BiblePay - TestNet Thread - Pool Testing for Proof of Bible Hash Pool (PoBh)

[bible_pay]

Welcome Bible Pay Users,

As you know we have had an exponential increase in interest and network hashing against Bible Pay since the launch, and now it is very hard to solo mine.  As a result, our Dev Team is writing a customized Bible Pay pool.

(The custom pool is necessary since we have a proprietary hash function that is resistant to ASIC and GPU mining.  In addition in the future the algorithm will be extended to raise the bar even higher, by requiring the full nodes to hash transaction lookups based on deterministic hash outputs, requiring the miners to be full nodes).

The purpose of this thread is to invite users to help test the pool from Test Net, to ensure it is ready for primetime.

We need to test things like: Hash Rate measurements, fair block payouts in the block distribution table, an accurate payment distribution at the time the block is solved, mining from many miners under one miner name to one pool, mining from multiple miners to one pool, the isolation of testnet from main net, the ability to withdraw BBP from the pool, the reliability of the pool, the reliability of the client miner, the fallback to solo mining if the pool is down, etc.  I will add more specific test cases and welcome any test cases.

Here is the location to download the latest wallet:

www.biblepay.org
Note, in order to pool mine, you will need at least v1.0.1.8 of the wallet (both daemon and qt should work fine).

How to set up the configuration for pool mining:

On windows, navigate to %appdata%\biblepaycore.  On linux, navigate to ~/.biblepaycore.

Edit the biblepay.conf file, and place the following lines in the config:

poolport=80
pool=http://pool.biblepay.org <- Note this URL is not live until approx Monday Aug 7th (Dev is deploying the pool tonight)
workerid=the_worker_id (explained below)
gen=1
genproclimit=10


After upgrading biblepay and modifying the config, biblepay wallet will automatically revert to solo mining if it cannot connect to the pool, even if the pool goes down for maintenance while you are on vacation.

Next, you will need to configure the Web site side of the pool.

In your web browser navigate to the Pool URL (see pool= above), and click Register, and create a web account.
After that, go the Main menu, then Account, and add a Miner.
(The Notes textbox may be filled in with something personal, like Rooftop linux i686 etc.)
Save the miner record.
Take the name of the miner (IE the worker ID), and edit your config file, setting it where we have "workerid=" in the above example and restart biblepay.

Next, check your mining stats as you normally would (IE check getmininginfo), you may do this by clicking Tools | Information | Console, and then type "getmininginfo".

The pool exposes a few lines of text for debugging purposes, the PoolInfoLine1 is just populated with the current Pool URL if your node is pool mining, and the Pool Miner Guid is populated in Line2.  Note this is just technical info and you do not need to know this.  This is useful if the pool goes down and you want to know if you are pool mining or not.  We have a field called "pool mining: true/false" that sums up what the miner is doing.  If any thread is successfully pool mining, the value is true, otherwise its false.

Please hold off on mining against the main chain In pool mining mode until we fully test the client.  Mining on the main chain in the pool could result in lost BBP, as the pool will sign the block and have no idea who to pay currently (until we verify the distribution system works).  NOTE: To disable the pool settings once you are done testing on that node for the day (IE if you want to mine on the main chain outside of the pool) just put an x in front of the pool= entry in your config file and restart in prod mode.  (IE xpool=pool.biblepay.org).

To start your client in testnet mode do the following:

cd c:\program files (x86)\biblepaycore
biblepay-qt -testnet
The background should be green if in testnet.  Please do all of the testing in testnet.
Note on the above biblepay.conf configuration settings:
You will need to copy the biblepay.conf settings from the biblepay.conf file down to the \testnet3\biblepay.conf file (IE just let the coin start, it will create the file, close the wallet, open the config, copy the setting rows, paste them into the target file, restart the coin).

(I realize this is convoluted, but Biblepay/Bitcoin have the settings coalesced like this for a certain reason so its easier for us to go through the double settings now rather than change the coalesce rules.)

