Phoenix - Efficient, fast, modular miner

[Veldy]

We certainly appreciate everyone rushing to try it, and provide feedback. Thank you very much!

We know what the problem with speed is. Our test environment uses SDK 2.4, which didn't require a worksize since the default of 256 was providing the best results. We're adding a WORKSIZE option to the kernel right now, (an equivalent to poclbm's -w) that should help you tweak it a bit more for other SDK versions.

Thank you for your patience!

I know that this is a little old now, but I thought I would throw in one stat.  With poclbm, -w 128 peforms FAR better than -w 256 on the 6970 and almost certainly the same goes for the 6990.  Are there any ATI/AMD cards out there that actually work better with 256 used?

This may have more to do with the type of work being done than with the hardware, SDK or capabilities of the card, but I am just hypothesizing about that.

[twich12]

quick noob question... what should my command line look like for solo mining with phoenix 1.3?

[jedi95]

We certainly appreciate everyone rushing to try it, and provide feedback. Thank you very much!

We know what the problem with speed is. Our test environment uses SDK 2.4, which didn't require a worksize since the default of 256 was providing the best results. We're adding a WORKSIZE option to the kernel right now, (an equivalent to poclbm's -w) that should help you tweak it a bit more for other SDK versions.

Thank you for your patience!

I know that this is a little old now, but I thought I would throw in one stat.  With poclbm, -w 128 peforms FAR better than -w 256 on the 6970 and almost certainly the same goes for the 6990.  Are there any ATI/AMD cards out there that actually work better with 256 used?

This may have more to do with the type of work being done than with the hardware, SDK or capabilities of the card, but I am just hypothesizing about that.

With SDK 2.4 I get better results on my 5870 with 256 worksize vs 128. This option was added so users could pick the optimal worksize for their own configuration as with poclbm.

[dishwara]

I tired around with 3-5 hours to see the difference btw 128 & 256 worksize with pocblm some 4-5 weeks back.
Even though -w256 gives more hash, i got ~3Mhash more from 269MH to 273MH, the number of shares submitted per hour get reduced.
-W128 mines with 1-5 less Mhash, but the number of shares submitted was more.
So, on end the number of shares submitted only speaks.
Have to test worksize 256 & 128 with phoenix.

[kindle]

You might be interested in my other project, Multiminer, which we use for our (jedi95 and I) cluster's status page. I have a Windows download here (or you can get the source off GitHub) and it's pretty easy to run:

multiminer --admin-user=admin --admin-pass=admin101 --web-port=80 --url=http://PoolUsername:PoolPassword@PoolHost:8332/

Then change your Phoenix URLs to mmp://admin:admin101@localhost?name=NameForThisWorker (Phoenix already supports the protocol)
And finally you can throw JSON-RPC requests at http://admin:admin101@localhost - try listconnections() to see your worker status.
You can also put an index.html in "www" and have it do some JQuery magic to view your workers.

The only drawback is Multiminer doesn't have its own logs (yet), but you will know it's working when your miners pick up work and start mining through it.

Hi CFSworks, I am intrigue by how to get this to run locally on my bitcoind server. I was testing out with different askrates and found this post which seems like a efficient way to distribute work to the miners. My question is if I have a pc running bitcoind server, should I run the multiminer on that server? Also what are the --admin-user and --admin-pass indicating? Are they the bitcoin.config file password? Also I dont plan to display this information on a webpage as I do not have a webserver running, so does that mean that I dont have to run web port 80? Thanks!

[CFSworks]

Hi CFSworks, I am intrigue by how to get this to run locally on my bitcoind server. I was testing out with different askrates and found this post which seems like a efficient way to distribute work to the miners. My question is if I have a pc running bitcoind server, should I run the multiminer on that server? Also what are the --admin-user and --admin-pass indicating? Are they the bitcoin.config file password? Also I dont plan to display this information on a webpage as I do not have a webserver running, so does that mean that I dont have to run web port 80? Thanks!

Glad to hear you're interested!

The --url argument works exactly the same way as -u in Phoenix. In fact, it uses the exact same code, so anything usable with Phoenix works with that.
The admin-user and admin-pass arguments specify the administrator account on Multiminer, which can be used to log workers into the server and, since it is an administrator, hit Multiminer with JSON-RPC queries.

