Official FutureBit Apollo BTC Software/Image and Support thread

[jstefanop]

I just got an Apollo II and it will connect over ethernet, but when I try to connect to my wifi it keeps giving me the same error  - 'secrets were required but not provided'.  I have never seen an error like that before and am not sure what to do. I know I've put in the right password for the wifi.  Any insight from anyone on how to navigate this error?

Sounds like some unsupported standard, wifi controller on Apollo devices is very basic to work best it needs a separate 2.4ghz SSID with plain wpa2 authentication.

[jstefanop]

Hello!

I just received my Apollo 2 full node, and the basics are working great so far (I also have my Apollo BTC hooked up to it via USB, and they're both hashing away while the blockchain is still doing its initial sync).  I hope there are more features to control various things soon, like the power/fan/voltage settings for each miner individually and such!  

I'd also like to see an easy way to setup remote access to Ubuntu via the web GUI, thru standard RDP apps like Windows RDP... because I have had no issues getting in via SSH, but the Apollo 2 full node doesn't seem to work with ANY of my standard 4k monitors to access the Ubuntu GUI (no signal), and enabling xRDP or GnomeRDP through SSH terminal, using the usual methods, has not worked for me so far - I get a login screen when I RDP in, which loads and works properly and I can seemingly successfully login to, followed by a blank greenish background screen where I can only see my mouse pointer and not do anything else.  This blank/green screen is a common issue with Ubuntu 20.04 and 22.04 and xRDP, but none of the usual methods of solving it work for me so far, and I've tried every solution I can find a thread about or that Bing Copilot can possibly suggest... editing the xRDP.ini file in various ways (adding an [xrdp1] section with various settings like -1 for the port), and modifying /home/$USER/.xsessionrc with some GNOME/Ubuntu related lines.  No luck with that stuff.  I can seemingly connect and authenticate just fine, but something about the Apollo 2's standard 22.04 image is causing rendering issues or something over RDP specifically that can't seem to be fixed in the usual ways.

Anyone have any suggestion on a good easy way to get RDP from Windows working into the Apollo 2, from SSH commands only because I can't access the GUI (Ubuntu or Gnome, the full desktop GUI) in any fashion yet?

Thanks!

What kind of monitors are you trying to connect?

Probably easiest solution is to run an VPN so you can easily access the Apollo webUI anywhere, unless you specifically need remote of the whole OS UI?

[Ultra5240]

I just got an Apollo II and it will connect over ethernet, but when I try to connect to my wifi it keeps giving me the same error  - 'secrets were required but not provided'.  I have never seen an error like that before and am not sure what to do. I know I've put in the right password for the wifi.  Any insight from anyone on how to navigate this error?

I am having this same issue.  I am guessing that there may be a glitch in the OS that needs to be resolved.  Until then, I will stay connected via Ethernet. 

[johnstewart]

Hello,

Is that possible to create an highdiff port on the solo pool ? ( i lurked on the ckpool github doesn't find it )

We will add options to solo UI for this in future updates, but for now you would need to edit the ckpool.conf file (opt/apolloapi/backend/ckpool/ckpool.conf) and add the following line to change the start diff

 "startdiff": 8000,

I tried but nothing change always 42 to difficulty

[cipherbreak]

Hello!

I just received my Apollo 2 full node, and the basics are working great so far (I also have my Apollo BTC hooked up to it via USB, and they're both hashing away while the blockchain is still doing its initial sync).  I hope there are more features to control various things soon, like the power/fan/voltage settings for each miner individually and such!  

I'd also like to see an easy way to setup remote access to Ubuntu via the web GUI, thru standard RDP apps like Windows RDP... because I have had no issues getting in via SSH, but the Apollo 2 full node doesn't seem to work with ANY of my standard 4k monitors to access the Ubuntu GUI (no signal), and enabling xRDP or GnomeRDP through SSH terminal, using the usual methods, has not worked for me so far - I get a login screen when I RDP in, which loads and works properly and I can seemingly successfully login to, followed by a blank greenish background screen where I can only see my mouse pointer and not do anything else.  This blank/green screen is a common issue with Ubuntu 20.04 and 22.04 and xRDP, but none of the usual methods of solving it work for me so far, and I've tried every solution I can find a thread about or that Bing Copilot can possibly suggest... editing the xRDP.ini file in various ways (adding an [xrdp1] section with various settings like -1 for the port), and modifying /home/$USER/.xsessionrc with some GNOME/Ubuntu related lines.  No luck with that stuff.  I can seemingly connect and authenticate just fine, but something about the Apollo 2's standard 22.04 image is causing rendering issues or something over RDP specifically that can't seem to be fixed in the usual ways.

