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

[windpath]

New P2Pool.org Launched.

The new information site p2pool.org is now live.

Please consider this a start, there is much more to come

The bulk of the content is in the "Learn & Participate" section.

I welcome any contributions, suggestions, feedback, found typos, etc...

Enjoy.

Nice!

One comment tho - the yellow on white is a little hard to read, not exactly very easy on the eyes.  I'd either make the background a light grey or something to be able to better contrast the yellow, or change the yellow text to something with a little more contrast - dark grey, dark blue, etc.

Edit - OK, two comments...

The 3 areas you can go to from the main "learn and participate" page - when you follow the links, I don't think they're very intuitive on how to navigate.  The "X" at the top right doesn't really stand out as the way to get back to where you were.  If you don't see that (I didn't really notice it on my first try), and you hit back in your browser, it doesn't take you back to the main p2pool.org page, it goes to your last absolute browser page, which for me in chrome is my start page.

I would make a suggestion to either 1) carry the main p2ool page header onto those pages as well so you can easily go back to any of the others or 2) make the page a true "pop-out" or "floater" page where it is or looks like it's in its own box, with the "x" displayed in the top right corner of the box in a bubble (like you see on many other sites) so you can close out that page and return to the main page you were previously looking at.  Or, maybe to start you could move the yellow "nav button bar" from the bottom of the page, and put that in place of that large "X" in the top right.  At least people will see that immediately and then can clik on that, rather than have to scroll down to see it, it might not be normally displayed unless you're on an uber-large resolution setting.

Edit #2 - Ok, one more comment...

The main page, at the bottom, you have a spot for a sponsored advertisement.  Depending on the size of the browser window it gets cut off at the bottom and you can't see the whole area.  I'm at 1900x1200 and my browser window is usually somewhere around 1400x900 resolution size, so decently large, but not full screen.  You have to scroll down to see it all, so if you really want that space to be useful I think you're going to have to float it somewhere in the main image area, or maybe make it a top- or side-mounted ad space bar.

I think I'm done now... really... I hope....

Thanks for all the feedback

I plan to make individual pages for the 4 parts of Learn and Participate section, the modals were an attempt to keep it all on 1 page for ease of maintenance, but I agree with you and think they need to be on individual pages...

I'll play around with the link coloring.

I tried (maybe to hard) to keep the ad unobtrusive, I'll revisit its location as the site grows...

[kgb2mining]

I tried (maybe to hard) to keep the ad unobtrusive, I'll revisit its location as the site grows...

Heh, unobtrusive is one thing, not being able to see it is another....

Ads can be annoying, but on the other hand, they serve a very useful purpose both for the advertiser and the receiver.  If I were "paying" for that spot, I'd certainly want to be able to have it seen easily.

No worries tho, there's probably enough time to play around with it and come to a good solution.

[heldertb]

I'm having some questions about P2Pool mining, I'm mining on http://elizium.name node with 2 Antminer S3+'s, at about 920GH/s.
But I've been mining for 12+ hours now, and I still have nothing. I added after my payout address "+518" but still nothing.
Is this normal or...?

[RoadStress]

What the frack just happened with the blocks? 2 in a row and so fast?

[PatMan]

What the frack just happened with the blocks? 2 in a row and so fast?

    That's the way isn't it - like waiting for a bus, nothing for hours then they all come at once........

[windpath]

What the frack just happened with the blocks? 2 in a row and so fast?

Lol, someone with a better understanding then I will have to figure this out, but both those blocks had the same height (321414) on the Bitcoin blockchain, but different hashes on the p2pool share chain.

It looks like we orphaned our own block???