In short, you would use something like this:
multiminer --admin-user=admin --admin-pass=admin101 --web-port=80 --url=http://BitcoinUsername:BitcionPassword@localhost:8332/
EDIT: You can also specify a parameter like -b 30 and it will send 1/4 the work to each miner, which is a bit more efficient. You'd have to play with it a little though.
EDIT: As with Phoenix 1.4, the default askrate is 10, but you can change it with ;askrate=X, as in Phoenix.

And then you would connect Phoenix to Multiminer via MMP, with this URL: mmp://admin:admin101@localhost?name=SomeName

Of course, you are free to change the username and password for the admin account.

It's also worth noting that Multiminer is a complete webserver (the web-port=80 makes it run on the default HTTP port) that serves pages from the "www" directory, which means you can put a stats page in there to quickly see how your miners are doing, which is what jedi95 and I did.
You can also hit it with JSON-RPC requests. It's compatible with RPC miners (although it doesn't offer long-polling yet)

[kindle]

Glad to hear you're interested!

The --url argument works exactly the same way as -u in Phoenix. In fact, it uses the exact same code, so anything usable with Phoenix works with that.
The admin-user and admin-pass arguments specify the administrator account on Multiminer, which can be used to log workers into the server and, since it is an administrator, hit Multiminer with JSON-RPC queries.

In short, you would use something like this:
multiminer --admin-user=admin --admin-pass=admin101 --web-port=80 --url=http://BitcoinUsername:BitcionPassword@localhost:8332/
EDIT: You can also specify a parameter like -b 30 and it will send 1/4 the work to each miner, which is a bit more efficient. You'd have to play with it a little though.
EDIT: As with Phoenix 1.4, the default askrate is 10, but you can change it with ;askrate=X, as in Phoenix.

And then you would connect Phoenix to Multiminer via MMP, with this URL: mmp://admin:admin101@localhost?name=SomeName

Of course, you are free to change the username and password for the admin account.

It's also worth noting that Multiminer is a complete webserver (the web-port=80 makes it run on the default HTTP port) that serves pages from the "www" directory, which means you can put a stats page in there to quickly see how your miners are doing, which is what jedi95 and I did.
You can also hit it with JSON-RPC requests. It's compatible with RPC miners (although it doesn't offer long-polling yet)

Hi thanks for the prompt and comprehensive guide. Please advice on my current bat file, I have the client reporting that failed to connect retrying.

Server
start /DD:\multiminer-1.4 multiminer.exe --admin-user=btc --admin-pass=asdqwe --web-port=80 -b 30 --url=btc:asdqwe:8332/

Client

start /DZ:\Dropbox\BTC\phoenix phoenix.exe -u mmp://btc:asdqwe@192.168.1.8?5850/ DEVICE=0 VECTORS AGGRESSION=7 FASTLOOP -v BFI_INT -k poclbm

Also with regards to webserver, is it the ip address of the bitcoind server? Meaning if its 192.168.1.8 its just 192.168.1.8/8883 when entering into the web browser? Also After executing the multiminer does it show a cmd window ? Cuz when i did run it closes immediately.

[CFSworks]

Try this:

Server

Code:

start /DD:\multiminer-1.4 multiminer.exe --admin-user=btc --admin-pass=asdqwe --web-port=80 -b 30 --url=http://btc:asdqwe@localhost:8332/

Client

Code:

start /DZ:\Dropbox\BTC\phoenix phoenix.exe -u mmp://btc:asdqwe@192.168.1.8?name=5850 -k poclbm DEVICE=0 VECTORS AGGRESSION=7 FASTLOOP BFI_INT

And yes, the webserver in that case would be http://192.168.1.8/ and it would serve up your D:\multiminer-1.4\www\index.html file... If you want it to display a status page, you might have to ask someone to put together an index.rpy to show status. The one jedi95 and I made is pretty disorganized and we'd rather not put it out in the open, but if you ask around I'm sure you'll be able to find someone happy to build one for you.

[kindle]

Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "multiminer.py", line 114, in <module>
  File "multiminer.py", line 109, in main
  File "ClusterServer.pyc", line 102, in start
  File "WebServer.pyc", line 39, in start
  File "twisted\internet\posixbase.pyc", line 419, in listenTCP
  File "twisted\internet\tcp.pyc", line 857, in startListening
twisted.internet.error.CannotListenError: Couldn't listen on any:80: [Errno 1004
8] Only one usage of each socket address (protocol/network address/port) is norm
ally permitted.

