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

[kano]

What is going on, why does not include a block 174234?

Panda Mouse.

Because whoever created the block, does not have the BIP update in their bitcoind thus they built an invalid block and thus when the fork was resolved as expected, the P2Pool block 174234 went bye bye.

To see the forks that keep happening, look here: http://blockchain.info/orphaned-blocks

Also note that on that page where it says "DeepBit" it isn't always correct.

Thank you kano, as I think it's not our (p2pool) bad BIP fault?

I'm not sure we are saying the same thing so I'll reword it

The person on P2Pool who generated that block is missing the BIP update.

If everyone on P2Pool has the BIP update, except one person, that one person can still generate a P2Pool block if their P2Pool is current and Bitcoind is considered OK by the P2Pool software but that block will be rejected by most people on the network if it contains any poisoned transactions
(Yes someone has purposely generated poisoned transactions using the IP address 67.210.248.3 so that if anyone isn't running the current BIP they will include those invalid transactions into their blocks and thus their blocks will be rejected by the network)
If they had the BIP update then their bitcoind would not accept the poisoned transaction(s) and thus the blocks they generate would be OK

This is the transaction that causes most? of the problems
https://blockchain.info/tx-index/3618498/4005d6bea3a93fb72f006d23e2685b85069d270cb57d15f0c057ef2d5e3f78d2?show_adv=true

[Panda Mouse]

...
If everyone on P2Pool has the BIP update, except one person, that one person can still generate a P2Pool block if their P2Pool is current and Bitcoind is considered OK by the P2Pool software but that block will be rejected by most people on the network if it contains any poisoned transactions
(Yes someone has purposely generated poisoned transactions using the IP address 67.210.248.3 so that if anyone isn't running the current BIP they will include those invalid transactions into their blocks and thus their blocks will be rejected by the network)
If they had the BIP update then their bitcoind would not accept the poisoned transaction(s) and thus the blocks they generate would be OK

This is the transaction that causes most? of the problems
https://blockchain.info/tx-index/3618498/4005d6bea3a93fb72f006d23e2685b85069d270cb57d15f0c057ef2d5e3f78d2?show_adv=true

Can we defend against this?

Panda Mouse.

[Ente]

Can we defend against this?

Panda Mouse.

Yes. have everyone update their p2pool/bitcoind/miners etc to be BIP-aware.
There is no "attack" or "problem", there are just miners with outdated, now incompatible software.

Ente

[Panda Mouse]

Can we defend against this?

Panda Mouse.

Yes. have everyone update their p2pool/bitcoind/miners etc to be BIP-aware.
There is no "attack" or "problem", there are just miners with outdated, now incompatible software.

Ente

Is it possible to automatically remove that machine with old software from the network?

I see that is a substantial problem.

Panda Mouse.

[Ente]

Is it possible to automatically remove that machine with old software from the network?

I see that is a substantial problem.

Panda Mouse.

From which network, bitcoin or p2pool? Those clients are already "removed" in the sense that they are isolated. They may find a block, which then is orphaned. So they have no influence on the main branch of the chain.

What problem do you see? The only problem is, imho, the slightly reduced hashing power of the network, and, from their perspective, the zero income ;-)

Ente

[Panda Mouse]

Is it possible to automatically remove that machine with old software from the network?

I see that is a substantial problem.

Panda Mouse.

From which network, bitcoin or p2pool? Those clients are already "removed" in the sense that they are isolated. They may find a block, which then is orphaned. So they have no influence on the main branch of the chain.

What problem do you see? The only problem is, imho, the slightly reduced hashing power of the network, and, from their perspective, the zero income ;-)

Ente

Yes you're right.

[Gabi]

Can we defend against this?

Panda Mouse.

Yes. have everyone update their p2pool/bitcoind/miners etc to be BIP-aware.
There is no "attack" or "problem", there are just miners with outdated, now incompatible software.

Ente

Is it possible to automatically remove that machine with old software from the network?