From Coin Cadence's p2pool logs (the lower one was orphaned):

2014-09-18 22:17:39.207999 GOT BLOCK FROM PEER! Passing to bitcoind! 1b152c9a bitcoin: https://blockchain.info/block/000000000000000014d4d24049878ae8b910728974046ceeb03c52f11b152c9a
...
2014-09-18 22:17:40.729646 GOT BLOCK FROM PEER! Passing to bitcoind! a3167256 bitcoin: https://blockchain.info/block/000000000000000023a1661f44948a9dfdc553abb1d3126f35677beda3167256

Note: Our stats will not be able to show the Orphan block for a while (because they were submitted at the same height), I'll be sure it is added soon...

[hamburgerhelper]

What the frack just happened with the blocks? 2 in a row and so fast?

Lol, someone with a better understanding then I will have to figure this out, but both those blocks had the same height (321414) on the Bitcoin blockchain, but different hashes on the p2pool share chain.

It looks like we orphaned our own block???

From Coin Cadence's p2pool logs (the lower one was orphaned):

2014-09-18 22:17:39.207999 GOT BLOCK FROM PEER! Passing to bitcoind! 1b152c9a bitcoin: https://blockchain.info/block/000000000000000014d4d24049878ae8b910728974046ceeb03c52f11b152c9a
...
2014-09-18 22:17:40.729646 GOT BLOCK FROM PEER! Passing to bitcoind! a3167256 bitcoin: https://blockchain.info/block/000000000000000023a1661f44948a9dfdc553abb1d3126f35677beda3167256

Note: Our stats will not be able to show the Orphan block for a while (because they were submitted at the same height), I'll be sure it is added soon...

That's what it looked like to me. P2pool is so awesome we orphan our own blocks and keep the one with higher transaction fees.

[norgan]

I'm having some questions about P2Pool mining, I'm mining on http://elizium.name node with 2 Antminer S3+'s, at about 920GH/s.
But I've been mining for 12+ hours now, and I still have nothing. I added after my payout address "+518" but still nothing.
Is this normal or...?

Because P2pool is PPLNS so it takes around 3 days to build up enough shares to start seeing payment. conversely when you stop mining you'll still receive payments for a few days. have a little patience, it'll come and when it does it'll be sweet. p2pool has been finding quite a few blocks lately.

[mdude77]

I'm having some questions about P2Pool mining, I'm mining on http://elizium.name node with 2 Antminer S3+'s, at about 920GH/s.
But I've been mining for 12+ hours now, and I still have nothing. I added after my payout address "+518" but still nothing.
Is this normal or...?

Because P2pool is PPLNS so it takes around 3 days to build up enough shares to start seeing payment. conversely when you stop mining you'll still receive payments for a few days. have a little patience, it'll come and when it does it'll be sweet. p2pool has been finding quite a few blocks lately.

I don't think the 3 day thing is true anymore.  I've watched my 1 share roll off in 36 hours or less.

Also, at 920 GH/s, your variance is going to be bad.  Be patient, and expect lots of time without shares.

M

[wlz2011]

Is it better to run your own node or use a public one? When using a pubic one does it matter which one you use? Also, with an S3+ do I need to change the diff?

As windpath stated, it's always recommended to run your own local node; however, it's not always possible to do so.  There are plenty of publicly available nodes to which you can point your miners, windpath's certainly being one of the best in my opinion.  It doesn't matter which node you end up using, but you should try to find one that has been up and running for a while, has a good ping time from your location and has a low number of dead/orphan shares.

No, you don't need to change the diff using an S3+.  The node on which you are mining will dynamically assign your miner a difficulty based upon the node's hash rate.  If you look a few posts up, you'll see our Chinese friends have posted some screenshots of their settings.  By the way, congrats to them on finding that block!

If the node pool stress 100TH/S,
Dynamic miners difficulty: 20000 - 30000.
The efficiency is very low.
If the node is the force 10TH/S,
Dynamic miners difficulty: 1000 - 3000.
Thank you for your blessing. I wish you good luck.

[wlz2011]

I'm having some questions about P2Pool mining, I'm mining on http://elizium.name node with 2 Antminer S3+'s, at about 920GH/s.
But I've been mining for 12+ hours now, and I still have nothing. I added after my payout address "+518" but still nothing.
Is this normal or...?

