Help test Research Age in testnet the following way, as described by pakaran on the main forum (
Here's my draft tutorial:
So you want to help by running a testnet node, but don't know where to start? Thanks in advance for your help. The more people on testnet, the faster it will get confirmations, which makes things far easier for the development team.
Testnet is completely separate from mainnet; they run on different ports, so you can run both at the same time.
If you have specified an RPC port in your gridcoinresearch.conf file, see an important note below at the *. Otherwise, your existing file will be used, and work properly, automatically.
In either case, move to the directory the executable is in (Windows users: Start -> run, type cmd, then enter
cd ProgramFiles/Gridcoinresearch/
and start the Gridcoin client with the --testnet argument:
Linux:
$ ./gridcoinresearch --testnet
Windows:
gridcoinresearch.exe --testnet
You can also create a shortcut on Windows (or trivial shell script on Linux) to start the program with the appropriate argument.
Now let it run. As with mainnet, you will need at least some coins to mine or stake. At the moment, there is no fountain on testnet, so feel free to ask for some coins in this thread, or in the #gridcoin channel on Freenode IRC (if you don't have an IRC -- Internet Relay Chat -- client, there's a web-based one at
https://webchat.freenode.net/, and you can just type #gridcoin under "Channels:").
Once you have coins, it's "hurry up and wait" time: you'll still need to send a beacon (if not done automatically), get into a superblock, and then wait for PoR/PoS rewards.
Thanks again for helping out!
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*If you have specified an RPC port, then using the same configuration file will not work, since your main and testnet client will both attempt to attach to that port. You will need to edit the file, and change the port number to a different one.
First off, copy your gridcoinresearch.conf file from ~/.GridcoinResearch/ to ~/.GridcoinResearch/testnet on Linux, creating the directory if necessary. On Windows, copy it from AppData/Roaming/GridcoinResearch/testnet to AppData/Roaming/GridcoinResearch/testnet.
Alternatively, you can create a new configuration file, remembering to set your BOINC email address if you want to mine rather than being an investor:
email=you@provider.com
In any case, change the RPC port in the "testnet" folder's copy of gridcoinresearch.conf to a different one, save, and THEN start the testnet client as outlined above.