Anyone have any suggestion on a good easy way to get RDP from Windows working into the Apollo 2, from SSH commands only because I can't access the GUI (Ubuntu or Gnome, the full desktop GUI) in any fashion yet?

Thanks!

What kind of monitors are you trying to connect?

Probably easiest solution is to run an VPN so you can easily access the Apollo webUI anywhere, unless you specifically need remote of the whole OS UI?

thanks for your help!  I'd like to be able to remote into the whole machine via the Ubuntu GUI (or similar) to manage it and do some things that are difficult over SSH/Terminal, like setup and run some other services, or eventually run a lightning node or similar.  Also would be easier in the GUI for me to comb logs and such when needed.

I have 2 different LG 4K OLED 120Hz monitors, different sizes/years.  Though they are technically TVs, I use them exclusively as monitors and I've been surprised how compatible they are with all my old devices so far, such as old gaming consoles and as a second monitor for a bunch of different laptops/macbooks of varying ages.  They seem to be compatible with any old 720p+ device I've tried so far, except the Apollo 2!

[nullama]

The Apollo I closed sourced binary requires you to run it as sudo to get access to /dev/ttyACM0.

You can change the permissions of that file to allow your user to access it, which is much better than running a closed source binary 24/7 as sudo. Here's how to do it:

First, check the permissions of that file:

Code:

ls -ltrh /dev/ttyACM0

In most Linux devices like Ubuntu that will be owned by root and belonging to the group dialout. You can add your username to that group, and therefore gain access to that file by executing this:

Code:

sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER

That will add your username ($USER will evaluate to your current user, change it accordingly if you need other user) to the dialout group.

Now you need to reboot your machine. After that, you should be able to run the Apollo binary without sudo.

Happy hashing.

By the way, jstefanop, would it be possible to update the Apollo I binaries? that device hasn't received a single update since 2021 (https://github.com/jstefanop/Apollo-Miner-Binaries)

[johnstewart]

Hello,

Is that possible to create an highdiff port on the solo pool ? ( i lurked on the ckpool github doesn't find it )

We will add options to solo UI for this in future updates, but for now you would need to edit the ckpool.conf file (opt/apolloapi/backend/ckpool/ckpool.conf) and add the following line to change the start diff

 "startdiff": 8000,

So after multiples tries :

It seems that when you modify the ckpool.conf the pool won't start and i saw that the pool set a diff to 1 but it stay to 42 when it works..
It seems that the diff is set by the miner or there is a bug between the two settings ...

[rbbtllc]

Hello ALL!!! 

With the BTC Halving, how are your mining results?

Thank you

[johnstewart]

Hello,

Is that possible to create an highdiff port on the solo pool ? ( i lurked on the ckpool github doesn't find it )

We will add options to solo UI for this in future updates, but for now you would need to edit the ckpool.conf file (opt/apolloapi/backend/ckpool/ckpool.conf) and add the following line to change the start diff

 "startdiff": 8000,

So after multiples tries :

It seems that when you modify the ckpool.conf the pool won't start and i saw that the pool set a diff to 1 but it stay to 42 when it works..
It seems that the diff is set by the miner or there is a bug between the two settings ...

So i find the way:

- Stop the miner in the apollo-miner folder with miner_stop.sh
then -go to the ckpool folder stop the pool  with ckpool_stop.sh  modify the ckpool.conf with the "startdiff": disired and then start the pool with ckpool_start.sh
and now it will set the disired  diff !!!!

[cipherbreak]

Hello ALL!!!  

With the BTC Halving, how are your mining results?

Thank you

I use the SOLO mining feature, as it seems post-halving you'd need pretty near 5cents or less total kWh cost to slightly profit at current prices.  My power is 22cents per kWh so I'm not even close really.  I don't run my older Apollo BTC (1st model) currently because its even less efficient, but I will maybe in the winter when I could use the extra heat.  

