p2pool - Decentralized, Absolutely DoS-Proof, Pool Hopping-Proof Pool [archival]

[forrestv]

Another doubt is: what happens with all of yesterday's work? It's remembered by the network and will be payed if a block is found, or it's wasted?

It's forgotten. p2pool pays the last N shares (PPLNS payout method, used by several other pools too), which is provably fair and invulnerable to pool hopping. It does seem kind of unfair now, but once p2pool grows to get one block per day, all work will get a payout.

So everytime I stop the pool -let's say to launch the latest git version, or to change the payment address- I lose all work of every worker? I think that this has to be worked out. I understand PPLNS, and let's say that I agree with its fairness. Anyway, downtimes will always happens, and I think that that work shouldn't be wasted.

Ah, sorry, no! Your work is remembered in the sharechain that all nodes hold. However, that sharechain is only 17280 shares (~1 day) long, so your contributions fall off the end after about a day. Restarting the program doesn't affect this.

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[Stephen Gornick]

I read that those mining namecoin on P2Pool found their first block today?  Congrats!

[burp]

I read that those mining namecoin on P2Pool found their first block today?  Congrats!

4 Namecoin blocks so far   

[Tril]

• Dropping of old shares - p2pool's memory usage no longer grows slowly over time

How about disk usage? I stopped running p2pool since shares.dat grew to 1.8GB!  I did not expect this.

[forrestv]

• Dropping of old shares - p2pool's memory usage no longer grows slowly over time

How about disk usage? I stopped running p2pool since shares.dat grew to 1.8GB!  I did not expect this.

That was completely fixed - p2pool now uses numbered files named bitcoin_shares.### and deletes old ones automatically.

[LightRider]

http://onlyonetv.com/watch-live/

Jeff Garzik just mentioned P2Pool at his conference talk!

[forrestv]

P2Pool generated its first block! http://blockexplorer.com/block/000000000000046acff93b0e76cd10490551bf871ce9ac9fad62e67a07ff1d1e

[LightRider]

P2Pool generated its first block! http://blockexplorer.com/block/000000000000046acff93b0e76cd10490551bf871ce9ac9fad62e67a07ff1d1e

Great! Although, my actual payout is nowhere near the estimated payout.

[forrestv]

P2Pool generated its first block! http://blockexplorer.com/block/000000000000046acff93b0e76cd10490551bf871ce9ac9fad62e67a07ff1d1e

Great! Although, my actual payout is nowhere near the estimated payout.

The 'Payout if block' estimate is the number that you'd get if _you_ solved the block. There is a 0.25 BTC reward that goes to the solver, and that number includes it. You didn't solve the block this time, so you didn't get it.

This was an oversight from when the p2pool hashrate was low, and a .25 BTC difference in the payout wasn't obvious... Sorry, working on a patch for that now.

[BombaUcigasa]

This is truly an achievement for humanity as is the whole bitcoin idea. I prototyped how a free p2p bitcoin exchange would work, and I found many of the technical concepts already used in your project.

Why do your blocks include only the generation transaction? Where are the network transactions? Is this a bug that will be fixed, or it is just that there were no transactions broadcasted to the lucky miner?

[forrestv]

Q: how you will deal whit botnets ?

Sorry, was writing a reply to this but lost it somehow.

A botnet would have to simultaneously overwhelm the bandwidth of all the P2Pool nodes in order to prevent mining from taking place. This would get more and more difficult as the number of people using P2Pool grows.

Also, there is a way to prevent this: People can connect to only trusted nodes, so their IP isn't advertised to be DoS'd. They could have two internet connections and make the trusted connections over one and the untrusted ones over another, if they want.

[forrestv]

Why do your blocks include only the generation transaction? Where are the network transactions? Is this a bug that will be fixed, or it is just that there were no transactions broadcasted to the lucky miner?

Bitcoin needs a patch to expose transactions to be included in blocks.

First there was https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/324 . That was superseded by https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/476 , which is being discussed ... or will be.

[BombaUcigasa]

A botnet would have to simultaneously overwhelm the bandwidth of all the P2Pool nodes in order to prevent mining from taking place. This would get more and more difficult as the number of people using P2Pool grows.

Also, there is a way to prevent this: People can connect to only trusted nodes, so their IP isn't advertised to be DoS'd. They could have two internet connections and make the trusted connections over one and the untrusted ones over another, if they want.

What about "defector" and "reflector" type of attacks, where botnet agents impersonate real peers and abuse real peers by broadcasting spam or preventing broadcasting, or they dump fake shares (I need to read the code thoroughly, but would it be possible that a majority of botnet peers in the pool could validate their own fake shares and receive undeserved rewards?)

Is the NAT transversal method able to connect any non-firewalled NAT peers? What about peers behind two levels of NAT routing? Can this project be adapted to work p2p through a SOCKS proxy or Tor?

[BombaUcigasa]

i dint made the best question

Now you just made it worse. Try again. Use more sentences. Use a linear narration structure. Use complete words.

[forrestv]

atm pool OP ban botnets if there is a p2p pool a mining botnet just need to add a pool cloned from yours on the infected PC and the problem is solved nobody can ban their mining botnet

Oh, botnets using the pool to mine! Well, there's nothing I can do about that ... if their botnet nodes can speak the p2pool protocol, they'll look like any other node.

But why would a botnet operator use a pool anyway? I'd think that they'd have enough power to mine solo.

[BombaUcigasa]

But why would a botnet operator use a pool anyway? I'd think that they'd have enough power to mine solo.

What if they don't have the power to mine, but instead have sufficient power to disrupt the peers using the protocol? Remember that a 1000 computers botnet can cost as little as 9BTC per hour.

[forrestv]

Attacks that target the entire network by creating invalid shares are impossible. No node will repeat a share that is invalid, and the difficulty of shares will increase to keep them at a steady rate ... so the only way to affect the network is by mining, besides DoSing individual nodes.

[norulezapply]

So according to the wiki, p2pool has a withheld 0.5% fee.
Where exactly does this 0.5% fee go to? OP?

[bal3wolf]

i thk it goes to the block finder .25 for the node or person finds the block.

[forrestv]

So according to the wiki, p2pool has a withheld 0.5% fee.
Where exactly does this 0.5% fee go to? OP?

Yes, and another 0.5% to the block finder to disincentivize withholding blocks.