You in the public node mining, luck is very big, this is normal.

[Duce]

Is there a reason why I would lose all of my incoming peers? I still have 6 going out, internet connectivity and was able to get another share after the peers were lost. I had 10 prior to this morning. I am running the current P2P version, 13.4-52-g8cffc88, and also running the C++ relay client (which should not have an effect but provided as FYI).

Did you restart p2pool? If so all your peers will reset.

If not then perhaps something (new) is blocking inbound traffic on port 9332?

No restart, I did get one back then he dropped. I guess I need to check the router logs when I get home to see what other traffic maybe going on.

I thought the peer's came in on port 9333 and the workers on 9332? Well both ports have been forwarded when I started months ago so this is a little perplexing. I just looked at the P2P node listing and it looks like I may not be alone so I guess I will let it ride for now. I know I could go add peers but as I am still getting shares so it is not broken. I contribute this to something strange. Guess it is time to use the search feature to see if this was addressed in the past.

EDIT: After further research I guess this is nothing to worry about. I find it strange how I lost all of them at the same time and did not find a smoking gun in the router logs such as a loss of service. Oh well back to the regularly scheduled program.

Nice work Windpath on the new site.

[RoadStress]

Is the p2pool share difficulty node specific, or it's whole p2pool blockchain specific?

[nreal]

I'm having some questions about P2Pool mining, I'm mining on http://elizium.name node with 2 Antminer S3+'s, at about 920GH/s.
But I've been mining for 12+ hours now, and I still have nothing. I added after my payout address "+518" but still nothing.
Is this normal or...?

Because P2pool is PPLNS so it takes around 3 days to build up enough shares to start seeing payment. conversely when you stop mining you'll still receive payments for a few days. have a little patience, it'll come and when it does it'll be sweet. p2pool has been finding quite a few blocks lately.

Im not sure what you mean by 3 days, a share is nowdays valid ~24 hours....

[mdude77]

Is the p2pool share difficulty node specific, or it's whole p2pool blockchain specific?

The pseudo share size is node specific.  The "alt chain" share size (currently at 12.3 million) is p2pool wide.

M

[RoadStress]

Is the p2pool share difficulty node specific, or it's whole p2pool blockchain specific?

The pseudo share size is node specific.  The "alt chain" share size (currently at 12.3 million) is p2pool wide.

M

So smaller miners should join smaller nodes or are they working on the 12.3 million share too?

[jonnybravo0311]

Is the p2pool share difficulty node specific, or it's whole p2pool blockchain specific?

The pseudo share size is node specific.  The "alt chain" share size (currently at 12.3 million) is p2pool wide.

M

So smaller miners should join smaller nodes or are they working on the 12.3 million share too?

Everybody is trying to find a share of 12.3 million or higher so it can be added to the chain.  It doesn't matter on which node you're mining, everybody's facing the same difficulty.  You can manually set your own difficulty on your miners if you wish by appending / and + to your BTC address.  Using the "+" sets your pseudo share difficulty.  Using the "/" sets your actual share difficulty.  If you don't put either value, the node assigns them for you based upon its own total hash rate.  If you use "/" and set that value HIGHER than the actual share chain value, then when you do find a share, it will be weighted more than the default share.

For example, I do not bother setting difficulty because I mine on my own node.  Here are a couple examples from my node:

Code:

2014-09-19 10:07:52.415374 New work for worker! Difficulty: 891.314595 Share difficulty: 14340426.635364 Total block value: 25.024165 BTC including 145 transactions

Code:

2014-09-19 10:08:19.330168 New work for worker! Difficulty: 734.066695 Share difficulty: 14200589.602459 Total block value: 25.030165 BTC including 176 transactions

As you can see, the node is dynamically changing the values.  If I were to manually set the pseudo-share difficulty, I'd see something like this:

Code:

