[StarMiner] - ARM controller image for your ASIC mining needs!

[LinuxETC]

ANNOUNCING: StarMiner

An ARM controller image for your ASIC mining needs.

Made by The Linux ETC Company.

This is a SourceForge hosted project.

Description
StarMiner (also known as *Miner) is a Linux based image design to be used for the digital currency or "crypto currency" mining purposes.

The Logic
Most people in the "crypto currency" arena want to be able to "plug and play" (or "mine" in this case) an ASIC (Application Specific Integrated Circuit) device to a simple system, put in the desired mining pool targets, and have this device "just do it". This means keeping things as simple as possible. StarMiner is designed for such purposes.

Under The Hood
StarMiner includes the following Projects that are Open Source based:

• Raspbian, http://www.raspbian.org/
• cgminer, https://github.com/dmaxl/cgminer
• Linux SeedManager, https://github.com/starlilyth/Linux-SeedManager
• wicd, https://launchpad.net/wicd

Screenshots
Everyone loves visual images for examples plus "show and tell".  These can be found on the Summary SourceForge page.

Files
The StarMiner image (.img; ~3.5GB in size), bzip2 (.bz2; ~65% of the image size), and zip (.zip; ~61% of the image size) versions of the release with MD5SUM information can be found on SourceForge under the Files section.  The file naming convention will be using the release date in the name and version, so do use the most recent accordingly.

Documentation
Currently being made and put up on SourceForge in the Wiki section.

Discussion and Support
We have both forum based and support tickets via SourceForge under the project's Discussion and Tickets sections.

Donations and Contributions
One can donate and/or contribute to the project in a few ways:

• (US residents only) Purchase a Raspberry Pi StarMiner kit (with USB wifi or without USB wifi) from us directly. The Raspberry Pi comes from a distributor who contributes a majority of the sales back into the Raspberry Pi organization.
  Note: We cannot ship Raspberry Pi StarMiner kits internationally without a cause for headaches with various customs, VAT, import/export related issues unfortunately. Believe us...we would love to send you one! (Temporarily suspended until further notice.)
• Download our image from SourceForge here under Files. The run the startest command which will use a default "test" configuration to donate mining hashrate to one of our wallets. Since you are operating the miner, you may run startest for as long as you desire. This is also a simple way to test (hence, the command name startest) your ASIC miner with our image.
• Use and write a Review (preferably positive of course) on SourceForge StarMiner. If there are issues, open up a Support Ticket on SourceForge so that said issues may be addressed (prior to any Reviews preferred of course ).
• Join the Discussions and add your thoughts, comments, and feedback accordingly.
• Donate some Bitcoin, Litecoin, Dogecoin, and/or Vertcoin to the following addresses:
  
  • Bitcoin: 1Ac9TYKxGEvwe4ECM84BEZTWzCn3HZhMFN
  • Litecoin: LTFKFPkVw3kXdzg7JQibPd7ZFQe11brADB
  • Dogecoin: DRaMFszv9bgDPUKiE6mfcM8cHxkRQ5wNXG
  • Vertcoin: VpMfewgraj4QCNSFLnfErY7xnf9EUhVYuM
  Do send us an email if you wish to be noted for such as well.
  

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[LinuxETC]

Release Information and Announcements.

Announcements can also be found as well as subscribed to on our SourceForge Project site here.

03 July 2014 version release notes and change log:
Files for download from SourceForge can be found here.

• Modifications to the Gridseed configuration files removing the "per_chip_stats" as noted in StarMiner SourceForge ticket #7.
• Updated modules/drivers for both Gridseed and Zeus Miner ASIC units.
• With respects to the "newer" Zeus Miner "batch 2" ASIC units, the ability to use the provided serial number to have specific settings per individual ASIC unit if using USB mode via libusb (versus --scan-serial mode).
• With respects to the "newer" Zeus Miner "batch 2" ASIC units, the ability to ID the individual ASIC unit based off of the number of chips within each unit. These will have the Zeus Miner ASIC names by default instead of the rebranded names.

27 June 2014 version release notes and change log:
Files for download from SourceForge can be found here.

• Patch of the mining application by dmaxl that addresses "wall of rejects" with mining pools that have network latency issues.
• Fix of the Gridseed ASIC configuration files so that they appear when editing via the webUI.