Hi this is what I got from the error message after editting the script to the one you mentioned

[kindle]

Oh solved it...I think the teamviewer is using port 80. Btw thanks for your help. Is mmp more efficient compared to the usual rpc?

[jedi95]

Oh solved it...I think the teamviewer is using port 80. Btw thanks for your help. Is mmp more efficient compared to the usual rpc?

It is, see this from the original Multiminer thread:

It's also considerably more efficient than JSON-RPC: Requesting more work from the server requires 6 bytes from the client and 170 from the server. (Compare this with 47/605 for JSON-RPC... and that's not counting HTTP headers)

[kindle]

It's also considerably more efficient than JSON-RPC: Requesting more work from the server requires 6 bytes from the client and 170 from the server. (Compare this with 47/605 for JSON-RPC... and that's not counting HTTP headers)

Hi im curious as to how this is compared to pool mining. After using pool mining for awhile, I was thinking of using the same approach (smaller work difficulty to individual miners) for the local mining rigs set up. So far using bitcoind and mmp it seems like it is not the same compared to pool mining approach. As the more gpu is added to my local network, I guess running it like a mini pool would be more efficient compared to all connected using the normal method?

Btw running the multiminer, the cmd does not reflect anything after I keyed the command strings in. Is that normal ?

[anatolikostis]

I don`t know about other phoenix versions but it seems that new gui miner has similar speed.

[subotai]

Some chance to see the version of the Cuda miner

[slush]

jedu95, thanks for new very fast miner. I have one question - many users complaining about connection troubles while using more computers with my pool. Do you have any idea why it should not work? All other miners - poclbm, diablo, jgarzik etc does not have such problem. I don't have any limits on RPC connection, so I don't see the reason why it should not work... Thanks for your reply in advance.

[jedi95]

jedu95, thanks for new very fast miner. I have one question - many users complaining about connection troubles while using more computers with my pool. Do you have any idea why it should not work? All other miners - poclbm, diablo, jgarzik etc does not have such problem. I don't have any limits on RPC connection, so I don't see the reason why it should not work... Thanks for your reply in advance.

I looked into this but I can't see any reason that the miner would be unable to connect to some pools but work fine on others. I can't reproduce the problem either, so it's likely that the problem was system specific and not miner specific.

The problems I was having with slushes pool have gone away and it will now connect. I noticed this was happening with other miners as well so I don't think this was ever anything specific to Phoenix.

If anyone else is having this problem please post your system details and the command line you are using. Also please try with other miners too, since if other miners do it as well you probably have a system issue.

[cosurgi]

If anyone else is having this problem please post your system details and the command line you are using. Also please try with other miners too, since if other miners do it as well you probably have a system issue.

did you try mining from two PCs, both using the same external IP? I think that's the condition which triggers the problem.

[jedi95]

If anyone else is having this problem please post your system details and the command line you are using. Also please try with other miners too, since if other miners do it as well you probably have a system issue.

did you try mining from two PCs, both using the same external IP? I think that's the condition which triggers the problem.

I tried 3 computes at once with a total of 9 instances of Phoenix. It worked as expected.

[cosurgi]

I tried 3 computes at once with a total of 9 instances of Phoenix. It worked as expected.

I have debian squeeze, clean install. which package versions do you need?

python-pyopencl                                                          0.92-1
ati-opencl-runtime                                                       2.1
python-twisted                                                           10.1.0-3
python                                                                   2.6.6-3+squeeze2

kernel  2.6.32-5-686

anything else?

[slush]

I tried 3 computes at once with a total of 9 instances of Phoenix. It worked as expected.

I tried it on my two rigs and had this problem, too. It must be specific to the miner, because I used diablo and poclbm without any problem before.

Once I started at least one phoenix miner, other miners on second machine suddenly stopped working. More phoenix miners on the same machine works without problem. I tried to stop pool's firewall (where are some advanced anti-DoS techniques enabled), but no difference. Currently I have absolute no idea where the problem can be and problem indices sounds really weird. My two rigs aren't linked together in any way, they are even mining under separate pool accounts and I have no other limitations on the pool except the firewall. As this problem occured only with phoenix, there must be _something_ different than in other miners... Still no idea?