[Announcing] MineNinja - BeagleBone Black Bitcoin Mining Platform

[xjack]

Found a work-around for flashing

xz -cd ubuntu-raring-13.04-armhf-3.8.13-bone20.img.xz > /dev/mmcblk1

replace the img name with MineNinja's img name

This only works if you've booted from the SDcard
.

Got a working cgminer built by a colleague, so next task was to flash my sd setup to emmc.  I noticed that my 8GB sd card had already been partitioned to 2GB by the image write, so I was successful in copying my whole sd to emmc directly.

When booted from sd, sd card is mmcblk0 and emmc is mmcblk1.
dd if=/dev/mmcblk0 of=/dev/mmcblk1 bs=1M

Worked ok for me.  Is there any risk in this method I'm not realizing?  For me, its a good way to roll out my nice clean setup to a bunch of BBB quickly.

Not sure, as the method you used is for a system with a Linux/UNIX command prompt. It should work just fine, but don't quote me on it.

Mine was just for Windows users, because the built-in method for flashing, which is sticking the SDcard in an un-powered BBB, holding down the USER/BOOT button, and then applying power wasn't working. ...think it requires a specific Distro setup.

Yes, I am doing all my work from the BBB's shell over ssh.   I also don't know why the ninja image doesn't flash itself with the USER/BOOT startup, but I am not knowledgable enough about BBB at this time to try to investigate that.

Your method above has worked fine for me a few times.  I've never been able to get the BBB to flash automatically either.  Once you have an sdcard that boots, instead of burning a new sdcard every time an image is released, you can use Illutian's method above.

FWIW, new images are only needed for MineNinja updates.  I'm on the 1.0.6 image and git installs works fine.  

I just upped to cgminer 3.8.1 - smoothest performer so far.  

[cableiso]

Your method above has worked fine for me a few times.  I've never been able to get the BBB to flash automatically either.  Once you have an sdcard that boots, instead of burning a new sdcard every time an image is released, you can use Illutian's method above.

FWIW, new images are only needed for MineNinja updates.  I'm on the 1.0.6 image and git installs works fine.  

I just upped to cgminer 3.8.1 - smoothest performer so far.  

Glad to hear that this is an accepted technique - thanks, xjack!

I am doing a bit of experimenting, and I'm not quite sure if the "round trip" works.  That is, write from PC to card, card to BBB, BBB to new card, and new card to new BBB.  The new BBB gave the three lights of death until, until I did the USER/BOOT with (I think) new card on new BBB.  That seemed to give me a proper clone on the new BBB, but I'd need to repeat it all to be sure.

I can safely say that dd'ing from a properly written sd card to emmc works pretty well for me. 

[xjack]

Has anyone gotten the stratum proxy to auto start on this?

I've tested proxy and it works fine with a screen command and some pool parameters.  (no getwork to send yet, but it runs and acts normal)

I copied the /etc/init.d/cgminer script and called it stratum, make the appropriate svc name and execute changes, chmod 655.

It doesn't execute on boot - I'm missing a trigger or something.  when I add the launch command into the /init.d/cgminer it works fine, I am trying to make stratum its own service.

Any help?

[xjack]

Got it.

Build a systemctl service in /lib/systemd/system and enable/start - all working now.

[slavix]

I would like to buy several, but not at these prices. With 1 Bitcoin worth close to a $1000 dollars lately, I can not justify paying 1.25 bitcoin for this product. I can buy beagle bone board from manufacturer for less than 1/10th the price MineNinja is charging. They should price in dollars and let people check out with bitcoins or dollars. Otherwise this price is way to high.

[xjack]

I would like to buy several, but not at these prices. With 1 Bitcoin worth close to a $1000 dollars lately, I can not justify paying 1.25 bitcoin for this product. I can buy beagle bone board from manufacturer for less than 1/10th the price MineNinja is charging. They should price in dollars and let people check out with bitcoins or dollars. Otherwise this price is way to high.

MineNinja software is open source.  Buy your beagles in fiat, burn your own sd, write it to the emmc, hash.

FWIW, my BBB no longer runs part of my decommissioned Erupter farm, it is now stratum proxy for blades/cubes!  It's been running 24/7 steady and solid since early July.

I keep seeing posts about rasbpi toasting sdcards, makes me wonder why more miners don't use these awesome devices?

[Illutian]

Whelp, for what ever reason MN no longer works on my fixed BBB (PMIC went bad). I can't change any of the variables like the pool.....sigh. I'm really beginning to hate Linux.

[PSL]

I can't change any of the variables like the pool.....sigh. I'm really beginning to hate Linux.

Delete Linux and install your lovely Windows on your BBB and be happy... ;-)

[MWNinja]

Whelp, for what ever reason MN no longer works on my fixed BBB (PMIC went bad). I can't change any of the variables like the pool.....sigh. I'm really beginning to hate Linux.

Sounds like your storage/filesystem was corrupted.  You can usually recover by reflashing, or running off an SD card (burn the image to sd card, hold down user button while booting).

[MWNinja]

I would like to buy several, but not at these prices. With 1 Bitcoin worth close to a $1000 dollars lately, I can not justify paying 1.25 bitcoin for this product. I can buy beagle bone board from manufacturer for less than 1/10th the price MineNinja is charging. They should price in dollars and let people check out with bitcoins or dollars. Otherwise this price is way to high.

I made the mistake of integrating my supply chain with bitcoin; inventory was purchased when bitcoin was under $100 usd. I have to get the 1.25 to make my money back; sadly there have been no takers so the retail side has basically been crushed.  It was more of an experiment than a full-on retail operation anyways.

[rainfall]

OK, quite dissatisfied with my PI over my NANOFURY (NFY) USB Miners.

Getting BBB soon...
Is there any guide on how to setup the BBB into MineNinja wannabe .
One more thing, does this MineNinja support Nanofury?

I read the Github, but it is not clear on what to do....

Thank you.

[stevegee58]

I've been using a BeagleBone running Ubuntu and cgminer for over a year to run my BFL 7 GH/s miner.
No need for a pre-made package like MineNinja.  cgminer supports nanofury and pretty much anything else.

I've also run bfgminer on the BeagleBone as well but settled on cgminer.

[xjack]

I still use this Web frontend on my linux controller.  I've since gone to a newer no-frills Debian build on my BBB.

Anyway, since my mining ops have gone from GH/s to TH/s, I changed up the dial in index.php, scales 0 to 4 TH/s, with markers every 250GH/s.

:

Code:

        <div id="thegauges">
        <canvas id="gauge1" width="250" height="250"
                data-type="canv-gauge"
                data-title="Speed"
                data-min-value="0"
                data-max-value="4"
                data-major-ticks="0 1 2 3 4"
                data-minor-ticks="4"
                data-stroke-ticks="true"
                data-units="TH/s"
                data-value-format="1.2"
                data-glow="true"
                data-animation-delay="10"
                data-animation-duration="200"
                data-animation-fn="bounce"
                data-colors-needle="#000 #f00"
                data-highlights="0 1.5 #E90e00, 1.5 2.5 #ffee00, 2.5 4 #53df00"
                data-value="1.2 data-value-format"
                data-onready="setInterval( function() { Gauge.Collection.get('gauge1').setValue( parseInt(document.getElementById('Speed').innerHTML)/1000/1000);}, 1000);"
                data-colors-plate= "#242424"
                        data-colors-majorTicks= "#f5f5f5"
                        data-colors-minorTicks= "#ddd"
                        data-colors-title= "#fff"
                        data-colors-units= "#ccc"
                        data-colors-numbers="#eee"
                                ></canvas></div>