I'm getting 5.85 TH/s (32 watts-per-TH/s) on ECO mode, I wouldn't want to run it higher than that because of the noise.  I get about a 1/700,000 chance of mining a solo block in a day with just the Apollo 2 in ECO mode.

My only complaints with it at the moment are:  software's still pretty early, missing a lot of needed features in the web GUI (like even individual control of the Apollo miners) - had a lot of hurdles in the setup, having trouble getting RDP into the full linux GUI (Ubuntu/Gnome) to work still. Node and miner aren't that stable so far, one or the other seem to hang or crash every other day or so, so far - hope that was mostly during, and due to, the few-day blockchain sync, though it has happened a couple times since then as well.

HDMI output and WiFi on the Apollo 2 are not great so far, really hoping those can be majorly improved compatibility-wise.  None of the monitors I have at the moment work, and the wifi is very finnicky and you need a separated 2.4 GHz network for it (basically, the Apollo 2 won't work with a modern wifi setup, at least as most come by default these days, like using a single SSID for all wavelengths, etc)

[TIRMINE]

Hopefully will be receiving my Apollo ii soon.  Seeing all the comments about wifi issues.  As someone who isn't too technical.  If I have a wifi extender that allows for input of an ethernet cable, would that fix any potential wifi issues I may have?

[jeyzeus]

Do we know what SBC the new Apollo II full node is running yet? I just got my standard unit today and wanted to get the same or similar SBC and compile the new OS on it vs using the binaries w/ linux mint or ubuntu

unit looks great jstefanop, thanks for dropping this.

[dwood443]

Hopefully will be receiving my Apollo ii soon.  Seeing all the comments about wifi issues.  As someone who isn't too technical.  If I have a wifi extender that allows for input of an ethernet cable, would that fix any potential wifi issues I may have?

Thats what I'm using and no issues at all. Mining against my own full node with a second unit as well.  
I did not mine at all while the node was syncing. I think it took about 3 full days to sync. once it was done I selected solo mining and now running 4 days with no issues at all.

[cipherbreak]

Hopefully will be receiving my Apollo ii soon.  Seeing all the comments about wifi issues.  As someone who isn't too technical.  If I have a wifi extender that allows for input of an ethernet cable, would that fix any potential wifi issues I may have?

Yeah, that should be fine, as the extender is what is making the wifi connection in that case, so the Apollo 2 or whatever device is hooked up to the extender's ethernet port should behave as if hooked up to any real ethernet port.

[jstefanop]

Do we know what SBC the new Apollo II full node is running yet? I just got my standard unit today and wanted to get the same or similar SBC and compile the new OS on it vs using the binaries w/ linux mint or ubuntu

unit looks great jstefanop, thanks for dropping this.

It's the same controller as later Batches Apollo BTC (What we call MCU2).

[jstefanop]

Hello ALL!!!  

With the BTC Halving, how are your mining results?

Thank you

I use the SOLO mining feature, as it seems post-halving you'd need pretty near 5cents or less total kWh cost to slightly profit at current prices.  My power is 22cents per kWh so I'm not even close really.  I don't run my older Apollo BTC (1st model) currently because its even less efficient, but I will maybe in the winter when I could use the extra heat.  

I'm getting 5.85 TH/s (32 watts-per-TH/s) on ECO mode, I wouldn't want to run it higher than that because of the noise.  I get about a 1/700,000 chance of mining a solo block in a day with just the Apollo 2 in ECO mode.

My only complaints with it at the moment are:  software's still pretty early, missing a lot of needed features in the web GUI (like even individual control of the Apollo miners) - had a lot of hurdles in the setup, having trouble getting RDP into the full linux GUI (Ubuntu/Gnome) to work still. Node and miner aren't that stable so far, one or the other seem to hang or crash every other day or so, so far - hope that was mostly during, and due to, the few-day blockchain sync, though it has happened a couple times since then as well.

HDMI output and WiFi on the Apollo 2 are not great so far, really hoping those can be majorly improved compatibility-wise.  None of the monitors I have at the moment work, and the wifi is very finnicky and you need a separated 2.4 GHz network for it (basically, the Apollo 2 won't work with a modern wifi setup, at least as most come by default these days, like using a single SSID for all wavelengths, etc)

Have you done a reflash to the latest image 2.0.4 release? This fixes many of these issues (OTA update to 2.0.4 wont bring in some changes we did to the underlying OS so suggest anyone that received a unit with 2.0.2 or 2.0.3 reflash their SD cards to the latest release).

