Official FutureBit Apollo BTC Software/Image and Support thread

[mxnsch]

I think I need to start with some easier questions.

Is it normal for the Apollo BTC to run its fan at full speed after shutting down?
Any way to fix that? Or what am I doing wrong?

I have no idea what you're doing here and it seems you aren't either.

IF the miner is connected to the internet and mining, you are online. My educated guess is that you fucked up your VPN config. It's also highly likely that your pool info isn't valid. That's why the miner isn't working in your other tries.

Do us a favor and
0) Reflash with the factory image
1) actually read the manual
2) connect to the Apollo via ethernet
3) configure the mining pool settings
4) wait for the miner to start mining
5) OPTIONAL: Start tinkering with the device once everything works.
6) Check if the node sync works

[MrMik]

I'm now re-flashing the new SD card and then I will try to find a way to gain access to the internet and control over the OS before the Apollo does stuff that I don't yet want it to do.

Any hints will be greatly appreciated!

[crypto_curious]

I'm now re-flashing the new SD card and then I will try to find a way to gain access to the internet and control over the OS before the Apollo does stuff that I don't yet want it to do.

Any hints will be greatly appreciated!

You can easily take control by connecting HDMI monitor, keyboard and mouse without Ethernet cable. Apollo dashboard is accessible as localhost page. Configure everything you want it to do and only then connect to WAN.
Be careful with updates, Apollo software is known to break with new OS updates.

[Sledge0001]

I think I need to start with some easier questions.

Is it normal for the Apollo BTC to run its fan at full speed after shutting down?
Any way to fix that? Or what am I doing wrong?

Actually I have a new full node unit that does this as well.

If you shutdown through the GUI the node unit shuts down light wise but the fan is still spinning at what I assume is max.

The only way I can stop this is to flip the switch on the PSU.

[MrMik]

I'm now re-flashing the new SD card and then I will try to find a way to gain access to the internet and control over the OS before the Apollo does stuff that I don't yet want it to do.

Any hints will be greatly appreciated!

You can easily take control by connecting HDMI monitor, keyboard and mouse without Ethernet cable. Apollo dashboard is accessible as localhost page. Configure everything you want it to do and only then connect to WAN.
Be careful with updates, Apollo software is known to break with new OS updates.

Thanks, I think I got it going with VPN running and a system monitor to give me a rough idea about what is going on under the hood.

In a nutshell:
Turn the Apollo on without internet connection.
Turn off the miner and the node
Connect to internet
Set up VPN
Turn miner back on.

I have not bothered turning the node on again, yet, but I think it will be running automatically again after the next reboot.

How do you get around the potential security issues if not installing the Ubuntu or Debian (I don't really know which ones) updates?

Can I use the Bitcoin blockchain data which I have downloaded and verified on my own node previously?
My internet connection is slow and my monthly download is limited, it's not an insignificant task to download the entire Bitcoin history in my current situation.

[MrMik]

Actually I have a new full node unit that does this as well.

If you shutdown through the GUI the node unit shuts down light wise but the fan is still spinning at what I assume is max.

The only way I can stop this is to flip the switch on the PSU.

Thanks for confirming that this is not something unique to my setup, much appreciated!

Easy enough to turn off the power supply, but something that could be flagged for fixing in the next software version.

[End_The_Fed_42]

I did apt update and apt upgrade today and the miner stopped working. It's probably been a couple weeks since I last upgraded. I re-flashed the SD card so that it was working again, but then as soon as I upgraded again the miner wouldn't work. It seems like it won't start even though eventually the status page just shows that it's inactive. Just passing this along so this can be tested an possibly fixed. I'm going to re-flash the SD card again to fix it but I guess I won't upgrade anything for now.

I think running apt update and apt upgrade no longer works. I posted the above a few days ago and didn't see anyone else reference it. Other posts in the forum say that you can run the apt update and apt upgrade on the newest image without problems. I have a batch 4 which is the newest image and while I was able to upgrade with apt for a while it stopped working sometime in the couple weeks before September 28. Not sure if this is similar to what MrKik is saying since it sounds like he clicked something in the graphical interface that maybe updated the whole distro, which has been mentioned not to do.

Can we get any update on this? I'm not particularly wanting to have to test every update to see what it might be and have to keep re-flashing it when it breaks. Is anyone else having trouble updating using apt to upgrade?

[n0nce]

Seems like Apllo is so intent on mining and downloading the Bitcoin blockchain that it's next to impossible to set it up with a VPN before it leaks your IP address and announces to the world that you try to mine Bitcoin.

