just in case you weren't aware, it appears in the first post on the first page, the link here:

P2Pool's page on the Bitcoin Wiki
is

Code:

http://"https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/P2Pool"

so it does not work.  This has been an interesting read btw.  ;-)

[roy7]

Now that Amazon has EC2 instances that can use SSD for disk, I keep thinking how cool it'd be to run a p2pool node + bitcoind in a really high performance way. However is the speed savings from SSD just a waste of extra cost? It seems the low latencies people get from proper tuning are off of normal disk. (EC2 SSD is also "instance" storage, so it doesn't persist if the instance is stopped, which adds some complexity to back up the block chain and p2pool stats in a way you can restore late.)

Just wondering if my idle thinking about an all-SSD setup is a waste of time?

[smoothrunnings]

Now that Amazon has EC2 instances that can use SSD for disk, I keep thinking how cool it'd be to run a p2pool node + bitcoind in a really high performance way. However is the speed savings from SSD just a waste of extra cost? It seems the low latencies people get from proper tuning are off of normal disk. (EC2 SSD is also "instance" storage, so it doesn't persist if the instance is stopped, which adds some complexity to back up the block chain and p2pool stats in a way you can restore late.)

Just wondering if my idle thinking about an all-SSD setup is a waste of time?

Most of the latency in p2pool miners are from the  pool owners own internet connection. It looks like P2Pool needs at least 800KB/s bi-directional. So if you have an internet connection with 800KB or 1Meg upload you should invest in a faster connection.

I stopped running my P2Pool on my Xi3 Z3RO Pro (www.xi3.com) 4GB DDR3, and 120GB mSATA because of the other latency issues, so now I have it running on my ESXi 5.5 server in it's own guest VM, it runs a lot better. My ESXi server is an IBM xSeries server, with RAID, and 12/24 cores, etc.

But I have found the internet is really the key to reducing the latency. 

[kevintmckay]

Thanks for this guide,

I am wondering if the tuning perimeters below from your guide are applicable to litecoin and other script currencies as well?

I ready through all 8 pages and did not see any mention of this sorry if I missed it.

Thanks

blockmaxsize=1000000
mintxfee=0.00001
minrelaytxfee=0.00001

maxconnections=10 # 125 is the default, don't go below 8

--max-conns 8 --outgoing-conns 4


blockmaxsize=250000 #default is 500000
If you don't have this problem, you should raise the blockmaxsize value instead to get more income:
Code:
blockmaxsize=1000000 #default is 500000

# default is 500000, 1000000 is the maximum allowed and will fit more transactions (more fees)
blockmaxsize=1000000
#Fee-per-kilobyte amount (in BTC) considered the same as "free"
#Be careful setting this: if you set it to zero then
#a transaction spammer can cheaply fill blocks using
#1-satoshi-fee transactions. It should be set above the real
#cost to you of processing a transaction.
mintxfee=0.00001
# Same but for relaying the tx to our peers
minrelaytxfee=0.00001

[roy7]

Most of the latency in p2pool miners are from the  pool owners own internet connection. It looks like P2Pool needs at least 800KB/s bi-directional. So if you have an internet connection with 800KB or 1Meg upload you should invest in a faster connection.

Hmm I thought p2pool was supposed to be fairly light weight on bandwidth usage?

http://82.196.8.44:9332/static/graphs.html?Day

That's the biggest public node, with a mean of 10.4kB/s.

[smoothrunnings]

FYI, QOS only works on OUTGOING traffic only your LAN, doesn't work on traffic coming back into your network from your WAN port.

So shaping the outgoing traffic is only good if you are running a porn site on the same network as your P2Pool!

[smoothrunnings]

Figuring this is a bitcoin forum its more than likely the OP is talking about Bitcoin only.

Thanks for this guide,

I am wondering if the tuning perimeters below from your guide are applicable to litecoin and other script currencies as well?

I ready through all 8 pages and did not see any mention of this sorry if I missed it.

Thanks

blockmaxsize=1000000
mintxfee=0.00001
minrelaytxfee=0.00001

maxconnections=10 # 125 is the default, don't go below 8

--max-conns 8 --outgoing-conns 4


blockmaxsize=250000 #default is 500000
If you don't have this problem, you should raise the blockmaxsize value instead to get more income:
Code:
blockmaxsize=1000000 #default is 500000

# default is 500000, 1000000 is the maximum allowed and will fit more transactions (more fees)
blockmaxsize=1000000
#Fee-per-kilobyte amount (in BTC) considered the same as "free"
#Be careful setting this: if you set it to zero then
#a transaction spammer can cheaply fill blocks using
#1-satoshi-fee transactions. It should be set above the real
#cost to you of processing a transaction.
mintxfee=0.00001
# Same but for relaying the tx to our peers
minrelaytxfee=0.00001

[jedimstr]

FYI, QOS only works on OUTGOING traffic only your LAN, doesn't work on traffic coming back into your network from your WAN port.

So shaping the outgoing traffic is only good if you are running a porn site on the same network as your P2Pool!

Not true... Depends on the features of your router.

Mine allows detailed QoS priority settings for Outgoing and Incoming connections separately across the WAN <-> LAN and can also limit settings across various LAN IPs.

If your router only supports outgoing QoS, it's a shitty router/switch.

[bitpop]

FYI, QOS only works on OUTGOING traffic only your LAN, doesn't work on traffic coming back into your network from your WAN port.

So shaping the outgoing traffic is only good if you are running a porn site on the same network as your P2Pool!

Not true... Depends on the features of your router.

