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

[marcus_of_augustus]

Boy, does this luck ever suck ....

[camolist]

Boy, does this luck ever suck ....

yes, what a wonderful introduction to mining

started on the 4th and not doing so well. thought i was doing something wrong till i saw the stats on p2pool.info

[ChanceCoats123]

Boy, does this luck ever suck ....

yes, what a wonderful introduction to mining

started on the 4th and not doing so well. thought i was doing something wrong till i saw the stats on p2pool.info

It can be discouraging, but keep on keepin' on. Our luck right before this low spot was pretty damn good.... in fact, I probably jynxed us.

[DeathAndTaxes]

Boy, does this luck ever suck ....

yes, what a wonderful introduction to mining

started on the 4th and not doing so well. thought i was doing something wrong till i saw the stats on p2pool.info

It can be discouraging, but keep on keepin' on. Our luck right before this low spot was pretty damn good.... in fact, I probably jynxed us.

Yes you did.  So please pay me the 28 BTC your jynxing has cost me.

[DeathAndTaxes]

I'm sorry, I mean I have always used -a
p2pool.info shows unknow
my challenge is to see how quickly someone can figure out my address

Ah, I see that something broke on p2pool.info.  I'll have to fix it.

Fixed it.  The updated version is being deployed now.

Also, I didn't understand your question until now.  But FYI, your payout address is exposed here:  http://bitpoppool.geekgalaxy.com:9332/payout_addr

Forrestv,
it may be useful in the next version to have a http://(p2pool IP address):9332/index.hmtl page with links to other web interface options and explanation.  It would make the web interface self documenting.  As URI change or new ones are added one just needs to check /index or /help.

On edit: actually looks like I might be able to make one myself.

[forrestv]

There's something like that right now - GET / redirects to /static, which has a html page that links to some of the exposed interfaces.

[Frizz23]

After mining for about 4 month I again had pool split some days ago.

This time I didn't even get credit for my work.

I usually get ~0.10 BTC per found block from p2pool.

- It seems there was a split and on 2012-04-03 10:05:45 I got ~1.06 BTC (I was mining on that block for some days)

Unfortunately there are similar transactions on 2012-04-02 20:09:55 and on 2012-04-04 05:09:45 that are unconfirmed.

See for yourself: http://blockchain.info/address/1EZMh5fH33TFWLh6enwL86gam5LnEE2o4v

Question: Why are those transactions unconfirmed? What's going on?

[rjk]

After mining for about 4 month I again had pool split some days ago.

This time I didn't even get credit for my work.

I usually get ~0.10 BTC per found block from p2pool.

- It seems there was a split and on 2012-04-03 10:05:45 I got ~1.06 BTC (I was mining on that block for some days)

Unfortunately there are similar transactions on 2012-04-02 20:09:55 and on 2012-04-04 05:09:45 that are unconfirmed.

See for yourself: http://blockchain.info/address/1EZMh5fH33TFWLh6enwL86gam5LnEE2o4v

Question: Why are those transactions unconfirmed? What's going on?

Have you kept your p2pool version and bitcoind version up-to-date, as per many repeated postings here in this thread? Old versions prior to April 1st and BIP 16 support will be partitioned off the network and will produce invalid blocks.

[DeathAndTaxes]

After mining for about 4 month I again had pool split some days ago.

This time I didn't even get credit for my work.

I usually get ~0.10 BTC per found block from p2pool.

- It seems there was a split and on 2012-04-03 10:05:45 I got ~1.06 BTC (I was mining on that block for some days)

Unfortunately there are similar transactions on 2012-04-02 20:09:55 and on 2012-04-04 05:09:45 that are unconfirmed.

See for yourself: http://blockchain.info/address/1EZMh5fH33TFWLh6enwL86gam5LnEE2o4v

Question: Why are those transactions unconfirmed? What's going on?

You have been producing totally worthless work making invalid blocks as part of a defunct chain.

Those blocks have been oprhaned (and thus coinbase reward orphaned also) because they either contain invalid tx or build upon blocks with invalid txs.  All miners must be BIP16 compatible post 1 April.  Someone released poison pill tx on to the Bitcoin network which are invalid but only in ways up to date bitcond can detect.

Until you upgrade your miner will perpetually include these invalid tx into blocks only to have them eventually orphaned out as the miners on main chain see them as invalid.