You could always go the full-manual route, as described here. https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5401729.0
That way, you could update the system and install & set up everything you need, even before installing Bitcoin or the mining software.

The FuturebitOS is just an easy quick way to get started; if you want to do custom stuff, you need to do custom things.

I think I need to start with some easier questions.

Is it normal for the Apollo BTC to run its fan at full speed after shutting down?
Any way to fix that? Or what am I doing wrong?

Actually I have a new full node unit that does this as well.
If you shutdown through the GUI the node unit shuts down light wise but the fan is still spinning at what I assume is max.
The only way I can stop this is to flip the switch on the PSU.

That's a safety mechanism to make sure everything is properly cooled off before power is cut. Don't just flip the switch of the PSU! The chip is still hot after it stops hashing, which is why it needs a short burst of full fanspeed, to make sure it doesn't get cooked by the residual heat.

How do you get around the potential security issues if not installing the Ubuntu or Debian (I don't really know which ones) updates?

It's not a risk anymore. You can absolutely install updates (this includes security updates); just don't do a full system upgrade. Similar to the Windows world, where Windows 10 still gets security patches even though Windows 11 is available, Linux distributions get security patches even if they aren't on the highest major version number.

[crypto_curious]

How do you get around the potential security issues if not installing the Ubuntu or Debian (I don't really know which ones) updates?

I really disliked running vulnerable and unsecure Armbian (Ubuntu based). So, I nuked the SD card and I reinstalled my own Armbian system. Underneath your miner is Orange Pi 4 as a controller, Armbian works very well on it. Once all is set up, then it was easy to install Bitcoin Node and apollo mining software, just like you would do on Raspberry Pi. The only downside is that there is no dashboard (as this is part of Futurebit software package which breaks often on updates), and mining via short 10cm USB cable instead of GPIO (I didn't bother to look for communication libraries Futurebit used, so I just plugged USB and it worked right away).
But nowadays, I run apollo with a PC as a controller, so I don't have this issue any more.

Can I use the Bitcoin blockchain data which I have downloaded and verified on my own node previously?
My internet connection is slow and my monthly download is limited, it's not an insignificant task to download the entire Bitcoin history in my current situation.

Yes, you can do that. Make sure to initialize bitcoin node first on apollo, so all relevant folders are created. Then stop bitcoin node, connect your USB hard drive with all files, and move & replace all files on NVMe with your full copy, and start bitcoin node again, it shoud recognize all blocks.

[MrMik]

Thank you very much everyone for the above replies and explanations!

The Apollo is now hashing away happily and I have a thousand more questions brewing.....

Can an Apollo BTC (or an Orange Pi) be operated on 12V DC from a lead acid battery?
The voltage would actually be 12.7V to 14V.
That would be a simple UPS when combined with some solar panels and a grid powered battery charger. I have no idea if computer components would be happy with the slightly higher voltage.

Is the power on the Orange Pi USB ports lower than on larger PC's? My keyboard and mouse only make connection from very close (1m or less) to the Apollo. On my laptop, the same mouse and USB receiver work well from at least 5m away.

The WiFi connection for my Apollo also seems to be much weaker than for my laptop. It does not find the WiFi network unless the modem is within a few meters of the Apollo. Is that normal?

Is the SD card quality important? I don't know if the old 16GB SD card which I put in the Apollo might be slowing it down. It seems very sluggish even when there is not much processor load.

[crypto_curious]

The WiFi connection for my Apollo also seems to be much weaker than for my laptop. It does not find the WiFi network unless the modem is within a few meters of the Apollo. Is that normal?

Is the SD card quality important? I don't know if the old 16GB SD card which I put in the Apollo might be slowing it down. It seems very sluggish even when there is not much processor load.

Orange Pi has a little hanging WiFi Antenna underneath. Try to move it a bit or expose it outside slightly if you can. This may improve signal.

Quality of SD card does not matter, as long as it reads and writes without error and capacity is not faked. Mining process does not require any storage access. If your old SD card burns out, you can just replace it with a new one in 20 minutes by flashing the image and popping the new card in.

[MrMik]

Orange Pi has a little hanging WiFi Antenna underneath. Try to move it a bit or expose it outside slightly if you can. That may improve signal.

Quality of SD card does not matter, as long as it reads and writes without error and capacity is not faked. Mining process does not require any storage access. If your old SD card burns out, you can just replace it with a new one in 20 minutes by flashing image and popping new card in.

Thanks!
I was wondering what that dangling thing covered in shrinkwrap is, now I know!