2014-09-18 15:08:41.804703 New work for worker! Difficulty: 256.000000 Share difficulty: 15823712.661332 Total block value: 25.179847 BTC including 1176 transactions

In this example, I've configured my miner as "ADDRESS+256".
If I were to do something like "ADDRESS/16000000+256" you'd see something like this:

Code:

2014-09-18 15:08:41.804703 New work for worker! Difficulty: 256.000000 Share difficulty: 16000000 Total block value: 25.179847 BTC including 1176 transactions

If I did something like "ADDRESS/1000+256", I'd see this:

Code:

2014-09-18 15:08:41.804703 New work for worker! Difficulty: 256.000000 Share difficulty: 15823712.661332 Total block value: 25.179847 BTC including 1176 transactions

As you can see, it's exactly the same as not using the "/" at all.  Why?  Because I set my difficulty to be less than the pool's minimum share difficulty, so the pool overrides my settings.

Hope this helps.

[windpath]

I'm having some questions about P2Pool mining, I'm mining on http://elizium.name node with 2 Antminer S3+'s, at about 920GH/s.
But I've been mining for 12+ hours now, and I still have nothing. I added after my payout address "+518" but still nothing.
Is this normal or...?

Because P2pool is PPLNS so it takes around 3 days to build up enough shares to start seeing payment. conversely when you stop mining you'll still receive payments for a few days. have a little patience, it'll come and when it does it'll be sweet. p2pool has been finding quite a few blocks lately.

I don't think the 3 day thing is true anymore.  I've watched my 1 share roll off in 36 hours or less.

Also, at 920 GH/s, your variance is going to be bad.  Be patient, and expect lots of time without shares.

M

This is covered in the "READ THIS FIRST" article here: http://p2pool.org/#learn-p2pool

But want to put it to bed once and for all...

The variable for determining how many shares to pay can be found here in the p2pool source code:
https://github.com/forrestv/p2pool/blob/master/p2pool/networks/bitcoin.py

This is an excerpt:

Code:

# CHAIN_LENGTH = number of shares back client keeps
# REAL_CHAIN_LENGTH = maximum number of shares back client uses to compute payout
# REAL_CHAIN_LENGTH must always be <= CHAIN_LENGTH
# REAL_CHAIN_LENGTH must be changed in sync with all other clients
# changes can be done by changing one, then the other

PARENT = networks.nets['bitcoin']
SHARE_PERIOD = 30 # seconds
CHAIN_LENGTH = 24*60*60//10 # shares
REAL_CHAIN_LENGTH = 24*60*60//10 # shares

REAL_CHAIN_LENGTH sets the total number of previously found shares to include in the payout when a block is found.

It is a fixed number, it is constant and does not change without the consensus of the p2pool network (i.e. the majority of miners on p2pool all change it on their nodes at the same time). It has not been changed since I have been around.

Currently it is 24*60*60//10...

(24*60*60)/10 = 8,640 shares are paid when a block is found, this is a mathematical fact and not subject to interpretation.

SHARE_PERIOD is the length in seconds expected before a share is found.

Unlike Bitcoin which adjusts difficulty about every 2 weeks, p2pool adjusts difficulty dynamically so a share is expected to be found about every SHARE_PERIOD seconds, currently set to 30 seconds.

The SHARE_PERIOD is a target that p2pool attempts to hit for every share by dynamically adjusting the difficulty.

Actual SHARE_PERIOD is subject to variance/luck, so it is possible a share could be found in 1 second, or in 120 seconds, however the difficulty is constantly adjusted so the expected time is always 30 seconds based on the current pool hashrate.

So if we know 8,640 shares will be paid, and that a share is expected to be found every 30 seconds...

8,640 * 30 = 259,200 seconds
259,200 / 60 = 4,320 minutes
4,320 / 60 = 72 hours
72 / 24 = 3 days

So....

An easy way to explain it so anyone can understand is:
A share is valid, and paid if a block is found, for about 3 days.