I see that is a substantial problem.

Panda Mouse.

Uh? The only person who have a problem is the miner with the old software because he is just mining useless things and wasting power and time. This is only his problem, not our. We mine and get our profit. He just waste time until he decide to update.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Is it possible to automatically remove that machine with old software from the network?

I see that is a substantial problem.

There is no problem.  Nothing is lost.

They are ALREADY excluded.

Any node which is running old incompatible software will have their SHARES rejected by p2pool network.  p2pool can't stop them from producing invalid blocks but they don't get credit for GOOD blocks either.

This is why you see the node & hashrate graph has declined.  Those excluded miners are no longer worker towards p2pool.

Now sometimes they will produce a block but it will be overwritten and they will never get paid.  Since they aren't getting paid for good blocks, and they aren't getting paid for their bad blocks their revenue will be 0.00.

Another way to look at it is the bad miners are on a seperate fork.   WE (good p2pool miners) produce blocks and only split the rewards among good miners.   The bad miners can only get payouts from bad blocks but those blocks will always be orphaned so they will never get paid.

TL/DR
The bad miners and bad blocks don't affect you payout a single bit cent.
No matter how many bad blocks the idiots produce they will never provide you any revenue.
No matter how many idiots/bad miners there are they will never get any revenue from good blocks.
There is no problem.  Nothing is lost.
Miners producing bad blocks are already excluded from payments on good blocks.

[ChanceCoats123]

Is it possible to automatically remove that machine with old software from the network?

I see that is a substantial problem.

There is no problem.  Nothing is lost.

They are ALREADY excluded.

Any node which is running old incompatible software will have their SHARES rejected by p2pool network.  p2pool can't stop them from producing invalid blocks but they don't get credit for GOOD blocks either.

This is why you see the node & hashrate graph has declined.  Those excluded miners are no longer worker towards p2pool.

Now sometimes they will produce a block but it will be overwritten and they will never get paid.  Since they aren't getting paid for good blocks, and they aren't getting paid for their bad blocks their revenue will be 0.00.

Another way to look at it is the bad miners are on a seperate fork.   WE (good p2pool miners) produce blocks and only split the rewards among good miners.   The bad miners can only get payouts from bad blocks but those blocks will always be orphaned so they will never get paid.

TL/DR
The bad miners and bad blocks don't affect you payout a single bit cent.
No matter how many bad blocks the idiots produce they will never provide you any revenue.
No matter how many idiots/bad miners there are they will never get any revenue from good blocks.
There is no problem.  Nothing is lost.
Miners producing bad blocks are already excluded from payments on good blocks.

Thank you for the clarification.

[Frizz23]

I just found that p2pool works with "Pool: 19628MH/s" on my host. Does that mean p2pool forked again and I am working on a branch?

I restarted my p2pool client - but it shows same Pool speed. What's going on?

[DeathAndTaxes]

What version of p2pool?
What version of bitcoind?

[twmz]

I just found that p2pool works with "Pool: 19628MH/s" on my host. Does that mean p2pool forked again and I am working on a branch?

I restarted my p2pool client - but it shows same Pool speed. What's going on?

It probably means your version of p2pool and/or your version of bitcoin are too old and you have been blocked from the normal p2pool network and are on a fork with all the other people that are still on old versions.

You need to be running the latest version of p2pool (see the first post of this thread) and you need to be running a recent version of bitcoin that support BIP16 (just install 0.6.0 if you aren't sure).

[twmz]

P.S.  Sign up for this mailing list so that you get proactively notified when there are required upgrades in the future:

http://groups.google.com/group/p2pool-notifications

[DiabloD3]

P.S.  Sign up for this mailing list so that you get proactively notified when there are required upgrades in the future:

http://groups.google.com/group/p2pool-notifications

Or just hook your local git clone up to a cronjob.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Or just hook your local git clone up to a cronjob.