Regarding the SD card, I was wondering if I could use the Apollo as a computer behind my TV to play youtube etc via HDMI cable.
Do the SD card specs matter for that sort of thing?
As in: Having 3 or 4 Firefox tabs open and try to watch Youtube in one of them. It did not seem to work very well with HDMI TV and with the replacement SD card that I use now, but an earlier attempt while connected to a monitor via HDMI cable - and with the original SD card in it - worked a bit better.

[crypto_curious]

Orange Pi has a little hanging WiFi Antenna underneath. Try to move it a bit or expose it outside slightly if you can. That may improve signal.

Quality of SD card does not matter, as long as it reads and writes without error and capacity is not faked. Mining process does not require any storage access. If your old SD card burns out, you can just replace it with a new one in 20 minutes by flashing image and popping new card in.

Thanks!
I was wondering what that dangling thing covered in shrinkwrap is, now I know!

Regarding the SD card, I was wondering if I could use the Apollo as a computer behind my TV to play youtube etc via HDMI cable.
Do the SD card specs matter for that sort of thing?
As in: Having 3 or 4 Firefox tabs open and try to watch Youtube in one of them. It did not seem to work very well with HDMI TV and with the replacement SD card that I use now, but an earlier attempt while connected to a monitor via HDMI cable - and with the original SD card in it - worked a bit better.

Streaming video online does not use any storage I/O, so it should work nicely even with slow SD card.
Orange Pi is a quad core SoC, it should handle watching videos on YT, maybe in Full HD 60 FPS even.

[Muppet007]

Orange Pi has a little hanging WiFi Antenna underneath. Try to move it a bit or expose it outside slightly if you can. That may improve signal.

Quality of SD card does not matter, as long as it reads and writes without error and capacity is not faked. Mining process does not require any storage access. If your old SD card burns out, you can just replace it with a new one in 20 minutes by flashing image and popping new card in.

Thanks!
I was wondering what that dangling thing covered in shrinkwrap is, now I know!

Regarding the SD card, I was wondering if I could use the Apollo as a computer behind my TV to play youtube etc via HDMI cable.
Do the SD card specs matter for that sort of thing?
As in: Having 3 or 4 Firefox tabs open and try to watch Youtube in one of them. It did not seem to work very well with HDMI TV and with the replacement SD card that I use now, but an earlier attempt while connected to a monitor via HDMI cable - and with the original SD card in it - worked a bit better.

Streaming video online does not use any storage I/O, so it should work nicely even with slow SD card.
Orange Pi is a quad core SoC, it should handle watching videos on YT, maybe in Full HD 60 FPS even.

While it is a desktop class SBC under certain environments, it will be different for everyone depending on ambient temps.
Do keep an eye on MCU temps if you are going to attempt anything beyond it's current task.

[Jota_US]

Hello.  I'm interested in using my full node Apollo as the back end for my Trezor Suite instead of using their servers.  Does anyone have any experience doing this?  Are there any guides available?  Thanks!

Trezor Suite allows you to choose a custom Electrum server.

How to connect to your own node
If you are not currently running a node, there are many ways to get started. Free and open source software is widely available and supported by all kinds of operating systems and hardware. Electrum Server can be installed and run as a standalone program or bundled alongside other tools. You can also connect to existing Electrum Server nodes if you do not want to run your own.

Once you have a node up and running, connecting to it is as simple as entering the address of your node under the Bitcoin settings, which is found under the Crypto tab in Settings.
[...]

You can install such an Electrum server on the Futurebit Apollo BTC, no problem.
Here are my instructions. They are for a full custom Linux install, but work on stock Futurebit OS, as well. Just follow the electrs instructions.

electrs
Since one of the main benefits of running a full node is privacy during transaction & address lookup, an Electrum server is needed. Otherwise you'd have to query using Bitcoin Core all the time and can't just use your mobile and desktop applications for that.

[1] Install dependencies; make sure you're logged into admin and not bitcoin.

Code:

sudo apt install clang cargo rustc tor

[...]

Does this also work with Ledger?
I did a little research and it looks like I need Satstacks for Ledger Live to connect to the node?

The main question I have is: Can I connect to the node from my desktop or do I always have to go directly on the miner's OS with screen, keyboard, mouse, ledger etc... to interact with the blockchain? Since the miner is not in the same room as my desktop that would be ideal.
I'm guessing I could point Ledger Live on my desktop to the miner/node's IP? Would that work?

EDIT: Was able to connect Ledger live to the node. So all is good.
I do have another question concerning the Apollo, when I connected via SSH I saw the line [302 security updates available....]. Should I do the updates? I read that you should be careful on which updates you do because it can brick the miner.
Thank you.
 