Per OP:

You must upgrade to P2Pool 0.10.3 or greater before April 1st (or March 27th for Litecoin) and install either Bitcoin 0.6.0 or the 0.5.4 backport to ensure compatibility with BIP16

P2Pool 0.10.3 release post: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=18313.msg813556#msg813556
P2Pool 0.10.3 for Windows: http://u.forre.st/u/jtjrvlxm/p2pool_win32_0.10.3.zip

Bitcoin 0.6.0 is available at http://sourceforge.net/projects/bitcoin/files/Bitcoin/bitcoin-0.6.0/
Bitcoin 0.5.4rc1 at https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=72069.0

[DeathAndTaxes]

There's something like that right now - GET / redirects to /static, which has a html page that links to some of the exposed interfaces.

Ah I see it in github now.  Must be post v0.10.3.  I tried simply copying the html files to my static-web folder but most of stats don't display. 

What I see

P2Pool Stats

Graphs

Total pool GH/s: 327.5371314979663

My payout address: 1P2PooLtMyykv6PiRMycPz8KtMZPpnABZf

Payout if a block were found NOW: 0 BTC

Share explorer
Best share:
Verified heads:
Heads:
Verified tails:
Tails:

Blocks found since program started:

Blocks and payout breakdown are visible but removed for brevity.

Is there backend changes (post v0.10.3) required to to enable that functionality?

[forrestv]

Yes, there have been quite a few additions to the web interface that expose more data.

[coretechs]

Thanks for all your work forrest.  P2pool keeps getting better.  

[camolist]

It can be discouraging, but keep on keepin' on. Our luck right before this low spot was pretty damn good.... in fact, I probably jynxed us.

not headed anywhere anytime soon and today's starting to look a bit better

just got port forwarding setup so connections for both bitcoin and p2pool are on the rise

two 6500s should be here tomorrow or thursday and two ztex boards early next week

just getting started..lets get all the bad luck out of the way now 

[DeathAndTaxes]

Well 6 blocks in last 24 hours is a good start.   But dug ourselves a deep hole over the last 7 days.

[Ente]

just got port forwarding setup so connections for both bitcoin and p2pool are on the rise

Incoming connections on p2pool too I guess?
Do you have a static ip address?

Ente

[camolist]

just got port forwarding setup so connections for both bitcoin and p2pool are on the rise

Incoming connections on p2pool too I guess?
Do you have a static ip address?

Ente

only bitcoin at the moment

strangely not yet in p2pool but it's only been about 6 hours. think someone mentioned on this forum that it starts happening around 8 hours? so we'll see


static-ish. router will keep the ip as long as it has power - will get a new ip if down for more then the couple of minutes it takes to reboot


thinking of setting this up on a lightly used personal server in the datacenter with my business stuff which would have a static /dedicated ip available

[spiccioli]

Well 6 blocks in last 24 hours is a good start.   But dug ourselves a deep hole over the last 7 days.

D&T,

given this from p2pool wiki

Code:

Because the sharechain is 60 times faster than the Bitcoin chain many stales are common and expected. However, because the payout is PPLNS only your stale rate relative to other nodes is relevant; the absolute rate is not.

and given 90 days luck around 90% and p2pool as a whole stale rate around 10%, can it be that stale rate is not relevant for miners but becomes relevant for p2pool as a whole?

Or to say it in another way: p2pool wastes around 10% of its hashing power and because of this all graphs which use p2pool hashing power, without subtracting stale rate, report a higher than correct expected blocks?

spiccioli.

[DeathAndTaxes]

There is no such thing as "wasting hashing power".
You either find a block or you don't.  If you don't find a block the nonce is worthless.  I don't mean worth little, I mean absolutely worthless.
Nonces which don't solve a block are liked losing lottery tickets.  Failed attempted aren't progress towards a block.  A large number of failed tries doesn't increase the chance of finding a block in the future.  The only share worth anything is the one that solves a block and at current difficulty that occurs once every 2^32 * 1,626,856.73 =  6,987,296,450,627,500 nonces.

1 nonce = 50 BTC
6,987,296,450,627,499 nonces = 0 BTC

If we awarded compensation based on actual value of nonces found it is .... solo mining.  One would either get 50 BTC or 0 BTC for every nonce hashed.  Pool mining is a method to FAIRLY and EQUITABLY distribute that same 50 BTC to reduce variance.  We track FAILED WORTHLESS WORK because it can't be cheated.  Nothing more, nothing less.