Mine allows detailed QoS priority settings for Outgoing and Incoming connections separately across the WAN <-> LAN and can also limit settings across various LAN IPs.

If your router only supports outgoing QoS, it's a shitty router/switch.

I think it depends on if you set it using a port or mac. Also, your router can't really control the next router.

[smoothrunnings]

FYI, QOS only works on OUTGOING traffic only your LAN, doesn't work on traffic coming back into your network from your WAN port.

So shaping the outgoing traffic is only good if you are running a porn site on the same network as your P2Pool!

Not true... Depends on the features of your router.

Mine allows detailed QoS priority settings for Outgoing and Incoming connections separately across the WAN <-> LAN and can also limit settings across various LAN IPs.

If your router only supports outgoing QoS, it's a shitty router/switch.

I think it depends on if you set it using a port or mac. Also, your router can't really control the next router.

This true, you can't control the ISP's router which sending you the traffic which might explain why the only routers I have seen that provide inbound WAN are enterprise level ones that ISP's would use. I doubt any bitcoin miner would want to become an ISP just so they can have QOS WAN inbound working properly.

Enterprise = products from RiverBed and Cisco. 

[jedimstr]

FYI, QOS only works on OUTGOING traffic only your LAN, doesn't work on traffic coming back into your network from your WAN port.

So shaping the outgoing traffic is only good if you are running a porn site on the same network as your P2Pool!

Not true... Depends on the features of your router.

Mine allows detailed QoS priority settings for Outgoing and Incoming connections separately across the WAN <-> LAN and can also limit settings across various LAN IPs.

If your router only supports outgoing QoS, it's a shitty router/switch.

I think it depends on if you set it using a port or mac. Also, your router can't really control the next router.

This true, you can't control the ISP's router which sending you the traffic which might explain why the only routers I have seen that provide inbound WAN are enterprise level ones that ISP's would use. I doubt any bitcoin miner would want to become an ISP just so they can have QOS WAN inbound working properly.

Enterprise = products from RiverBed and Cisco.  

I have the somewhat crappy consumer Router that Verizon FioS customers get and like I said above, it supports Inbound and Outbound QoS settings tied to Port, IP, MAC, etc.   You can also get pretty granular with your priority tiers and how it manages them.


Note: this is not my setup...just using an example image from the 'net.  My settings are actually a bit more elaborate for my various development services, mining related stuff (bitciond, namecoind, p2pool, stratum proxy etc) and my media stuff.

And that's not even going into the settings for Traffic Shaping, DSCP, 802.1p, etc.

And this router is hardly Enterprise Class.

[smoothrunnings]

FYI, QOS only works on OUTGOING traffic only your LAN, doesn't work on traffic coming back into your network from your WAN port.

So shaping the outgoing traffic is only good if you are running a porn site on the same network as your P2Pool!

Not true... Depends on the features of your router.

Mine allows detailed QoS priority settings for Outgoing and Incoming connections separately across the WAN <-> LAN and can also limit settings across various LAN IPs.

If your router only supports outgoing QoS, it's a shitty router/switch.

I think it depends on if you set it using a port or mac. Also, your router can't really control the next router.

This true, you can't control the ISP's router which sending you the traffic which might explain why the only routers I have seen that provide inbound WAN are enterprise level ones that ISP's would use. I doubt any bitcoin miner would want to become an ISP just so they can have QOS WAN inbound working properly.

Enterprise = products from RiverBed and Cisco.  

I have the somewhat crappy consumer Router that Verizon FioS customers get and like I said above, it supports Inbound and Outbound QoS settings tied to Port, IP, MAC, etc.   You can also get pretty granular with your priority tiers and how it manages them.


Note: this is not my setup...just using an example image from the 'net.  My settings are actually a bit more elaborate for my various development services, mining related stuff (bitciond, namecoind, p2pool, stratum proxy etc) and my media stuff.

And that's not even going into the settings for Traffic Shaping, DSCP, 802.1p, etc.

And this router is hardly Enterprise Class.

In short; there is a lot of delicate information on this topic.

You can't directly QoS traffic coming inbound. When the traffic reaches your router, there's little you can do about it. What you do, is slow the rate of TCP replies, or start dropping packets to limit a certain type, say HTTP traffic, inbound. So, those settings he sees is the router trying to QoS traffic inbound indirectly.

It may work, it may not. Ultimately you're at the mercy of whoever is sending you traffic, because once traffic has arrived at your router to QoS, there's nothing that you can do at that point; it's already gone over your internet connection to reach your router, taking up your bandwidth. And even then, the indirect QoS can only work on TCP traffic. UDP traffic is connectionless, and no amount of dropped packets will slow it down. anything will send UDP traffic as fast as it can.

You see, when applying QoS to traffic, you put certain types of traffic (HTTP, HTTPS, etc.) into different priority queues (High, medium, and low in this case). The router only applies those queues when sending traffic outbound, because it can't do anything directly to traffic inbound.

So, as an example:

HTTP traffic is to be put in a low priority queue. Coming inbound, it would traverse your internet connection, and arrive at your router. Then, your router would apply the QoS policy to put it in a low priority queue, which would send it out to your LAN after higher priority traffic, say your bitcoin miner and vice versa when going outbound. Your router can try to drop packets to stem the flow of traffic, hoping that TCP's algorithms take hold and slow down traffic once the other end realizes that traffic is being dropped. But then you end up with dropped packets, etc. in short, your router cannot QoS traffic directly that has not arrived at it yet.


   

   

[smoothrunnings]

Does anyone use cable internet 35/4Meg, or anything close to it? I just wonder what your maxconnections is set to?

Thanks,