[n0nce]

Does this also work with Ledger?
I did a little research and it looks like I need Satstacks for Ledger Live to connect to the node?

I don't use Ledger Live, but it seems that such a bridge is required, yes. You could also just use a better Bitcoin wallet software like Electrum or Sparrow and connect your Ledger to that software.

The main question I have is: Can I connect to the node from my desktop or do I always have to go directly on the miner's OS with screen, keyboard, mouse, ledger etc... to interact with the blockchain? Since the miner is not in the same room as my desktop that would be ideal.

First of all, you have a web GUI; so the miner dashboard that you get when connecting a screen to the Apollo, is also displayed by visiting the miner's IP from any browser in the same network.
To 'interact with the blockchain' in terms of querying blocks and stuff like that, indeed installing electrs is what's going to allow you to do that.

I do have another question concerning the Apollo, when I connected via SSH I saw the line [302 security updates available....]. Should I do the updates? I read that you should be careful on which updates you do because it can brick the miner.

If you run the latest Futurebit OS, you can do the updates via:

Code:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Just don't do distro-upgrades like sudo apt dist-upgrade. Don't do that!

[Jota_US]

Does this also work with Ledger?
I did a little research and it looks like I need Satstacks for Ledger Live to connect to the node?

I don't use Ledger Live, but it seems that such a bridge is required, yes. You could also just use a better Bitcoin wallet software like Electrum or Sparrow and connect your Ledger to that software.

The main question I have is: Can I connect to the node from my desktop or do I always have to go directly on the miner's OS with screen, keyboard, mouse, ledger etc... to interact with the blockchain? Since the miner is not in the same room as my desktop that would be ideal.

First of all, you have a web GUI; so the miner dashboard that you get when connecting a screen to the Apollo, is also displayed by visiting the miner's IP from any browser in the same network.
To 'interact with the blockchain' in terms of querying blocks and stuff like that, indeed installing electrs is what's going to allow you to do that.

I do have another question concerning the Apollo, when I connected via SSH I saw the line [302 security updates available....]. Should I do the updates? I read that you should be careful on which updates you do because it can brick the miner.

If you run the latest Futurebit OS, you can do the updates via:

Code:

sudo apt update
sudo apt upgrade

Just don't do distro-upgrades like sudo apt dist-upgrade. Don't do that!

Thank you for your answer, I did the updates. Problem now is the miner does not mine anymore. The node is running but the miner starts but does not hash and then shuts down
I am now looking to install electrs, however in your guide you say sometimes to log into bitcoin user. Is it necessary to do this step with the Apollo or can I just do everything with futurebit user

[MrMik]

While it is a desktop class SBC under certain environments, it will be different for everyone depending on ambient temps.
Do keep an eye on MCU temps if you are going to attempt anything beyond it's current task.

Thanks for the hint!

I installed lm-sensors via the packet manager
and then use 'watch -n 2 sensors' to keep an eye on the temperatures.

I also used 'sudo apt install psensor' - now I have a graph for both temp sensors (CPU and GPU)

I got the instructions from this page:
https://itsfoss.com/check-laptop-cpu-temperature-ubuntu/

[MrMik]

My Apollo Node does not want to cooperate since I flashed a new 64GB SD card.
Everything else works fine, much better than with that old 16GB card I found lying around.
I'm not certain yet if the faster specs of the new SD card are making the difference, it could be due to something else as well.

However, the node is giving the following error message: There is a problem fetching system stats (Invalid params, response status code: 401)

The node seems to be downloading data from the internet (visible in System Monitor), but goes back to show the above error message after I click Start in the node dashboard. Please wait while node is starting up, followed by same error message a few minutes later. But download showing in System Monitor.

When I click Stop, then it says Node is shutting down , and the download of data in System monitor stops.

And in the Bitcoin>Blocks folder the number of e.g. blk00165.dat keeps increasing while the node is starting up.

I have rebooted the Apollo a few times and the issue persists.

[Polynom42]

Due to the instructions from futurebit

If you want to download the Bitcoin Core wallet (which is not installed by default for obvious reasons) you need to first shutdown the node via the dashboard menu FIRST, then startup Bitcoin Core UI. The Bitcoin core wallet can not run/share the blockchain data at the same time as the node is running. If you are setting up the wallet for the first time, make sure you select /media/nvme/Bitcoin as the default folder otherwise it will start to download the blockchain on your SD card which will cause you lots of headaches (will fix this with symlinks in an update)

I am a bit confused. BTC Core wallet can not run/share data at the same time as the node is running - is this only for the initial process or do I have to turn off the node each time I want to use BTC Core wallet for transactions?