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

[Richy_T]

Block pruning is currently incompatible with running a wallet due to the fact that block data is used for rescanning the wallet and importing keys or addresses (which require a rescan.) However, running the wallet with block pruning will be supported in the near future, subject to those limitations.

Yeah, that's running a wallet though. Which is different.

I can see where it might make it difficult to validate transactions. But a pruned node still keeps track of UTXOs so *shrug*

Pool software that doesn't need a wallet will work with it. My comment was offtopic so I deleted it. Nonetheless, p2pool needs the wallet working.

Oh OK. I'll take your word for it but I'm curious as to why.

[p3yot33at3r]

Thinking about it, my node is running Bitcoind with a disabled wallet, so I might try.....

[notbatman]

FUCK.

2016-01-22 20:52:30.212000 > Unhandled error in Deferred:
2016-01-22 20:52:30.212000 > Unhandled Error
2016-01-22 20:52:30.213000 > Traceback (most recent call last):
2016-01-22 20:52:30.213000 > Failure: twisted.internet.defer.TimeoutError: in ReplyMatcher

I've been seeing this scroll up constantly since the 95% orphan rate started in the last 24 hours. I should note my GBT latency is about 0.5s.

My p2pool window is a total jumble of various crap scrolling up now... punishing share..., peer sent entire transcation blah blablah, skipping from block..., unhandled error..., incomming connection... v14.., error while processing Event callbacks..., lost peer...

HOLY FUCK MAN!!

"peer referenced unknown" that's a new one...

LOST CONTACT WITH BITCOIND

oh what a surprise!

[windpath]

Edit: I'm guessing -ck & kano have found a way to make it work?

Pool software that doesn't need a wallet will work with it. My comment was offtopic so I deleted it. Nonetheless, p2pool needs the wallet working.

P2Pool does not require the wallet functionality as long as you use -a when starting to set a payout address.

[p3yot33at3r]

Edit: I'm guessing -ck & kano have found a way to make it work?

Pool software that doesn't need a wallet will work with it. My comment was offtopic so I deleted it. Nonetheless, p2pool needs the wallet working.

P2Pool does not require the wallet functionality as long as you use -a when starting to set a payout address.

Yeah, that's what I use on my node - do you think pruning might work using this configuration windpath?

[windpath]

Edit: I'm guessing -ck & kano have found a way to make it work?

Pool software that doesn't need a wallet will work with it. My comment was offtopic so I deleted it. Nonetheless, p2pool needs the wallet working.

P2Pool does not require the wallet functionality as long as you use -a when starting to set a payout address.

Yeah, that's what I use on my node - do you think pruning might work using this configuration windpath?

I thought it would work without it

[Richy_T]

P2Pool does not require the wallet functionality as long as you use -a when starting to set a payout address.

This is how I roll.

[photon_coin]

a shame so little hash power on p2pool

[p3yot33at3r]

a shame so little hash power on p2pool

Indeed - & my server just suffered a catastrophic failure & went down. I'm not sure if it's the mobo or SSD yet, looks like my Sunday will be spent knee-deep in parts while I search for the problem.

Great! 

[Gyrsur]

a question regarding this below. how is the progress of the development of p2pool?

thank you very much!

P2P Mode:

The p2pool protocol prevents hashing power being controlled by one central entity (the pool owner), and has been significantly developed during the development of Antpool. All p2pool code have been open sourced and uploaded on BITMAIN's Github link https://github.com/bitmaintech/p2pool. We hope that we can optimize the p2p protocol and network with other interested engineers around the world.

We believe p2pool protocol has great potential, however, it is not developed very well till now.

Firstly, p2pool protocol's total hash rate is low compared with the whole network's, which is around only 2% of it as of Nov 2014. So p2pool's output is still not quite stable. There is a network effect barrier we need to break, then the p2pool protocol will have stable output and more miners will join the protocol. One of the most import reason for this is that there is not a well developed p2pool agent mining pool. If there is a well developed agent as the p2p.antpool.com, the total hashrate of p2pool will be significantly increased.

Secondly, the protocol of p2pool network is already optimized a lot, but for average miners, it is not as efficient as it could be, especially for some low bandwidth miners, whom will not be affected if they are connected to a normal stratum mining pool. We hope our efforts will help the community feel easier to set up p2pool mining nodes running with high efficiency.

If p2pool protocol can provide a more stable output, and the code is published, we hope that there will be more and more independent p2pool mining nodes around the world. There are lots of enterprise level miners around the world. I think it will be in the best interest for themselves to run their own p2pool mining nodes, if we can develop it into a convenient, reliable and efficient tools.

[p3yot33at3r]

It isn't.
It has never worked.
It's not & never was part of the p2pool framework or sharechain.
It was an attempt to hijack p2pool that failed.
It is a lie.

