[CLOSED] BTC Guild - Pays TxFees+NMC, Stratum, VarDiff, Private Servers

[eleuthria]

Sorry for the extra delays.  Since there's always a chance this test code ends up having a bug which prevents it from solving normal BTC blocks, I've been having to double check everything to make sure these shares won't count towards the 25 million used for a PPLNS Shift [that way the rest of the pool isn't penalized due to a potential software glitch].  I've also been doing a minor code audit just to see if there's anything I can fine tune (some parts of the code were written almost a year ago, and for a better protocol than Stratum which was dropped to prevent competing protocols from killing adoption).

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[eleuthria]

Stratum+Merged Mining Test Server
All mining done on the test server is paid at 0% Fee PPS

As promised, here it is!  The test server is now running on the live Bitcoin+Namecoin networks, and users are encouraged to redirect some hash power so we can see if it solves any blocks properly.  It will show up in the 'Payments' section as the current difficulty+1, with a 0% fee to avoid any interference with current difficulty payments.

To connect to the test server, point your STRATUM mining software at:  198.154.98.210  port 7777


The test server may experience outages, unannounced reboots, or even be turned off with very little notice.  Make sure you have a backup pool server configured so you don't end up losing mining time when the test server is not available.

[Naelr]

Attached with almost 5 G/hash sir!

[eleuthria]

Current plan is the test server will remain online until it solves a Bitcoin block (since it will solve at least 1 NMC block in that time).  If this happens while I'm asleep, then the server will shut down once I wake up and see the block.  At the current difficulty, this may last 24+ hours depending on how much hash power is directed to the test server.

[LazyOtto]

MPBM built in Stratum does not connect. <fail>
(Trivial issue. I prefer using the proxy for consolidation from multiple machines.)

Connected via slush proxy at 20:28:08 <good>

Pointed miner at proxy at 20:33:12

20:33:22 - shares being accepted. At diff level as set in "Settings" for the worker. <good>

Accepted shares are reported on "Dashboard" under the worker created for testing. <good>

[eleuthria]

Stratum+Merged Mining Test Server
All mining done on the test server is paid at 0% Fee PPS

As promised, here it is!  The test server is now running on the live Bitcoin+Namecoin networks, and users are encouraged to redirect some hash power so we can see if it solves any blocks properly.  It will show up in the 'Payments' section as the current difficulty+1, with a 0% fee to avoid any interference with current difficulty payments.

To connect to the test server, point your STRATUM mining software at:  198.154.98.210  port 7777


The test server may experience outages, unannounced reboots, or even be turned off with very little notice.  Make sure you have a backup pool server configured so you don't end up losing mining time when the test server is not available.

Quoting this again (new thread page) so anybody who missed it is aware that the test server is available and connection details are included above.

[pvtbrutus]

Connected to the testserver with 800mh/s. Will bump that with 1600mh/s this afternoon.

[thirdlight]

MPBM built in Stratum does not connect. <fail>

Working for me.  MPBM seems to give an error when first connecting to a stratum source. Leave it a minute or two & accepted shares start appearing.

[wtfvanity]

Stratum+Merged Mining Test Server
All mining done on the test server is paid at 0% Fee PPS

As promised, here it is!  The test server is now running on the live Bitcoin+Namecoin networks, and users are encouraged to redirect some hash power so we can see if it solves any blocks properly.  It will show up in the 'Payments' section as the current difficulty+1, with a 0% fee to avoid any interference with current difficulty payments.

To connect to the test server, point your STRATUM mining software at:  198.154.98.210  port 7777


The test server may experience outages, unannounced reboots, or even be turned off with very little notice.  Make sure you have a backup pool server configured so you don't end up losing mining time when the test server is not available.

Quoting this again (new thread page) so anybody who missed it is aware that the test server is available and connection details are included above.

Do you have a chart or anything showing how much power is pointed there? Do we need to change any settings for our workers? Or just point them at the IP? Looks like pointing it worked just fine from a hashing stand point, shares accepted.

[siggy]

just put 7 Ghash on the test server... a mix of CGminer 2.1 (windows) and CGminer 3.1 (linux)

Sigg

[xminerx]

I've submitted approximately 16000 shares in the last few days, of which 0.25% have been rejected according to CGWatcher. The BTCGuild dashboard calls them stale specifically. Are stale shares counted at BTCguild? And is that number normal? I've been connecting to the EU-server (as I seemed to be getting rejected shares quite fast when I was connecting to the regular server).

