EXT4 file system for usb node.

[Jet Cash]

I''m OK for external drives. I bought 3 x 2TB drives to use via USB - one is an HDD and 2 are SSDs. I've also got an assortment of smaller SSDs, including the 320Gb Hitachi I mentioned in the other thread. I bought a drive docking station as well to check my 3.5" drives,but that needs to have its own power supply.

I habe been charring about openSUSE on a webmaster forum, and one guy suggested installing goaccess to analyse log files, and that looks like an interesting concept. If I can master its use, then I could use that to compare different WiFi providers. I'm not sure that comparing the synchronisation of different drive types would be useful on my system. So much seems to depend on the quality and speed of the WiFi provider.

[UPDATE]
I've updated the Linux software, and I've installed Core. I ran thjs with an external Toshiba "Tb HDD. This contains an existing wallet, and an out of date Blockchain. The last entry is for March 2018. core has verified the blocks, and stated to synchronise. It running at less than 50Kb, and I've only got 30 minutes battery left, and there is no power source here. It looks as if everything is working well, and is stable, so I'll shut it down, and find a better location to run the synchronisation.

[UPDATE 2]
I've shut down the Notebook, and switched to the Netbook. I'm finding this quite interesting, and I need to start loading applications to replace those that I was using under Windows. The extra 8Gb of RAM seems to have made a difference, and I'm pleased with that. Replacing the HDD with an SSD doesn't seem to have affected battery life, and I find that surprising. I need to do a bit more research into that. Runnung core with an external HDD seems to knock battery life as well, so I'm going to have to restrict use to restaurants that provide power sources. Once I am able to create a pruned node on the Hitachi SSD, then I'll try maintaining that node using the Netbook as a background job. I'm considering building a Raspberry Pi with a small display screen to run the node. I could use the solar battery back up to provide the power. That will have to wait until I have done some research into the current nodes that I am running, and until I am happy that I can replace Windows with openSUSE.

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[NotATether]

I habe been charring about openSUSE on a webmaster forum, and one guy suggested installing goaccess to analyse log files, and that looks like an interesting concept. If I can master its use, then I could use that to compare different WiFi providers. I'm not sure that comparing the synchronisation of different drive types would be useful on my system. So much seems to depend on the quality and speed of the WiFi provider.

goacess will only look at web server logs so I'm not sure how you'd make it monitor bitcoin core's bandwidth.

I personally use nethogs to monitor the network usage by process, it's a command-line tool that constantly updates statistics on the terminal. And it shows you how much sent and received traffic each process is doing in KB/s or MB/s, and a grand total, and it can also show running totals of the bandwidth sent by each process in KB and MB. Nethogs has a small memory footprint as well so it won't use a lot of battery. There is a package for it on OpenSUSE, I believe it can be installed with yast --install nethogs.

[Jet Cash]

Thanks for the nethogs suggestion - I'll have a look at that when I have the node sync'ed or maybe before.

I'm in Sainsbury's now, and I've got power. The sync is running at 3000 Kb at the moment with 4 peers, so I'll see if that improves as it settles down. The problem with using this cafe is that there is a £100 surcharge if I park for over 3 hours. I probably need to start a site about life as a digital nomad. Especially as so many people are turning to the lifestyle as a result of bankers and government power and wealth grabs.

It is now reporting that it will take 46 hours to complete the update. I'm not sure if I can drink that much coffee.

[FRIDAY]
I thought I would try Morrison's for today's morning coffee. There is a good source of power sockets, but the WiFi is a bit restrictive, and it looks as if theu block all non-standard ports. Core started with no problems, but with only the basic ports open, it can't find any peers, so the sync'ing will kave to wait. I could tether it to my phone, but I think that will burn too much bandwidth.

Dammit - SFTP won't work either. I am going to consolidate all my research into the crapspeak about viruses and vaccination onto my domain G8S.com. That will no doubt get me into trouble, as it sounds like Gates.com, and of course the supplier of the famous virus hospitality software wouldn't dream of doing the same thing with the human immune system.