Note that this version of the miner updates the hashmeter more slowly to squeeze out as much performance as possible, so be patient when re-running getmininginfo, as it is delayed approximately 30 seconds before a change occurs.

Alright, good luck everyone, lets make this a great pool.

As of Aug 6th at 20:00 CST US time, the pool has not yet been deployed.  I will edit this message as soon as the website is ready for you all to create accounts.

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[wbk940122]

great ,i will join this test .  but i suggest dev supply some bounty to tester ,that's better.

[admosfir]

reserving chinese translation for this thread sir.. i see this project have a high prospect in the future..

[albus9981]

reserving chinese translation for this thread sir.. i see this project have a high prospect in the future..

fuck off ,doge !

[bible_pay]

great ,i will join this test .  but i suggest dev supply some bounty to tester ,that's better.

We are all just donating our resources for this test; dev starts with 0 bbp also and wrote the pool for free; just looking for free help from existing BBP community.  But, we welcome you to come on in and join us, here is our main thread:

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=2042657

Thanks.

[bible_pay]

Baby Step 1 is complete: I deployed an external testnet node.  Note that testnet is port 40001, while main is 40000.

The addnode is the same as main (node.biblepay.org).  The addnode is compiled in the wallet so no need to add it.

Lets check to see if we are all syncing.  Im on block 195 in testnet.  Anyone have any connections?

v1.0.1.8 is now available for download also: www.biblepay.org.


Lets verify we are actually connecting and syncing in testnet, and then we can move on to baby step 2.

[happy_merchant]

Baby Step 1 is complete: I deployed an external testnet node.  Note that testnet is port 40001, while main is 40000.

The addnode is the same as main (node.biblepay.org).  The addnode is compiled in the wallet so no need to add it.

Lets check to see if we are all syncing.  Im on block 195 in testnet.  Anyone have any connections?

v1.0.1.8 is now available for download also: www.biblepay.org.


Lets verify we are actually connecting and syncing in testnet, and then we can move on to baby step 2.

Synced fine for me. Currently on block 196.

[Kanoe_Yuuko]

also Synced fine, wait step 2 .

[bible_pay]

also Synced fine, wait step 2 .

Great!   I have to head to sleep, but Ill be back around 9am or so.

[DirtyMiner]

Ready when you are 

[bee_irl]

This is great! Is it possible you could open source the pool software too? 

[bible_pay]

Good morning all!

Alright the pool is deployed here, so you can create web accounts and miners now:

http://pool.biblepay.org

Looks like testnet is running properly and I have a couple testers connected to my node.

So now go ahead and follow the instruction in the OP and lets see where our snags are.

I mined overnight against the testnet pool, and it worked for the most part but I did find a bug in 2 of the block payouts (out of the 12 I mined) these two block payouts were zero, and for some reason, when the pool asked the testnet external node for the block subsidy it returned zero - so if you look in the block distribution, you will see what Im talking about- so I will work on that today (while we test more blocks)-  I have a feeling its a race condition where the miner solved the block but the external node didnt even know about it yet, or something like that.

As far as open sourcing the pool: Yes, I am willing to do that, because it would also be nice to have more than one biblepay pool for users to hit, so all the users dont pound my server alone.  I think after about 100 concurrent users, my servers going to be pretty busy.  The main thing we have to address before its open sourced is to get the payout algorithm working reliably so we can tell if anyone makes a fraudulent compile and therefore the pool will catch that and still pay a rock solid hash reward back and the other thing that needs done, is to ensure the pool has sql injection protection on it, so no hacker can come in and steal the pools BBP balances - when I feel those are solid then we can post the code.

[bible_pay]

One thing I forgot to mention:
Once you get everything set up, on the web site side, you have to click 'Switch to TestNet' every time you log in otherwise the pages, the reports, the hashes, everything will be against the wrong tables.  TestNet hashes against pool testnet, Main hashes against pool Main, but the GUI is all consolidated and relies on the user choosing the network ID every time they log in.