25 June 2014 version release notes and change log:
Files for download from SourceForge can be found here.

• Improved Gridseed and Zeus Miner ASIC unit support via an improved mining application and related driver/modules.
• Updated configuration profiles for individual and multiple Gridseed, Scriptor, and Zeus Miner ASIC units to parallel with the updated and improved driver/modules.
• The webUI being HTTP by default, though HTTPS can be enabled if desired to address some latency issues.
• Updated all of the StarMiner scripts accordingly to work with the previously noted configuration profiles.
• Updated Raspberry Pi Linux kernel/firmware.

15 June 2014 version release notes and change log:
Files for download from SourceForge can be found here.

• Scriptor 8x FPGA support.
• Created multiple configuration profiles for individual Gridseed, Scriptor, and Zeus Miner ASIC units including the following:

• Gridseed "Mini".
• Gridseed "Blade".
• Scriptor, "Scriptor 8x".
• Zeus Miner "Blizzard".
• Zeus Miner "Cyclone".
• Zeus Miner "Hurricane X2".
• Zeus Miner "Hurricane X3".
• Xeus Miner "Thunder X2".
• Zeus Miner "Thunder X3".

and also included profiles matching the Zeus Miner ASIC units rebranded by GAW Miners.  The defaults are made for using up to ten (10) ASIC units at once.  Depending on the ASIC brand, the end user will need to adjust accordingly to account for multiple ASIC units being controlled by StarMiner.

• The webUI is running on lighttpd which should have some improvement on the previous latency issues.  Thanks to sling00 on Github for this work here.
• The additional of a "if the mining application stops" script and related scheduled checking of such to restart a "dead miner".  Thanks to worldly on LitecoinTalk for this work here.
• The webUI will now show the Zeus Miner ASIC units on the "Overview" page (below the Pools, above the graph).
• Updated all of the StarMiner scripts accordingly to work with the previously noted configuration profiles.
• Updated Raspberry Pi Linux kernel/firmware.

Possible issues:

• Due to StarMiner being able to support Gridseed, Scriptor, and Zeus Miner ASICs, it is strongly advised <strong>NOT</strong> to attempt to use a single StarMiner Raspberry Pi unit to control a mix of both types of ASIC units.  This is due to the limitations of a Raspberry Pi being just an ARM CPU with 512MB of RAM running a single mining application and webUI with statistical data reporting.  Unfortunately and once again, this "little guy" (the Raspberry Pi that is) can only handle so much.

07 June 2014 version release notes and change log:
Files for download from SourceForge can be found here.

• Created multiple configuration profiles for individual Gridseed and Zeus Miner ASIC units including the following:
  
  • Gridseed Mini.
  • Gridseed Blade.
  • Zeus Miner Blizzard.
  • Zeus Miner Hurricane X2.
  • Zeus Miner Thunder X3.
  and also included profiles matching the Zeus Miner ASIC units "rebranded" by GAW Miners.  These default configurations are made for using only one (1) ASIC unit.  Depending on the ASIC brand, the end user will need to adjust accordingly to account for multiple ASIC units being controlled by StarMiner.
  

• Updated all of the StarMiner scripts accordingly to work with the previously noted configuration profiles.
• Updated Raspberry Pi Linux kernel/firmware.
• Applied security updates to Raspbian including recent OpenSSL issues (05 June 2014 announced ones).

Possible issues and considerations:

• Due to Zeus Miner ASIC units being released with cgminer v3.1.1 (versus a "more recent" version such as currently v4.3.4), thus using an older API version, the webUI will not display the individual ASIC miner units at this time. We are aware of this. However, everything else should function "normally".
• Due to StarMiner being able to support Gridseed and Zeus Miner ASICs, it is strongly advised NOT to attempt to use a single StarMiner Raspberry Pi unit to control a mix of both types of ASIC units. This is due to the limitations of a Raspberry Pi being just an ARM CPU with 512MB of RAM running a single mining application and webUI with statistical data reporting. Unfortunately, this "little guy" (the Raspberry Pi that is) can only handle so much.

02 June 2014 version release notes and change log:
Files for download from SourceForge can be found here.

• Added Zeus Miner ASIC support to command line scripts and webUI profiles.
• Fixed OpenSSH and OpenSSL issues so that end users attempting to run apt-get upgrade will not "muck up" either service as reported on Bitcoin Talk forum.
• Security updates to the base Linux system.
• Raspberry Pi firmware updates.