Pools are more like block insurance companies.  In keeping with "no/limited trusted 3rd party" mantra of Bitcoin we use cryptography to ensure work can't be faked.  A pool could use a custom miner which records nonces (like a nonce odometer) and everytime a block is found collects nonce recordings from all miners and splits the block by how many nonces each miner attempted. The obvious problem is that a hacked miner would allow a miner to cheat.    Since hashes of lower difficulty can't be faked they provide good "proof" of the aproximate # of hashes attempted (subject to variance).

The 10% of work which was attempted (but failed) and then was orphaned needs to be included in the stats because it was valid work attempted. The fact that the technicalities of p2pool oprhaned it from the sharechain (compensated work) doesn't change that fact.  

It is just layers of abstraction.
Actual Work: # of nonces accurately and timely hashed (it takes on average ~7 quadrillion hashes to find one which meets current difficulty target)
Proxy for Work: nonces meeting share difficulty (1 for most pools, ~600 for p2pool) thus one p2pool share (diff 600) is a PROXY for 2.58 trillion nonces attempted.
Compensated Work: shares included in the chain (excludes orphaned shares which are a technical limit of p2pool short LP time)

One could say a solominer oprhans (discards) 100% of the failed work.  You wouldn't say a solo miner finds 1 block per share right?  The attempted work even if discarded needs to be recorded.  

If your orphan rate is ~= pool's orphan rate then your % of compensated work (shares in sharechain) ~= your % of proxy for work (shares) ~= your % of actual work (nonces hashed).


Orphaned blocks
p2pool doesn't show any higher (~1% of main fork) orphan rate ON BLOCKS.  If p2pool had 10% of its BLOCKS orphaned that would obviously cause a reduction in revenue and corresponding increase in # of shares per block.  The orphan rate on p2pool blocks is a better indication of "lost work".  An abnormally high number would indicate a problem/delay w/ network broadcasting its blocks.  Keep in mind even here relative values is what matters.  True should be 1% higher due to orphaned blocks (yes orphaned blocks represent work).  If there were no oprhaned blocks collectively miners wouldn't earn any more.

Dead on arrival (bad/stale/invalid shares killed by local node)
DOA are bad/stale/invalid shares before they even get broadcast to p2pool network and can never be a block even if they meet diff target as they would be rejected by the Bitcoin network.  They are "wasted hashing power".  DOAs unlike orphans do affect the # of shares per block.     If 2% of shares are bad/stale/invalid (not just orphaned) then 2% of your blocks will be bad/stale/invalid.  This affects all pools not just p2pool.  I would assume that any hashing graph is using post DOA hashrates.  Still DOA is a much smaller % than orphans so the difference isn't very large.

On edit: modified for clarification (of course that made it even longer ... grr).
On edit 2:  crap crap crap.  tried to simplify and turned it into a novel ("as the nonce hashes").  Sorry for wall of text.  I don't have the heart to rip it up now.

[DiabloD3]

There is no such thing as "wasting hashing power".
You either find a block or the share is worthless.
If some of the worthless shares get orphaned how much have you lost?

p2pool doesn't show any higher (~1% of main fork) orphan rate ON BLOCKS.

p2pool could function with a 99.999% SHARE orphan rate but the variance and unfairness of that would cause PR (not technical) problems.

10 second LP is a compromise between share orphans and difficulty.

The thing that seems hard for people to understand is shares have ABSOLUTELY NO VALUE.  They aren't progress towards a block they are completely worthless.  We simply use them because it is a cheat proof mechanism to fairly split rewards.  Nothing more, nothing less.  So if 10% of worthless shares are lost how much value/blocks/work is lost? .... Nothing.  10% of 0 is still 0.

Only DOA affect the rate blocks are found.  DOA are bad/stale/invalid shares before they even get broadcast to p2pool network.  Thus even if they were blocks they are worthless because Bitcoin network (not just p2pool) would find them worthless even if they met target requirements for a block.  I would assume that any hashing graph is using post DOA hashrates.  Still DOA looks to only be about 2% of the network.

All of this so goddamned much.

[spiccioli]

DeathAndTaxes,

very clear and very much appreciated!

Thanks.

spiccioli.

ps. this is where I heard a click inside my  brain

If we awarded compensation based on actual value of nonces found it is .... solo mining.  Pool mining simply finds a mechanism to FAIRLY distribute that 50 BTC to reduce variance.  We track FAILED WORTHLESS WORK because it can't be cheated.  Nothing more, nothing less.