To test this:

Click 'switch to testnet', then click Block distribution and you should see the testnet distribution.

[Raptor.dashzero]

I have the new wallet working  fine on mainnet(no mining), but Crashes when I attempt testnet... will update if i can work out why.

[happy_merchant]

Seems to be an issue on the block distribution history page on the pool site. Block 269 was added to the top of the table and listed as block 134:

Code:

95722cd0-ecee-4376-9994-31465981430b	happy_merchant	134	20000.0000	1160.2877	8/7/2017 9:47:59 AM	2369.28	8/7/2017 9:47:59 AM	happy_merchant00: 1791 (2369)
61320e9f-a740-4dc6-a2ec-a5083a3157c8	flyingfish	134	20000.0000	6872.2766	8/7/2017 9:47:59 AM	14033	8/7/2017 9:47:59 AM	testnet1: 8615 (14033)
c10a1256-45b0-41e7-a0b7-58e163dbe49d	bible_pay	134	20000.0000	4115.6339	8/7/2017 9:47:59 AM	8404.01	8/7/2017 9:47:59 AM	r15: 8389 (8404)
9b899212-e5e6-4b17-a843-25e124b969a2	alexvillas	134	20000.0000	7851.8018	8/7/2017 9:47:59 AM	16033.17	8/7/2017 9:47:59 AM	alex: 15951 (16033)
...
16e230ab-e8f6-4587-95bd-c73ed9c854cb	flyingfish	266	19999.0000	6762.6801	8/7/2017 9:30:29 AM	11128.37	8/7/2017 9:30:29 AM	miner2: 370 (11128)
testnet1: 8387 (11128)
57d010aa-347a-41e5-92ad-a02840bda7ac	bible_pay	266	19999.0000	5435.2510	8/7/2017 9:30:29 AM	8944.01	8/7/2017 9:30:29 AM	r15: 8411 (8944)
da6c263f-683e-43a6-be82-aad8e6bd3568	alexvillas	266	19999.0000	7801.0689	8/7/2017 9:30:29 AM	12837.1	8/7/2017 9:30:29 AM	alex: 15167 (12837)

Aside from that, the hash rate appears to be reported correctly and the reward was properly credited to my account. I was also able to withdraw into my wallet.

I'm a little confused, though. When you solo mine a block, I believe it normally takes 100 blocks to mature and transfer into your available wallet balance. With the pool, I was able to withdraw my share of the reward directly into my available balance (with a single block delay for the pending transaction).

[bible_pay]

Things appear to be working 'fairly' well except for a couple problems I see.

On the bright side, I see we have about 20 people who are testing, and the hashmeters appear to be working properly.
The leaderboard shows what appears to be the correct HPS per user.

On a side note, please check your HPS per miner in the leaderboard, and let us know if it is off so we can improve the pool.
I see flyingfish has a miner2 that is about 610 hps- you are a great candidate to help us test this out, is that what your getmininginfo hps shows flyingfish?

So the biggest problem I see is the block distribution.  On a side note I see happy solved a block over 125 blocks prior (block 134 if you look at block distribution report), and that is strange, I dont know if we forked when everyone jumped on (I havent been around for a couple hours) or if its a bug in the pool.  So that is one thing I need to check.
The other issue is: The pool is missing block payouts.  I believe it needs some code added to ensure it has the ability to go back from the best block to the last solved block of the pool, and fill in any missing block distributions and mark them as unpaid, just in case we are credited in the pool for a solved block and we have no idea why, and  it does have all the info as far as hashespersec and participants in order to do that.  So that is the biggie.  Ill work on that next.  

So in summary its working at about a 70% accuracy level.  Your accounts are being credited (IE shortpayed) so now you can test a withdrawal if you want.