Going forward all updates will be OTA so you should not need to reflash again.

[jeyzeus]

For the standard unit Apollo II - are the values when controlled via USB the same as the v1?

./apollo-miner -host us-east.stratum.slushpool.com -port 3333 -user jstefanop.x -pswd x -comport /dev/ttyACM0 -brd_ocp 48  -osc 30 -ao_mode 1

# Preset Values:
#   ECO:        -brd_ocp 48  -osc 30
#   BALANCED:   -brd_ocp 60  -osc 40
#   TURBO:      -brd_ocp 75  -osc 50

[dwood443]

well. I should not have mentioned how well my Apollo II was working. I flashed the SD card to the latest version with etcher and the node won't start. Getting "Invalid params, response status code: 401 -32602". any thoughts?

*** resolved, I reflashed the card and reseated the drive ***

[cipherbreak]

Hello ALL!!!  

With the BTC Halving, how are your mining results?

Thank you

I use the SOLO mining feature, as it seems post-halving you'd need pretty near 5cents or less total kWh cost to slightly profit at current prices.  My power is 22cents per kWh so I'm not even close really.  I don't run my older Apollo BTC (1st model) currently because its even less efficient, but I will maybe in the winter when I could use the extra heat.  

I'm getting 5.85 TH/s (32 watts-per-TH/s) on ECO mode, I wouldn't want to run it higher than that because of the noise.  I get about a 1/700,000 chance of mining a solo block in a day with just the Apollo 2 in ECO mode.

My only complaints with it at the moment are:  software's still pretty early, missing a lot of needed features in the web GUI (like even individual control of the Apollo miners) - had a lot of hurdles in the setup, having trouble getting RDP into the full linux GUI (Ubuntu/Gnome) to work still. Node and miner aren't that stable so far, one or the other seem to hang or crash every other day or so, so far - hope that was mostly during, and due to, the few-day blockchain sync, though it has happened a couple times since then as well.

HDMI output and WiFi on the Apollo 2 are not great so far, really hoping those can be majorly improved compatibility-wise.  None of the monitors I have at the moment work, and the wifi is very finnicky and you need a separated 2.4 GHz network for it (basically, the Apollo 2 won't work with a modern wifi setup, at least as most come by default these days, like using a single SSID for all wavelengths, etc)

Have you done a reflash to the latest image 2.0.4 release? This fixes many of these issues (OTA update to 2.0.4 wont bring in some changes we did to the underlying OS so suggest anyone that received a unit with 2.0.2 or 2.0.3 reflash their SD cards to the latest release).

Going forward all updates will be OTA so you should not need to reflash again.

Thanks again for your help!   I wasn't aware of the update possibly not being a full upgrade if I was on a pre-2.0.4 release and applied it automatically (OTA).  So, I've re-flashed the microSD (it is indeed really hard to not have it fall inside the innards of the unit, even with tweezers, because of the angle! Yikes, I did have it fall inside and had some trouble getting it back out!)... the reinstall went well, re-setup was easy enough and now I know the changes/troubleshooting I did via SSH to unsuccessfully get RDP access working previously are now undone.

Would you have any tips or steps via SSH to enable RDP to work from Windows devices? Before flashing it back to default 2.0.4 today, I seemed to be able to get it working from a network perspective, but when I logged in (I could see and use the xRDP login screen via RDP for example), the RDP screen just shows a mouse pointer and a sea green background color, and I can't do anything.  I would try using the GnomeRDP which I believe I could enable fairly easily via the Ubuntu GUI, but since I don't have a monitor working with the Apollo 2 yet, I can't do it that way - if you know the SSH commands to do so, I'd try those but I haven't found them yet.  I know you guys don't support the general Ubuntu OS, but I think sorting our the remote access to the Apollo unit would be a benefit to all, especially with the monitor limitations, and I'd be happy to help test and get that working.  I appreciate it!

[notabeliever]

I have been running Apollo v1 node since inception and  now with Apollov2 i'm asked what is my wallet address.

Also where is the wallet address of our node? Don't really understand that part thought do understand bitcoin wallets with password in general.