[Jet Cash]

Sainsbury's looks to be the winning location at the moment.  It's allowing for up,to 10 peers to connect, and traffic is spiking between !Kb/s and 10Kb/s. I'm 2 years behind, and it is telling me it will take 24 hours of continuous connection to catch up. I can probably manage tht if I spread the connection over the next week or so. They have installed some extra power sockets. so I can run the node with the full blockchain,and the pruned node, and keep them sync'd.

I has a bit of a wobbly this morning. I'm using an old USB mouse, and it seems to disconnect at odd intervals. It's easy to fix, I just pull the plug and reconnect it. Except that I unplugged the Bitcoin SSD as I was talking to somebody at the time. After this, Bitcoin wouldn't shut down normally, and wouldn't send or receive traffic. I had to power down the PC, and restart it. Core took a while to think about things when it restarted, but it seems to be stable and fast at the moment. I have 2 USB2 sockets and one USB3 socket, so I don't have any choice for the SSD. Probably the sensible thing to do is to use a wireless mouse,and scrap the faulty one.

Another thing that I may have to consider is my policy of using recycled or repaired components. It isn't as if things are expensive, it's just that I try to avoid waste. I did buy new RAM and SSDs though, and I gather many people use second hand products. The 320 GBb SSD is salvaged, and we will see how that stands up to daily use. Infrequent backups will allow me to recover the wallet if it fails, so I'm not too bothered about it.

[Jet Cash]

I didn't want to bump this thread with too many consecutive posts, but it looks as if there is still a bit of interest in the project, so I thought I would post an update.

The full node on the notebook that uses an external HDD is sync'ing nicely, but slowly. I'm only a year behind now. It's been slow because I have limited access to decent connections. On looking at the wallet, it only seems to have two addresses in it, so I'm assuming that it is an old backup, and I will need to import the additional addresses from another backup.

I was hoping to use the new Huawei phone for tethering, but I haven't managed to get that working. This is probably because I have disabled too many apps and options. I may try setting up a WiFi hotspot as an alternative. I'm no longer updating the Linux parallel node, and once the HDD note is up to date, I'll have a go at creating a pruned node for the netbook. I'm hoping that I can manage this from a copy of the blockchain, and I won't need to download the lot again. Once I have some positive results, and things are up to speed, then I will create a report page, and post that link for  comments.

[LoyceV]

The full node on the notebook that uses an external HDD is sync'ing nicely, but slowly. I'm only a year behind now. It's been slow because I have limited access to decent connections.

If you have to rely on public Wifi, would it be possible to physically copy the blockchain from someone? Then, just to be sure, let your own Bitcoin Core check all blocks (I don't think --rescan is enough, but I'm not sure what would suffice).

once the HDD note is up to date, I'll have a go at creating a pruned node for the netbook. I'm hoping that I can manage this from a copy of the blockchain, and I won't need to download the lot again.

I've done this before, and it works fine: just copy the blockchain, and change settings to pruning.

[NotATether]

I was hoping to use the new Huawei phone for tethering, but I haven't managed to get that working. This is probably because I have disabled too many apps and options. I may try setting up a WiFi hotspot as an alternative.

There shouldn’t be a speed difference between tethering and using a hotspot now that WiFi and USB3 standards allow for much larger bandwidth speeds. The main problem will be your phone’s battery finishing quickly, because running a hotspot uses a lot of battery, from my experience. You could try making the hotspot while the phone is plugged in somewhere (no tethering internet with it) like to the notebook with a USB-C to USB-A cable, and it won’t matter that the phone isn’t recognized by OpenSuse because USB ports have a built-in standard for charging, so that hardware support is all you need.

[Jet Cash]

If you have to rely on public Wifi, would it be possible to physically copy the blockchain from someone?