12 May 2014 version release notes and change log:
Files for download from SourceForge can be found here.

• Properly IDs the ASIC units noted as "GSD" on all IFMI pages.
• Properly creates and displays the Overview graph information including accepted shares and hash rate.
• Properly creates and displays graph of the individual Gridseed Mini ASIC unit.
• Security updates to the base Linux system.
• Raspberry Pi firmware updates.
• Addition of Gridseed specific mining profile within IFMI.

25 April 2014 version release notes:
Files for download from SourceForge can be found here.

• Raspbian is the lastest stable (via Debian Wheezy) version with patches to OpenSSL to address any concerns about HeartBleed.
• bfgminer is version 3.99.0 and compiled for Gridseed and scrypt use only.
• SeedManager includes updates from LinuxETC's GitHub fork with contributions from sling00.
• wicd is installed for those with wireless network connection to help with configuration using the ncurses version.

[/list]

[LinuxETC]

This is an announcement of the a version "12May2014" release (to be available on the noted date as well, yes ).  More details can be found on our SourceForge project Blog page.

You can download the updated image via the SourceForge project Files page.

From the Blog post:
Thanks to sling00 for doing most of the "heavy lifting" with IFMI (the webUI portion of StarMiner), StarMiner will be releasing an updated version of StarMiner.

ChangeLog for 12 May 2014 Gridseed version:

• Properly IDs the ASIC units noted as "GSD" on all IFMI pages.
• Properly creates and displays the Overview graph information including accepted shares and hash rate.
• Properly creates and displays graph of the individual Gridseed Mini ASIC unit.
• Security updates to the base Linux system.
• Raspberry Pi firmware updates.
• Addition of Gridseed specific mining profile within IFMI.

Coming soon:

• Scriptor 8X FPGA unit support with IFMI specific mining profile within IFMI.
• Updated HowTo use StarMiner documentation.

[LinuxETC]

Files for the recent release (12-May-2014) are available now for download from SourceForge and can be found here.

[LinuxETC]

Here are a few screen shots of a Linux ETC client's x9 (#10 has a bad plug unfortunately ) Gridseed Mini ASIC units + StarMiner working quite nicely.  The Gridseed Mini's are not modified, running at 850Mhz (so ~360kh/s per ASIC unit).



The blue shows the consistent combined hash rate of all x9 ASIC units (have to love consistency! ).  The green is the number of shares accepted by the mining pool(s) at that time.  



Just an image of one of the nine Gridseed ASIC mini stats.  Same color scheme depiction as well.  

Also do note, the "uptime" since there are miners out there citing issues with other controller images/software who cannot consistently mine for more than a few hours.  We have had this system running for a few days actually.  The "uptime" is actually for the specific ASIC mining profile ("cgminer-gridseed" in this case) running, which unfortunately resets if one changes the profile.  

[Raptor2213]

Fired this up today, but I'm having a few problems.  Running my miner from my desktop, I get no errors.  Running it from StarMiner, I get around a 5% HW error rate.  It also only seems to run for 30-60 min before it crashes and will not start up again.  The web-based application is also running very slowly.  Each page is taking 30-60 seconds to load.  I've tried other Pi miners without this delay.

I'm running 3 Gridseed 5-chip miners off a D-link hub.

[LinuxETC]

Fired this up today, but I'm having a few problems.  Running my miner from my desktop, I get no errors.  Running it from StarMiner, I get around a 5% HW error rate.  It also only seems to run for 30-60 min before it crashes and will not start up again.  The web-based application is also running very slowly.  Each page is taking 30-60 seconds to load.  I've tried other Pi miners without this delay.

I'm running 3 Gridseed 5-chip miners off a D-link hub.

Run starhelpme and send us the URL provided at the end of such directly via private message here or via a Support Ticket on SourceForge.

[LinuxETC]

The web-based application is also running very slowly.  Each page is taking 30-60 seconds to load.  I've tried other Pi miners without this delay.

This is something we are quite aware of and are working on.  The webUI is Perl based running on Apache at this time, both of which take a bit of system resources to run (not including a mining application also running at the same time).  A Raspberry Pi is just an ARM CPU with 512MB of RAM as well.

More to come on this, so stay tuned.

[Raptor2213]

Fired this up today, but I'm having a few problems.  Running my miner from my desktop, I get no errors.  Running it from StarMiner, I get around a 5% HW error rate.  It also only seems to run for 30-60 min before it crashes and will not start up again.  The web-based application is also running very slowly.  Each page is taking 30-60 seconds to load.  I've tried other Pi miners without this delay.

