[1500 TH] p2pool: Decentralized, DoS-resistant, Hop-Proof pool

[Sukrim]

BOINC = "Berkeley Open Infrastructure for Network Computing"

It is a middleware that is often used for benevolent volunteer computing - however you can run arbitrary projects on it and it is only an infrastructure/middleware. See for example BURP: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_and_Ugly_Rendering_Project - a nice project, but not much more of a help for mankind than Bitcoin itself.

This is like stating mediawiki (the engine behind Wikipedia) should only be used for useful, publicly open kowledge hubs. It's perfectly fine (and possible) though to use it in a private installation too, with limited access and whatnot. There is no central authority that says what you can do with BOINC projects, but there's no need to market a potential bitcoin BOINC application as research project or even advertise it at some BOINC communities.

[kano]

...
Most BOINC projects obviously are research, looking at the BOINC page ... a small few may not be but that is unclear.

Hmm why am I quoting myself

Yeah I use mediawiki on my client servers for documentation of stuff - so?
It's a standard linux package on most distros ...
That's linux for you - opensource is great isn't it

I'm just wondering where I said BOINC should be used for Research?
That first word was "Most" Which is correct.

You can even use mediawiki for documenting your own local acts of graffiti vandalism
Not what it's ideal is or what it is commonly used for - but certainly usable in that situation also.

Back to my original post:

Actually BOINC and Bitcoin seem to be completely opposite ideals IMO.

Edit: and I should also add that adding a resource scheduling and logging service on top of p2pool does seem a bit odd.
Other than the scheduling part it's all already there.
... and scheduling access to mining bitcoins on a 10 second LP pool?
I'd be interested to see how they do that

[Sukrim]

Edit: and I should also add that adding a resource scheduling and logging service on top of p2pool does seem a bit odd.
Other than the scheduling part it's all already there.
... and scheduling access to mining bitcoins on a 10 second LP pool?
I'd be interested to see how they do that

A BOINC worker can be anything, so you could for example just log shares submitted to the sharechain as "work done" and if there's no new client update, push just some dummy work (like a 0 byte file or so).

You would in the end just use it as some automated/extended package manager, but it's probably easier to set up and to use than a "real" package manager that would just install but not run a program.

[echris1]

Woot, just found my first block for P2Pool, and I have to say the bonus for block finding is quite nice =)

2012-03-13 18:11:38.693438 GOT BLOCK FROM MINER! Passing to bitcoind! http://blockexplorer.com/block/00000000000009f88414de4de93c17b5ddcff9f8d61133ff95a9fdebee6cc705
2012-03-13 18:11:38.693559
2012-03-13 18:11:38.736916 GOT SHARE! 2 e866bdc6 prev 70dbc5de age 2.19s
2012-03-13 18:11:38.747592
2012-03-13 18:11:38.747885 GOT BLOCK FROM PEER! Passing to bitcoind! e866bdc6 bitcoin: http://blockexplorer.com/block/00000000000009f88414de4de93c17b5ddcff9f8d61133ff95a9fdebee6cc705

Just happened to catch it as I was sitting down =)

[Shadow383]

How common is this error?
I'm trying to get all my machines mining to a single p2pool wallet by running it on my windows VPS, but I get this error quite frequently:

http://i40.tinypic.com/119cj7s.png

[DeathAndTaxes]

How common is this error?
I'm trying to get all my machines mining to a single p2pool wallet by running it on my windows VPS, but I get this error quite frequently:

http://i40.tinypic.com/119cj7s.png

Common.  Don't use bitcoin-gt (GUI client) use bitcoind (command line daemon).  I have never seen bitcoind crash.

[Shadow383]

How common is this error?
I'm trying to get all my machines mining to a single p2pool wallet by running it on my windows VPS, but I get this error quite frequently:

http://i40.tinypic.com/119cj7s.png

Common.  Don't use bitcoin-gt (GUI client) use bitcoind (command line daemon).  I have never seen bitcoind crash.

In that case, I guess something more fundamental has gone wrong given my latest error:

[spiccioli]

How common is this error?
I'm trying to get all my machines mining to a single p2pool wallet by running it on my windows VPS, but I get this error quite frequently:

http://i40.tinypic.com/119cj7s.png

Common.  Don't use bitcoin-gt (GUI client) use bitcoind (command line daemon).  I have never seen bitcoind crash.

DAT,

if you're on Linux, bitcoind on windows crashes as well, even if a little less than bitcoin-qt.

spiccioli

[NothinG]

I'm not seeing any shares pass by on my pool. I'm using an account flag as:

Code:

-a {BTCADDRESS}

the account isn't an account that's on bitcoind (not sure if that might be a problem).