 

[bible_pay]

Seems to be an issue on the block distribution history page on the pool site. Block 269 was added to the top of the table and listed as block 134:

Code:

95722cd0-ecee-4376-9994-31465981430b	happy_merchant	134	20000.0000	1160.2877	8/7/2017 9:47:59 AM	2369.28	8/7/2017 9:47:59 AM	happy_merchant00: 1791 (2369)
61320e9f-a740-4dc6-a2ec-a5083a3157c8	flyingfish	134	20000.0000	6872.2766	8/7/2017 9:47:59 AM	14033	8/7/2017 9:47:59 AM	testnet1: 8615 (14033)
c10a1256-45b0-41e7-a0b7-58e163dbe49d	bible_pay	134	20000.0000	4115.6339	8/7/2017 9:47:59 AM	8404.01	8/7/2017 9:47:59 AM	r15: 8389 (8404)
9b899212-e5e6-4b17-a843-25e124b969a2	alexvillas	134	20000.0000	7851.8018	8/7/2017 9:47:59 AM	16033.17	8/7/2017 9:47:59 AM	alex: 15951 (16033)
...
16e230ab-e8f6-4587-95bd-c73ed9c854cb	flyingfish	266	19999.0000	6762.6801	8/7/2017 9:30:29 AM	11128.37	8/7/2017 9:30:29 AM	miner2: 370 (11128)
testnet1: 8387 (11128)
57d010aa-347a-41e5-92ad-a02840bda7ac	bible_pay	266	19999.0000	5435.2510	8/7/2017 9:30:29 AM	8944.01	8/7/2017 9:30:29 AM	r15: 8411 (8944)
da6c263f-683e-43a6-be82-aad8e6bd3568	alexvillas	266	19999.0000	7801.0689	8/7/2017 9:30:29 AM	12837.1	8/7/2017 9:30:29 AM	alex: 15167 (12837)

Aside from that, the hash rate appears to be reported correctly and the reward was properly credited to my account. I was also able to withdraw into my wallet.

I'm a little confused, though. When you solo mine a block, I believe it normally takes 100 blocks to mature and transfer into your available wallet balance. With the pool, I was able to withdraw my share of the reward directly into my available balance (with a single block delay for the pending transaction).

Thank you sir for all the testing.
So your right, the mined blocks are not really mature yet in the pool, and it would actually go bankrupt if I left it this way (as pool would run out of money during withdrawals), so I need to add an immature balance and a mature balance for each user, to prevent that and track the maturity.

On a side note I went for the SQL credit mechanism so that if these pools become popular we will have a very efficient system, meaning that the pool receives the credit, and miners dont have to withdraw right away they can leave the balance in the pool for 2 weeks at a time and just let it accrue and then get it out in one transaction.

Alright Ill look into that.

[happy_merchant]

On a side note I see happy solved a block over 125 blocks prior (block 134 if you look at block distribution report), and that is strange, I dont know if we forked when everyone jumped on (I havent been around for a couple hours) or if its a bug in the pool.  So that is one thing I need to check.

Actually, I believe I did mine a block last night right after I synced. I had the .conf set up as described in the OP using happy_merchant as the worker id, but I didn't have an account set up with the pool.

[PewPewGoesTheDuck]

Updated to the last wallet, added a worked on the website, and added that worker along with the other info to the config file in the testnet3 folder. But when I do a getmininginfo it says poolmining false.

[bible_pay]

On a side note I see happy solved a block over 125 blocks prior (block 134 if you look at block distribution report), and that is strange, I dont know if we forked when everyone jumped on (I havent been around for a couple hours) or if its a bug in the pool.  So that is one thing I need to check.

Actually, I believe I did mine a block last night right after I synced. I had the .conf set up as described in the OP using happy_merchant as the worker id, but I didn't have an account set up with the pool.

Thanks, checked the timestamp and it was 09:47am, so it looks like the pool pulled in a bad height somehow, Im still trying to figure out how, but I think this will be fixed when the system is revamped to work the new way (lastblock solved+N to tip) during each round, etc.