[204 GH/s] yourbtc.net closing it's doors on 2011-12-08

[Meni Rosenfeld]

Err... PPS pools aren't hoppable by nature.  Can you clarify what you mean?  The de facto definition of hoppable is a pool where one can gain a monetary advantage by only submitting shares during a limited time/shares (typically 43.x% or 46.x%, I forget which) window.  While you could hop to and from a PPS pool, it will gain you no advantage.  So while every pool is hoppable, only certain pools will realize an advantage to a hopper.  Those that won't are typically considered unhoppable.  PPS falls into this definition by default.

In its most general scope, "hoppable" means the relative attractiveness of mining for a pool is different at different times. If the block reward is fixed, PPS isn't hoppable. When block rewards are variable (which they are to some extent now and more so going forward), the attractiveness is measured relatively to the momentary block reward. If a PPS pool literally offers a fixed pay per share, its attractiveness relative to the block reward is constantly changing, and it becomes hoppable - you mine there when the rewards is more than the solo average, and mine elsewhere when it is less. Now it doesn't matter, but in the future a correct PPS pool will always offer a reward of (1-f)pB per share where B is the block reward at the time it was submitted. Other hopping-proof methods can also adapt to this new reality by incorporating the current block reward into the share's score (at the cost of additional variance for the operator). By implementing this now, yourbtc is indeed less hoppable than the currently implemented PPS. (I'm not sure how it is in EMC. I don't know if I emphasized this point when we corresponded about the scoring.)

See also section "Variable block rewards" of AoBpmrs.

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[teukon]

Err... PPS pools aren't hoppable by nature.  Can you clarify what you mean?  The de facto definition of hoppable is a pool where one can gain a monetary advantage by only submitting shares during a limited time/shares (typically 43.x% or 46.x%, I forget which) window.  While you could hop to and from a PPS pool, it will gain you no advantage.  So while every pool is hoppable, only certain pools will realize an advantage to a hopper.  Those that won't are typically considered unhoppable.  PPS falls into this definition by default.

In its most general scope, "hoppable" means the relative attractiveness of mining for a pool is different at different times. If the block reward is fixed, PPS isn't hoppable. When block rewards are variable (which they are to some extent now and more so going forward), the attractiveness is measured relatively to the momentary block reward. If a PPS pool literally offers a fixed pay per share, its attractiveness relative to the block reward is constantly changing, and it becomes hoppable - you mine there when the rewards is more than the solo average, and mine elsewhere when it is less. Now it doesn't matter, but in the future a correct PPS pool will always offer a reward of (1-f)pB per share where B is the block reward at the time it was submitted. Other hopping-proof methods can also adapt to this new reality by incorporating the current block reward into the share's score (at the cost of additional variance for the operator). By implementing this now, yourbtc is indeed less hoppable than the currently implemented PPS. (I'm not sure how it is in EMC. I don't know if I emphasized this point when we corresponded about the scoring.)

See also section "Variable block rewards" of AoBpmrs.

Yes, this is pretty much all I meant.  Most PPS pools right now pay an amount per share which depends on difficulty but not transaction fee rewards.  This is insignificant in the grand scheme of things right now, I just thought it was interesting.

Also, I've always used "hoppable" with reference to solo mining rather than the PPS reward system or as a general relative property.

[urstroyer]

New STABLE server is online!

Please connect your miner to:
mining.yourbtc.net:8999

The website and domain will move to the new server end of this week.

[jamesg]

Looks like yourbtc.net is climbing the ranks, we're the #8 pool by blocks found -> http://blockchain.info/pools?timespan=4days

[teukon]

Looks like yourbtc.net is climbing the ranks, we're the #8 pool by blocks found -> http://blockchain.info/pools?timespan=4days

I see us as #5 on the "4 days" chart and #4 on the "24 hour" chart; serious business!

I'm happy to report that the new server seems to be running fine for me.  Time will tell if this solves the server instability issue.

[jamesg]

Looks like yourbtc.net is climbing the ranks, we're the #8 pool by blocks found -> http://blockchain.info/pools?timespan=4days

I see us as #5 on the "4 days" chart and #4 on the "24 hour" chart; serious business!

I'm happy to report that the new server seems to be running fine for me.  Time will tell if this solves the server instability issue.

urstroyer has promised me that he is setting up monit to automatically restart any services that start using so much ram, cpu or can't be reached for whatever reason. This should solve 98% of stability issues as the server should be able to monitor itself.

[teukon]

urstroyer has promised me that he is setting up monit to automatically restart any services that start using so much ram, cpu or can't be reached for whatever reason. This should solve 98% of stability issues as the server should be able to monitor itself.

This could be very helpful indeed.  It looks like urstroyer is being presented with an opportunity to become the operator of an established "big pool" and he's not wasting it.

Good luck urstroyer!