On 50BTC I had 0.08% "invalid" shares, which I assume means rejected, as they pay for stale shares.

[eleuthria]

Do you have a chart or anything showing how much power is pointed there? Do we need to change any settings for our workers? Or just point them at the IP? Looks like pointing it worked just fine from a hashing stand point, shares accepted.

No charts available, but I have some internal commands I can query to see total shares submitted to the test server so far.  As of this morning the test server has received 13,492,615 shares and solved 3 namecoin blocks, but 0 bitcoin blocks.  That's not unexpected (BTC difficulty is 5x higher).  It means the test server has been mildly unlucky (you'd expect 4 NMC solves by that many shares).

More power means the test will end faster (more likely to solve a block), so it's always welcome if you're willing to update your miners [BUT DONT FORGET A FALLBACK SERVER!].

I've submitted approximately 16000 shares in the last few days, of which 0.25% have been rejected according to CGWatcher. The BTCGuild dashboard calls them stale specifically. Are stale shares counted at BTCguild? And is that number normal? I've been connecting to the EU-server (as I seemed to be getting rejected shares quite fast when I was connecting to the regular server).

On 50BTC I had 0.08% "invalid" shares, which I assume means rejected, as they pay for stale shares.

0.25% isn't abnormal, a lot of it has to do with miner settings (higher intensity = more stales).  Fun thing to know, every PPS pool I've seen that "pays for stales", doesn't treat all stales equally.  Your "invalid" shares on 50BTC are almost certainly stale shares that were deemed too late to be counted as valid.

[siggy]

test server question...  While BTC is currently 0% PPS ... are we getting credited for the namecoins yet?  just curious ...

Sigg

[eleuthria]

test server question...  While BTC is currently 0% PPS ... are we getting credited for the namecoins yet?  just curious ...

Sigg

No, Namecoins will not be distributed on the test server (which is why it's being offered at 0% PPS for BTC).  A full post will be made once the test server successfully mines a BTC block [indicating no bugs in the new MM code].  That post will include roll-out plans/timeline and how NMC will be awarded to miners/what stats to expect on the frontend.

[eleuthria]

The website frontend has entered "Under Attack" mode temporarily due to another person spamming brute force attempts.  This shouldn't affect most users, but will affect scripts which poll the website/API due to under attack mode using browser-based javascript to distinguish legit users.  I will be turning this on/off over the next hour to gather information on the attacker so I can work on blocking it without crippling API polling applications.

[dogie]

The website frontend has entered "Under Attack" mode temporarily due to another person spamming brute force attempts.  This shouldn't affect most users, but will affect scripts which poll the website/API due to under attack mode using browser-based javascript to distinguish legit users.  I will be turning this on/off over the next hour to gather information on the attacker so I can work on blocking it without crippling API polling applications.

*channels global testicle punch*

[ak49er]

Can I get a bit of quick advice on worker difficulty?  I have two HD7850 GPUs hashing at 315MH/s each and I have the difficulty set at 1.  I'm going to add in a USB Block Erupter, which should do 330MH/s give or take.  Should I up the difficulty to 2?  What exactly is this doing?  Advantages/disadvantages?

Thanks!

[eleuthria]

Can I get a bit of quick advice on worker difficulty?  I have two HD7850 GPUs hashing at 315MH/s each and I have the difficulty set at 1.  I'm going to add in a USB Block Erupter, which should do 330MH/s give or take.  Should I up the difficulty to 2?  What exactly is this doing?  Advantages/disadvantages?

Thanks!

Advantage to higher difficulty is cutting bandwidth usage down.  For your speed, it is not neccessary.  I would recommend running your GPUs and Block Erupter all through a local Stratum proxy.  This will cut the bandwidth down significantly, and it *may* adjust you to difficulty 2 if your mining speed reaches the point where you pass a shares-per-minute threshold.

[siggy]

-snip-

 I would recommend running your GPUs and Block Erupter all through a local Stratum proxy.  This will cut the bandwidth down significantly, and it *may* adjust you to difficulty 2 if your mining speed reaches the point where you pass a shares-per-minute threshold.

umm.. silly question.. but where is the link to download the stratum proxy?  I've been all over the btguild website and can't find it.  I would think the logical place would be under "support" in the "mining software Download links" section...  but I'm not seeing it..

Sigg

[jimmy3dita]

Ok I've put in some of my FPGAs for about 2.2GH/s. Let me know whey they find the block, it's a matter of minutes