Well that would be the sensible and practical way to create the chain. However, I don't know anyone in real life that runs a full node, and certainly not amongst the few nomads I have met. Maybe |I should start a special interest group of Bitcoin nomads. The HDD has a copy of a previous node that I was running, and it developed a bad spot on the drive - it was the internal drive in the Notebook. This coupled with Covid led me to decide to postpone trying to sync the drive. I bought a Toshiba 2Tb HDD, and I copied the wallet and blockchain data onto it. When I started to sync it, it reported that it was 2.5 years behind. I've been running this intermittently over public WiFi, and it is now just over a year behind. I have to be selective in my choice of venue, as not all cafes allow the Bitcoin ports to be used, and the external HDD seems to bump up the power requirement. Core is reporting transfer rates of between 100 Kb/s and 10,000Kbs. Unfortunately around 200Kb/s is the most common. I'm in Sainsbury's right now, and this is one of the better locations. Speed is reported to be between 1,000Kb/s and 2,000Kb/s with 10 peers. I've also got 2x230 volt charging sockets, and 2 USB charging sockets, so I can recharge my angle grinder as well as run the computing stuff.

I'm mildly concerned that the core wallet is only reporting 2 receiving addresses, but I'll wait until it has finished syncing, and then I will check my backups for the others. I'm sure I will be able to import the missing addresses once I have read up on the process.

At the moment my greatest concern is the new phone. I was really pleased with it for the first few days, but I seem to have a problem with the battery charging at the moment. The battery looked as if it is new tech which gives it 4 times the life of my old phone, and it has a smart charging system. This seems to think that charging should be done between 20 and 80 percent of capacity, and over 80% should just be an intermittent trickle. Unfortunately it is at 23% at the moment, and the trickle is a drop ever 15 minutes of so. I've Googled the problem, and it seems that they are several things to check, and I'm working through those before I send it back.

[LoyceV]

This seems to think that charging should be done between 20 and 80 percent of capacity, and over 80% should just be an intermittent trickle.

That's not bad for extending the battery's lifespan. As a digital nomad: have you considered mobile charging solutions? A car battery is probably the most likely: I've installed several 5V 2A USB charging ports in my car. Of course, all this was meant for a road trip that never happened because of the pandemic.

[NotATether]

This seems to think that charging should be done between 20 and 80 percent of capacity, and over 80% should just be an intermittent trickle.

That's not bad for extending the battery's lifespan. As a digital nomad: have you considered mobile charging solutions? A car battery is probably the most likely: I've installed several 5V 2A USB charging ports in my car. Of course, all this was meant for a road trip that never happened because of the pandemic.

I’ll also add that you can get about three power banks for the phone and let it charge on one of them while the battery is half-finished, when that reaches 80% you can unplug it and let it run on battery until it drains back to 50% (this is so recharging will be quick) and repeat with another power bank, while your other power banks charge on your 230V sockets. The sockets will need to have USB-C or MicroUSB ports depending on what the power banks have.

You’ll be switching between power banks fairly quickly because the more traffic gets sent to the hotspot, the more battery usage it takes.

[Jet Cash]

I've got quite a few charging options. I've got an extra heavy duty battery as the starter battery in the van, and I use that for small topups. I've also got a large leisure battery, and I plan to fit a split charger for that as soon as I have decided where to store the battery. I've got 3 small solar panels which are OK for topping up phones and lights etc. I plan to install a roof solar panel, but I've got a problem with that at the moment, as the roof is a high top plastic shell, and I need to find, or make, some long legs for a roof rack. The immediate updates are some body improvements, both for me and for the van. Also I bought a wood burning stove, and I need to install that.

I'm still wasting through problems from my past life, and these seem to prevent me from sorting out these updates. Every time I throw money at my situation to try to improve it, I seem to create more problems. This new phone is one example. My new solar powered battery bank is giving me problems as well. That has a wireless charger, and that doesn't charge the new phone.

[update]

Sending it back will be a massive nuisance for me, so I'm going to give it a final test. I've got a rat's nest of cables, so I'm going to buy a new solar backup with a new cable, and also Qi charging, and I'll experiment with that. I've ordered this one, and it arrives tomorrow.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/36000maAh-Wireless-Waterproof-Portable-Flashlight/dp/B08DF7G6Y6/ref=sr_1_15?dchild=1&keywords=solar+power+bank&qid=1604145211&sr=8-15