[Meni Rosenfeld]

The website and domain will move to the new server end of this week.

Is it really a good idea to have the pool and the website on the same server?

[Pontius]

The website and domain will move to the new server end of this week.

Is it really a good idea to have the pool and the website on the same server?

This is a rhetorical question, isn't it?

[Meni Rosenfeld]

The website and domain will move to the new server end of this week.

Is it really a good idea to have the pool and the website on the same server?

This is a rhetorical question, isn't it?

It's about 80% rhetorical. I don't know the first thing about web service administration and I'm not qualified to make any assertive statement.

[urstroyer]

Server Migration completed.

* your miner on yourbtc.net:8999 will be redirected to our new server now
* webserver and poolserver are kept seperated

[Inaba]

It's not rhetorical and the answer is an emphatic no.  It is not a good idea for a number of reasons, but most importantly from a security standpoint.  The web site has a much larger attack surface than the pool server.  When they are both on the same box, a compromise on one is automatically means the other is compromised.  When they are split, your pool is still secure, even if the website isn't.

Additionally, if you need to take the website down for whatever reason (breach, upgrade, failure), the pool will stay up.  It's one of the reasons EclipseMC has such stability - even if the website gets munged, the pool keeps running.  There's a lot less to go wrong with the pool server as well.

[ocminer]

So I don't have to change anything to miner.yourbtc.net ?

[Inaba]

Looks like yourbtc.net is climbing the ranks, we're the #8 pool by blocks found -> http://blockchain.info/pools?timespan=4days

I see us as #5 on the "4 days" chart and #4 on the "24 hour" chart; serious business!

I'm happy to report that the new server seems to be running fine for me.  Time will tell if this solves the server instability issue.

Just so you know, that chart is wildly inaccurate, so don't put too much stock into it.  blockchain.info doesn't get the blocks found correctly and incorrectly attribute blocks to different IPs/pools that they didn't find.  For example, you can see the last 3 or 4 blocks in my pool are attributed to Alaska Pool, somewhere in Nigeria and some unknown IPs.  The last few blocks for yourbtc.net show up as various IPs as well.

If you want to be sure, you have to cross reference your blocks found page with what's on blockchain.info.  Most of it will be wrong.  Maybe they reconcile later?  I dunno how they have it setup though.

[urstroyer]

So I don't have to change anything to miner.yourbtc.net ?

Yep right, you can use whateveryouwant.yourbtc.net or just yourbtc.net. The only important thing is to use Port 8999.

[Pontius]

So I don't have to change anything to miner.yourbtc.net ?

Yep right, you can use whateveryouwant.yourbtc.net or just yourbtc.net. The only important thing is to use Port 8999.

Hmm, as [mining|srv02].yourbtc.net and *.yourbtc.net resolv to different IPs you're doing some kind of port forwarding or proxying there.
For a transitional phase this is fine but in the long run you shouldn't do this as it
- undermines the pool/website separation (see above)
- adds a additional error source to the pool
- slows down the connection to the pool
- makes it unpredictable where users connect to (which might become a problem in the future).

Anyway the new server works like a charm! My efficiency raised up to ~99.6% and cgminer warnings ("Pool not providing work fast enough") dropped by ~50%. Great work, urstroyer!

[teukon]

Looks like yourbtc.net is climbing the ranks, we're the #8 pool by blocks found -> http://blockchain.info/pools?timespan=4days

I see us as #5 on the "4 days" chart and #4 on the "24 hour" chart; serious business!

I'm happy to report that the new server seems to be running fine for me.  Time will tell if this solves the server instability issue.

Just so you know, that chart is wildly inaccurate, so don't put too much stock into it.  blockchain.info doesn't get the blocks found correctly and incorrectly attribute blocks to different IPs/pools that they didn't find.  For example, you can see the last 3 or 4 blocks in my pool are attributed to Alaska Pool, somewhere in Nigeria and some unknown IPs.  The last few blocks for yourbtc.net show up as various IPs as well.

If you want to be sure, you have to cross reference your blocks found page with what's on blockchain.info.  Most of it will be wrong.  Maybe they reconcile later?  I dunno how they have it setup though.

Good point.  I thought something was up when Slush was no-where to be seen on the 24 hour chart.

[Meni Rosenfeld]

Good point.  I thought something was up when Slush was no-where to be seen on the 24 hour chart.

Even funnier is when they put up names of Bitcoin core developers.

[jamesg]

The latest btc block we found was orphaned... 

But we are in luck.

urstroyer has paid everyone in the round for the orphaned block. He paid out 62.61273634 BTC out of his own pocket.

I don't know about you, but that's one generous pool op.

I have up'd my donations.

Thanks urstroyer!

[freshzive]

Super rad! Thanks urstroyer!

What exactly does a block being 'orphaned' mean? Sorry for my naivete.