[jedimstr]

It isn't.
It has never worked.
It's not & never was part of the p2pool framework or sharechain.
It was an attempt to hijack p2pool that failed.
It is a lie.

Just like The Cake.

[nicklello]

It isn't.
It has never worked.
It's not & never was part of the p2pool framework or sharechain.
It was an attempt to hijack p2pool that failed.
It is a lie.

Having just read through the code checked in to github; I'm not so sure.... I probably missed it but the changes all seem to be 'above board' in that they:

* Added database logging of shares
* Added user authentication

And not a lot else.... is it possible they crippled their nodes by simply denying them access to other nodes outside of their own domain; either by purposely configuring firewalls to do so or simply not configuring their firewalls correctly ?

Has anyone tried connecting to their p2pool server using the -n option ?

[p3yot33at3r]

It isn't.
It has never worked.
It's not & never was part of the p2pool framework or sharechain.
It was an attempt to hijack p2pool that failed.
It is a lie.

Having just read through the code checked in to github; I'm not so sure.... I probably missed it but the changes all seem to be 'above board' in that they:

* Added database logging of shares
* Added user authentication

And not a lot else.... is it possible they crippled their nodes by simply denying them access to other nodes outside of their own domain; either by purposely configuring firewalls to do so or simply not configuring their firewalls correctly ?

Has anyone tried connecting to their p2pool server using the -n option ?

Have a read of the thread from the beginning, particularly this post:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=855548.msg9519703#msg9519703

I read through it a couple of times when I was looking for the best pool option for me before opting for p2pool (the real one), it really put me off Bitmain tbh - especially the posts from that dogie guy who worked for Bitmain at the time, he didn't have a clue about the workings of p2pool, neither did anyone else at Bitmain as it turned out. It was just an attempt by Bitmain to jump on the decentralisation bandwagon, when in fact the complete opposite was true.

[windpath]

It was just an attempt by Bitmain to jump on the decentralisation bandwagon, when in fact the complete opposite was true.

It ended up being pure marketing hype that Bitmain ended up milking long after they had been called out on it...

[p3yot33at3r]

It was just an attempt by Bitmain to jump on the decentralisation bandwagon, when in fact the complete opposite was true.

It ended up being pure marketing hype that Bitmain ended up milking long after they had been called out on it...

The worst thing is they continue to lie about it in their OP - I've posted requests for moderators to force them to change their OP on several occasions, but they've been ignored. Why, I just don't know.

[nicklello]

Have a read of the thread from the beginning, particularly this post:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=855548.msg9519703#msg9519703

I read through it a couple of times when I was looking for the best pool option for me before opting for p2pool (the real one), it really put me off Bitmain tbh - especially the posts from that dogie guy who worked for Bitmain at the time, he didn't have a clue about the workings of p2pool, neither did anyone else at Bitmain as it turned out. It was just an attempt by Bitmain to jump on the decentralisation bandwagon, when in fact the complete opposite was true.

Thanks for the pointer, it was an interesting read...... I do agree that antpool.com is/was as you say an attempt to gain off the back of p2pool.

HOWEVER, looking at what they *did* put up on github some of their work appears to have merit....

[windpath]

...

HOWEVER, looking at what they *did* put up on github some of their work appears to have merit....

I'm not sure I see it?

- They broke pseudonymous mining by adding a username and password
- They added a centralized DB to track this info
- They broke decentralization, you would have to "register" on every node running this code
- They broke it's DoS resistance as you would have to register on every node you might failover to
- They broke trustless payouts, you have to trust them to fairly distribute your payout

Starting to sound a lot like a centralized pool

Maybe I'm missing something??

[jonnybravo0311]

You aren't missing a thing... and that's exactly what I called them on when I first looked at their code in the github repo.  They quickly gave up the whole p2pool development thing they were doing, and haven't touched it in over a year.  They didn't know what they were doing then, and haven't bothered to try and understand it since; however, they'll still gladly claim they're supporting p2pool and decentralization.

[-ck]

Further into the antpool thread was also this:

I agree in that it most likely didn't work as they planned.

You are right on the money with that.

I have finally had a skype text chat with the main Chinese Bitmain software engineers and unfortunately it's precisely as I predicted. In principle they wanted to help decentralise and saw p2pool as the obvious way to get involved and would be good publicity for them. Unfortunately they spent a lot of time fixing their regular pool first and just left this announcement up almost as a "preorder for a better p2pool". However they misunderstood the issues with p2pool and thought that all it needed was more coding expertise and manpower contributed to development to fix it and have only just started investigating it now.  While they can clearly improve on the existing code - and probably will unless the project gets canned - after I queried them about what solutions they had for the intrinsic p2pool protocol limitations/problems, they had precisely zero valid solutions for them.