Or miners just take the tiniest amount of personal responsibility and if they can't be bothered to keep the network secure by upgrading to meet deadlines announced months in advance they should quit.

[forrestv]

Most updates have had 2-3 weeks, but this one was on the short side because it had to mesh with the BIP16 deadline, which was only announced days before I released 0.10.3.

[gyverlb]

Here's a simple bash script which avoids running an out-of-date version of p2pool and minimizes downtime as much as possible during upgrades.
It assumes everything runs as the "bitcoin" user, you have a git clone of the master branch and the screen utility is used to launch p2pool.
You'll have to change some variables and/or p2pool parameters to suit your configuration/needs before launching it with crontab. If your environment (the email system more specifically) is configured correctly you should receive an email telling if a restart was needed or not. Enjoy !

Code:

#!/bin/bash
P2POOL_DIR=~/p2pool
FEE="0.5"
PAYOUT="change_this"
BITCOIN_USER="change_this"
BITCOIN_PASS="change_this"
EXISTINGPID=`pgrep python -U bitcoin`

cd $P2POOL_DIR
if git pull | grep -q 'Already up-to-date'; then
        echo "No restart needed for p2pool"
else
        echo "Starting new p2pool"
        screen -U -d -m python run_p2pool.py --disable-upnp -f $FEE -a $PAYOUT $BITCOIN_USER $BITCOIN_PASS
        if [[ ! -z "$EXISTINGPID" ]]; then
                echo "Waiting for new p2pool to be ready"
                sleep 90
                echo "Killing old p2pool"
                kill $EXISTINGPID
        fi
fi

If you find it useful : 1AVb1PuguzpAL9zpufh5K2cS5C9CWn5U7t

[Red Emerald]

Here's a simple bash script which avoids running an out-of-date version of p2pool and minimizes downtime as much as possible during upgrades.
It assumes everything runs as the "bitcoin" user, you have a git clone of the master branch and the screen utility is used to launch p2pool.
You'll have to change some variables and/or p2pool parameters to suit your configuration/needs before launching it with crontab. If your environment (the email system more specifically) is configured correctly you should receive an email telling if a restart was needed or not. Enjoy !

Code:

#!/bin/bash
P2POOL_DIR="~/p2pool"
FEE="0.5"
PAYOUT="change_this"
BITCOIN_USER="change_this"
BITCOIN_PASS="change_this"
EXISTINGPID=`pgrep python -U bitcoin`

cd $P2POOL_DIR
if git pull | grep -q 'Already up-to-date'; then
        echo "No restart needed for p2pool"
else
        echo "Starting new p2pool"
        screen -U -d -m python run_p2pool.py --disable-upnp -f $FEE -a $PAYOUT $BITCOIN_USER $BITCOIN_PASS
        if [[ ! -z "$EXISTINGPID" ]]; then
                echo "Waiting for new p2pool to be ready"
                sleep 90
                echo "Killing old p2pool"
                kill $EXISTINGPID
        fi
fi

If you find it useful : 1AVb1PuguzpAL9zpufh5K2cS5C9CWn5U7t

You don't need to specify $BITCOIN_USER or $BITCOIN_PASS if the user running p2pool has it in their bitcoin.conf

[Krak]

You don't need to specify $BITCOIN_USER or $BITCOIN_PASS if the user running p2pool has it in their bitcoin.conf

You do if you want p2pool to be able to connect to your Bitcoin instance.

[Red Emerald]

You don't need to specify $BITCOIN_USER or $BITCOIN_PASS if the user running p2pool has it in their bitcoin.conf

You do if you want p2pool to be able to connect to your Bitcoin instance.

No. You don't.

This is the command I use to start p2pool.

Code:

python ./run_p2pool.py -a 1HZY2Bks6HjTXFxXSj8ivhWCnkosypiUxR --p2pool-port 8335 -w 8336 --merged http://namecoindrpcuser:pass@127.0.0.1:9332/ --disable-upnp -f 0.5

See any bitcoind username/password there?