The accurate way to explain it is:
The last 8,640 shares are paid when a block is found, the expected time to share is 30 seconds.

Hope this helps...

[rav3n_pl]

So....

An easy way to explain it so anyone can understand is:
A share is valid, and paid if a block is found, for about 3 days.

The accurate way to explain it is:
The last 8,640 shares are paid when a block is found, the expected time to share is 30 seconds.

Hope this helps...

And

Code:

SPREAD = 3 # blocks

is not tell that max 3 blocks can be paid?
As far I understand, every share is valid 8640 shares of time but up to 3 blocks found in mean time.
So if we will found more than 1 block per day, and your power is not enough to get more than one share per 3 days you will not get payout from every block.

[jonnybravo0311]

See, there's this troubling little statement in the p2pool wiki about payouts:

Each share contains a generation transaction that pays to the previous n shares, where n is the number of shares whose total work is equal to 3 times the average work required to solve a block, or 8640 (= 24 hours of shares), whichever is smaller. Payouts are weighted based on the amount of work each share took to solve, which is proportional to the p2pool difficulty at that time.

Obviously the 24 hour thing is incorrect since the share time was adjusted from the initial 10 seconds to the current 30 seconds.  However, the bolded part is where I want to focus.  If this was strictly and always 8640 shares, then all I would have to do is a simple loop in my code to the effect of:

Code:

for each share from (current share height - 8640) to current share do:
  get payout address from share
  get share_payout from share
  look for payout address in known address map
  if payout address in map
    address_total_payout += share_payout
  else
    add address to map
    address_total_payout = share_payout
add map of addresses and payouts to coinbase

Unfortunately the payout code is a bit more complex than that.  Here's the beginning of the generate_transaction code from p2pool:

Code:

def generate_transaction(cls, tracker, share_data, block_target, desired_timestamp, desired_target, ref_merkle_link, desired_other_transaction_hashes_and_fees, net, known_txs=None, last_txout_nonce=0, base_subsidy=None):
        previous_share = tracker.items[share_data['previous_share_hash']] if share_data['previous_share_hash'] is not None else None

        height, last = tracker.get_height_and_last(share_data['previous_share_hash'])
        assert height >= net.REAL_CHAIN_LENGTH or last is None
        if height < net.TARGET_LOOKBEHIND:
            pre_target3 = net.MAX_TARGET
        else:
            attempts_per_second = get_pool_attempts_per_second(tracker, share_data['previous_share_hash'], net.TARGET_LOOKBEHIND, min_work=True, integer=True)
            pre_target = 2**256//(net.SHARE_PERIOD*attempts_per_second) - 1 if attempts_per_second else 2**256-1
            pre_target2 = math.clip(pre_target, (previous_share.max_target*9//10, previous_share.max_target*11//10))
            pre_target3 = math.clip(pre_target2, (net.MIN_TARGET, net.MAX_TARGET))
        max_bits = bitcoin_data.FloatingInteger.from_target_upper_bound(pre_target3)
        bits = bitcoin_data.FloatingInteger.from_target_upper_bound(math.clip(desired_target, (pre_target3//30, pre_target3)))

The real telling part of this method, however, is here:

Code:

weights, total_weight, donation_weight = tracker.get_cumulative_weights(previous_share.share_data['previous_share_hash'] if previous_share is not None else None,
            max(0, min(height, net.REAL_CHAIN_LENGTH) - 1),
            65535*net.SPREAD*bitcoin_data.target_to_average_attempts(block_target),
)

It certainly appears to support the statement in the wiki, that either 8640 shares, or the average work to solve 3 blocks worth of shares, are paid out (SPREAD = 3).

You know what would be exceptionally helpful?  Documented freaking code.  How freaking hard is it for developers to write comments in their code?  I yell at my developers all the time to comment their code.  In fact, the first thing you should be writing are the comments.  It just makes everything easier both for you as the developer to keep you focused, and for the people that later need to maintain it.