Logs: http://p2pool.tgservers.com:9332/web/log

[Ente]

I'm not seeing any shares pass by on my pool. I'm using an account flag as:

Code:

-a {BTCADDRESS}

the account isn't an account that's on bitcoind (not sure if that might be a problem).

Logs: http://p2pool.tgservers.com:9332/web/log

The address you specify via '-a' doesnt have to be in your local wallet. Its not in mine, and I receive payments fine on the offline address.

How long have you been mining with that address, did/how many shares did you find?
(I have to ask this, you know ;-) )

Ente

[NothinG]

I'm not seeing any shares pass by on my pool. I'm using an account flag as:

Code:

-a {BTCADDRESS}

the account isn't an account that's on bitcoind (not sure if that might be a problem).

Logs: http://p2pool.tgservers.com:9332/web/log

The address you specify via '-a' doesnt have to be in your local wallet. Its not in mine, and I receive payments fine on the offline address.

How long have you been mining with that address, did/how many shares did you find?
(I have to ask this, you know ;-) )

Ente

When I was first getting it going 3-4 days ago, I got ~400 shares. Two days ago, I was messing around with the account and fees flags and haven't gotten a single share or payment, yet.
No matter what options I do, it wont take my shares. Although, my miner seems to show the shares are accepting, just not p2pool.

(Screenshot of shares being accepted): http://puu.sh/kJ2b

[kano]

...
(Screenshot of shares being accepted): http://puu.sh/kJ2b

None of those shares are at payment difficulty.

... and if that figure is correct (12 MH/s CPU mining) then you won't see a payment share for A VERY LONG TIME.

[DeathAndTaxes]

As Kano said what matter is p2pools shares.  1 p2pool share ~= 600 difficulty 1 shares.

If you look in the p2pool window you should see a line that says something like:

"Shares 3068 (Oprhan 82, Dead 16) ...."

THOSE SHARES are the ones in the share chain.  The payments are made on the % of shares you have in the share chain (total - orphan - dead) at the time a block is found.

Also in the p2pool window you should see a line that says something like:
"Expected time to share 3.8 minutes".

If you got 12MH/s mining on p2pool is likely going to be a futile frustrating experience.
I estimate @ current difficulty (630) it will take:
630 * 2^32 / 12,000,000 = 225486 sec = 3758 minutes = 62 hours = 2.6 days to find a share ... ON AVERAGE.

Individual share time is random but a range of 20% to 500% is pretty common.  So up to 12 days to find a share.  Also you would statistically have a ~10% chance of it being orphaned and thus end up worthless.

[bitpop]

Anyone that doesn't want to bother running bitcoind or p2pool locally, use my public p2pool with zero fees
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=68743.0

[NothinG]

As Kano said what matter is p2pools shares.  1 p2pool share ~= 600 difficulty 1 shares.

If you look in the p2pool window you should see a line that says something like:

"Shares 3068 (Oprhan 82, Dead 16) ...."

THOSE SHARES are the ones in the share chain.  The payments are made on the % of shares you have in the share chain (total - orphan - dead) at the time a block is found.

Also in the p2pool window you should see a line that says something like:
"Expected time to share 3.8 minutes".

If you got 12MH/s mining on p2pool is likely going to be a futile frustrating experience.
I estimate @ current difficulty (630) it will take:
630 * 2^32 / 12,000,000 = 225486 sec = 3758 minutes = 62 hours = 2.6 days to find a share ... ON AVERAGE.

Individual share time is random but a range of 20% to 500% is pretty common.  So up to 12 days to find a share.  Also you would statistically have a ~10% chance of it being orphaned and thus end up worthless.

Yes, I understand the percentage of actually seeing some if not any shares are; the thing that confuses me is how am I able to show accepted on the miner when my pool doesn't show any shares, unless it's mining so low that the pool already is on another block. :\

[Red Emerald]

As Kano said what matter is p2pools shares.  1 p2pool share ~= 600 difficulty 1 shares.

If you look in the p2pool window you should see a line that says something like:

"Shares 3068 (Oprhan 82, Dead 16) ...."

THOSE SHARES are the ones in the share chain.  The payments are made on the % of shares you have in the share chain (total - orphan - dead) at the time a block is found.

Also in the p2pool window you should see a line that says something like:
"Expected time to share 3.8 minutes".

If you got 12MH/s mining on p2pool is likely going to be a futile frustrating experience.
I estimate @ current difficulty (630) it will take:
630 * 2^32 / 12,000,000 = 225486 sec = 3758 minutes = 62 hours = 2.6 days to find a share ... ON AVERAGE.