I'm running 3 Gridseed 5-chip miners off a D-link hub.

Run starhelpme and send us the URL provided at the end of such directly via private message here or via a Support Ticket on SourceForge.

I shut it off yesterday and swapped back to the other machine.  I attempted to do this, but I can't even SSH into it today - connection refused.  Web UI still connects on the same IP.

[LinuxETC]

I shut it off yesterday and swapped back to the other machine.  I attempted to do this, but I can't even SSH into it today - connection refused.  Web UI still connects on the same IP.

Sounds like SSH did not start properly on StarMiner.

If you can access the Raspberry Pi via a terminal (i.e., plug a USB keyboard and HDMI monitor into it), you can start SSH by service ssh restart.  Worst case, restart the Raspberry Pi system as a whole since SSH is set to start by default.

[Raptor2213]

I shut it off yesterday and swapped back to the other machine.  I attempted to do this, but I can't even SSH into it today - connection refused.  Web UI still connects on the same IP.

Sounds like SSH did not start properly on StarMiner.

If you can access the Raspberry Pi via a terminal (i.e., plug a USB keyboard and HDMI monitor into it), you can start SSH by service ssh restart.  Worst case, restart the Raspberry Pi system as a whole since SSH is set to start by default.

Think I figured it out.  Your OS is VERY picky.  I'd run an apt-get update/upgrade to see if updated versions fixed some of the slowness issues. 
SSH won't run because it's not the expected version, and I'm betting that's the problem with everything else too.

[LinuxETC]

Think I figured it out.  Your OS is VERY picky.  I'd run an apt-get update/upgrade to see if updated versions fixed some of the slowness issues.  
SSH won't run because it's not the expected version, and I'm betting that's the problem with everything else too.

Actually, it sounds like you broke Raspbian (which is the OS being used here, not "our OS", a community made one for reference) by doing apt-get upgrade and thus, is not suggested nor advised due to reasons like this.  I would suggest re-imaging StarMiner with the 12 May 2014 release and starting over to correct the issues from doing the apt-get upgrade.

The releases we push out on SourceForge are done to correct issues with the base OS (= Raspbian) for reference and update other aspects not covered by the OS's package manager.  Just because something is perceived to be "slow" (in this case) is NOT a good reason to try and do a manual upgrade on a system.  We do quite a bit of QA and testing prior to putting out a release as well, however we are also human and do not catch everything possible.  We aim for the best case scenario which is a stable and working version of StarMiner.

As noted previously, we are aware of the "slowness" with the webUI.  However, the miner application runs properly and at full capacity which is the more important aspect.  Any webUI in general is in the end "eye candy" and a layer on top of the actual mining application itself.  Granted, the webUI is meant to make things "easier" for the end user, yes.

[LinuxETC]

I would like to extend a "thank you" to schnauzr for posting a Review (five stars as well!) on StarMiner's SourceForge project page. 

Happy and profitable mining to all!

[LinuxETC]

02 June 2014 version release notes and change log:
Files for download from SourceForge can be found here.

• Added Zeus Miner ASIC support to command line scripts and webUI profiles.
• Fixed OpenSSH and OpenSSL issues so that end users attempting to run apt-get upgrade will not "muck up" either service as reported on Bitcoin Talk forum.
• Security updates to the base Linux system.
• Raspberry Pi firmware updates.

[LinuxETC]

Great!  Thanks for the heads up.

The recent release is now up on SourceForge under the Files available for download.  

Do note, since Linux ETC does not have any Zeus Miner ASIC units on hand (with the recent threads on the LitecoinTalk forums, I am a little glad as well     ), so we have only done some testing and thus quality control/analysis with a few members in the community indirectly.  Any testing and/or feed back outside of "the webUI is slow" is quite welcomed.  If someone wants to donate a Blizzard (or GAW's Fury, with out the PSU melting or pieces falling off of the ASIC of course ), we do welcome such.

The initial settings for the Zeus Miner ASIC is also for the "Blizzard" unit (= GAW's "Fury" unit), so this will need to be changed (the chips-count parameter) for other ASIC units slightly.  These should be as follows going from Zeus Miner's web page:

• Blizzard (= GAW's Fury) = 6
• Hurricane X3 (=GAW's Black Widow) = 64
• Thunder X2 (= unknown GAW unit) = 96
• Thunder X3 (= GAW's Falcon) = 128
• Unknown unit (= GAW's War Machine) = 256

[LinuxETC]

We are awaiting some information from beekeeper to help with the webUI here at this time.  We apologize for the delay (we were hoping to have a version out late last week    ), but wanted the release to have a majority (if not all) of the current webUI functioning versus partially.