Individual share time is random but a range of 20% to 500% is pretty common.  So up to 12 days to find a share.  Also you would statistically have a ~10% chance of it being orphaned and thus end up worthless.

Yes, I understand the percentage of actually seeing some if not any shares are; the thing that confuses me is how am I able to show accepted on the miner when my pool doesn't show any shares, unless it's mining so low that the pool already is on another block. :\

The miner sees the difficulty 1 shares to make it easy to tell if your miner is working. P2Pool sees the higher difficulty shares.  This seems to get covered every other page of this thread...

[twmz]

Yes, I understand the percentage of actually seeing some if not any shares are; the thing that confuses me is how am I able to show accepted on the miner when my pool doesn't show any shares, unless it's mining so low that the pool already is on another block. :\

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/P2Pool#Frequently_Asked_Questions

Q: Why does my miner say it has found a lot of shares but p2pool say I have only found a few?!

A: The real P2Pool difficulty is hundreds of times higher than on normal pools, but p2pool essentially lies to your miner and tells it to work on relatively easy shares so that it submits shares every few seconds instead of every few hours. P2Pool then ignores any submitted shares that don't match the real share difficulty. By doing this, P2Pool can more accurately report your local hash rate and you can see if you are having problems with too many stale shares quickly

[spiccioli]

Yes, I understand the percentage of actually seeing some if not any shares are; the thing that confuses me is how am I able to show accepted on the miner when my pool doesn't show any shares, unless it's mining so low that the pool already is on another block. :\

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/P2Pool#Frequently_Asked_Questions

Q: Why does my miner say it has found a lot of shares but p2pool say I have only found a few?!

A: The real P2Pool difficulty is hundreds of times higher than on normal pools, but p2pool essentially lies to your miner and tells it to work on relatively easy shares so that it submits shares every few seconds instead of every few hours. P2Pool then ignores any submitted shares that don't match the real share difficulty. By doing this, P2Pool can more accurately report your local hash rate and you can see if you are having problems with too many stale shares quickly

twmz,

question: could p2pool use difficulty 1 shares to calc miner payout instead of using high difficulty ones? This should lower miner's variance and still be able to use high difficulty shares to solve blocks.

spiccioli

[Red Emerald]

Yes, I understand the percentage of actually seeing some if not any shares are; the thing that confuses me is how am I able to show accepted on the miner when my pool doesn't show any shares, unless it's mining so low that the pool already is on another block. :\

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/P2Pool#Frequently_Asked_Questions

Q: Why does my miner say it has found a lot of shares but p2pool say I have only found a few?!

A: The real P2Pool difficulty is hundreds of times higher than on normal pools, but p2pool essentially lies to your miner and tells it to work on relatively easy shares so that it submits shares every few seconds instead of every few hours. P2Pool then ignores any submitted shares that don't match the real share difficulty. By doing this, P2Pool can more accurately report your local hash rate and you can see if you are having problems with too many stale shares quickly

twmz,

question: could p2pool use difficulty 1 shares to calc miner payout instead of using high difficulty ones? This should lower miner's variance and still be able to use high difficulty shares to solve blocks.

spiccioli

This has also been discuseed on previous pages.  If you are a small miner, you should try out p2pmining.com.  They use p2pool, but pay diff 1 shares.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Yes, I understand the percentage of actually seeing some if not any shares are; the thing that confuses me is how am I able to show accepted on the miner when my pool doesn't show any shares, unless it's mining so low that the pool already is on another block. :\

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/P2Pool#Frequently_Asked_Questions

Q: Why does my miner say it has found a lot of shares but p2pool say I have only found a few?!

A: The real P2Pool difficulty is hundreds of times higher than on normal pools, but p2pool essentially lies to your miner and tells it to work on relatively easy shares so that it submits shares every few seconds instead of every few hours. P2Pool then ignores any submitted shares that don't match the real share difficulty. By doing this, P2Pool can more accurately report your local hash rate and you can see if you are having problems with too many stale shares quickly

twmz,

question: could p2pool use difficulty 1 shares to calc miner payout instead of using high difficulty ones? This should lower miner's variance and still be able to use high difficulty shares to solve blocks.

spiccioli

No.

First high difficulty shares aren't used to solve a block.  They aren't used for anything other than payouts.  They need to be high to keep avg time between shares ~ 10 seconds.  For example if p2pool uses 1 difficulty shares instead of 0.1 shares per second it would have 60 shares per second.  The sharechain would simply collapse under the weight of dozens of forks a second.

Shares are completely worthless (in terms of real value).  This applies to any pool.  You don't work towards a block.  You either solve it or you don't.  If you don't the hash produced is worthless.  Pools simply use shares to record how much work was attempted and thus determine a fair split.