This release will actually be specific for FPGA (versus ASIC) mining units for reference due to the changes potentially needed to the webUI.

More to come soon.  Thanks for everyone's patience and support as well.

[LinuxETC]

04 June 2014 version release notes and change log:
Files for download from SourceForge can be found here.

• Fixes the Zeus Miner configuration file to match the StarMiner test configuration properly.

[Suika]

I went ahead and gave StarMiner a try and it has been working pretty well so far!  I'm running 3 GAWMiners Furies (Zeus Blizzard) on it, and I just thought I'd share my experiences with anyone else who wants to run multiple GAW/Zeus miners with StarMiner.  You will need to edit the SeedManager config settings for the miner to manually configure each miner's search parameter, like so:

http://img.psiblade.net/gawstarminer.jpg

Since I am running 3 Furies, I specified the USB port for each one.  It will generally start at USB0 and increment by one from there, so just add as many as you have devices.  Once you do this, just restart the profile and you should have all of your miners hashing away!  You can always ssh into the Pi and type the "starsc" command to view the miner console to make sure it found them all.  Hope this helps!

@LinuxETC:

Thanks for StarMiner!  I hope you'll be able to optimize the web front end to give it better performance in the future!

[LinuxETC]

I went ahead and gave StarMiner a try and it has been working pretty well so far!  I'm running 3 GAWMiners Furies (Zeus Blizzard) on it, and I just thought I'd share my experiences with anyone else who wants to run multiple GAW/Zeus miners with StarMiner.  You will need to edit the SeedManager config settings for the miner to manually configure each miner's search parameter, like so:



Since I am running 3 Furies, I specified the USB port for each one.  It will generally start at USB0 and increment by one from there, so just add as many as you have devices.  Once you do this, just restart the profile and you should have all of your miners hashing away!  You can always ssh into the Pi and type the "starsc" command to view the miner console to make sure it found them all.  Hope this helps!

@LinuxETC:

Thanks for StarMiner!  I hope you'll be able to optimize the web front end to give it better performance in the future!

@Suika:

Thanks for the compliments.  For reference, we are doing an updated release that should incorporate specific Gridseed and Zeus Miner (or GAW Miner's rebranded warez) to help facilitate easier start up.  Your note above though is a good suggestion since there were a few people on the LitecoinTalk.org thread inquiring about similar.

As for the "improved web front end performance", we are also looking into that as well.  However, (granted, there is some latency), the webUI currently "works".  So the recent priority is for better and easier "get going and start mining now with <insert your ASIC unit here>" for the general masses of "StarMiner groupies".

[LinuxETC]

07 June 2014 version release notes and change log:
Files for download from SourceForge can be found here.

• Created multiple configuration profiles for individual Gridseed and Zeus Miner ASIC units including the following:
  
  • Gridseed Mini.
  • Gridseed Blade.
  • Zeus Miner Blizzard.
  • Zeus Miner Hurricane X2.
  • Zeus Miner Thunder X3.
  and also included profiles matching the Zeus Miner ASIC units "rebranded" by GAW Miners.  These default configurations are made for using only one (1) ASIC unit.  Depending on the ASIC brand, the end user will need to adjust accordingly to account for multiple ASIC units being controlled by StarMiner.
  

• Updated all of the StarMiner scripts accordingly to work with the previously noted configuration profiles.
• Updated Raspberry Pi Linux kernel/firmware.
• Applied security updates to Raspbian including recent OpenSSL issues (05 June 2014 announced ones).

Possible issues and considerations:

• Due to Zeus Miner ASIC units being released with cgminer v3.1.1 (versus a "more recent" version such as currently v4.3.4), thus using an older API version, the webUI will not display the individual ASIC miner units at this time. We are aware of this. However, everything else should function "normally".
• Due to StarMiner being able to support Gridseed and Zeus Miner ASICs, it is strongly advised NOT to attempt to use a single StarMiner Raspberry Pi unit to control a mix of both types of ASIC units. This is due to the limitations of a Raspberry Pi being just an ARM CPU with 512MB of RAM running a single mining application and webUI with statistical data reporting. Unfortunately, this "little guy" (the Raspberry Pi that is) can only handle so much.