complete CD/USB/PXE bootable p2pool miner - p2pcoin

[kjj]

The name is confusing.  Makes me think it's another altcoin.

I took linuxcoin and added p2pool.  The first name that popped into my head was p2pcoin, and as far as I can tell, nothing else is using that name.

I'm open to suggestions, but I don't really think it is confusing.

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[stevegee58]

Everything including forum usernames has a combination of the words "bit", "coin", "pool", "BTC" etc in them.  What's to be confused about?

[Red Emerald]

I would be careful here.  After months of field testing with BAMT (a usb based linux that makes every attempt not to write to the USB more than required) we see that some USB keys will die after a surprisingly short time (sometimes only a few weeks, with considerably less writes than running p2pool would generate).  It varies greatly from one model of key to another, but I would expect crappy keys to die in a matter of days running p2pool.  Maybe you don't care, but it would be best to warn users of this potential clearly.

If you are doing everything you can to avoid writes, and you are still killing drives, the problem is the drives.  I'll put a note at the top, but the answer in p2pcoin is to boot from CD or PXE if anyone is concerned about their flash drive.  Or even just not bother taking the extra time to add persistent storage.

So when you reboot you have to download the block chain again? That sounds like it could add a lot of downtime.

EDIT: Oh. you mention rsync. I missed that.  This sounds nice for someone with only one miner.

[kjj]

I would be careful here.  After months of field testing with BAMT (a usb based linux that makes every attempt not to write to the USB more than required) we see that some USB keys will die after a surprisingly short time (sometimes only a few weeks, with considerably less writes than running p2pool would generate).  It varies greatly from one model of key to another, but I would expect crappy keys to die in a matter of days running p2pool.  Maybe you don't care, but it would be best to warn users of this potential clearly.

If you are doing everything you can to avoid writes, and you are still killing drives, the problem is the drives.  I'll put a note at the top, but the answer in p2pcoin is to boot from CD or PXE if anyone is concerned about their flash drive.  Or even just not bother taking the extra time to add persistent storage.

So when you reboot you have to download the block chain again? That sounds like it could add a lot of downtime.

EDIT: Oh. you mention rsync. I missed that.  This sounds nice for someone with only one miner.

It is even nicer for someone with a fleet of miners that wants to configure once and walk away.

I have 4 rigs, each with 1 to 3 cards.  After I made the 0.1 release this morning, I copied it up to my PXE server and rebooted all of the boxes.  Bam, I'm done.  If I didn't have PXE, I could just burn 4 CDs or write 4 new flash drives and swap them.  Since all of the details are stored on the network, I don't have to customize the CD or USB stick for each rig.

Also, if you have enough RAM to use the RAM disk for bitcoin, but you also have persistent storage, stopping the bitcoin service cleanly (which happens during a normal reboot) will update the stored copy.  When it comes back up, it will only have to catch up to what happened when it was down.

[Red Emerald]

I would be careful here.  After months of field testing with BAMT (a usb based linux that makes every attempt not to write to the USB more than required) we see that some USB keys will die after a surprisingly short time (sometimes only a few weeks, with considerably less writes than running p2pool would generate).  It varies greatly from one model of key to another, but I would expect crappy keys to die in a matter of days running p2pool.  Maybe you don't care, but it would be best to warn users of this potential clearly.

If you are doing everything you can to avoid writes, and you are still killing drives, the problem is the drives.  I'll put a note at the top, but the answer in p2pcoin is to boot from CD or PXE if anyone is concerned about their flash drive.  Or even just not bother taking the extra time to add persistent storage.

So when you reboot you have to download the block chain again? That sounds like it could add a lot of downtime.

EDIT: Oh. you mention rsync. I missed that.  This sounds nice for someone with only one miner.

It is even nicer for someone with a fleet of miners that wants to configure once and walk away.

I have 4 rigs, each with 1 to 3 cards.  After I made the 0.1 release this morning, I copied it up to my PXE server and rebooted all of the boxes.  Bam, I'm done.  If I didn't have PXE, I could just burn 4 CDs or write 4 new flash drives and swap them.  Since all of the details are stored on the network, I don't have to customize the CD or USB stick for each rig.

Also, if you have enough RAM to use the RAM disk for bitcoin, but you also have persistent storage, stopping the bitcoin service cleanly (which happens during a normal reboot) will update the stored copy.  When it comes back up, it will only have to catch up to what happened when it was down.

With a fleet of rigs, I feel like BAMT is a better choice.  Running a p2pool node on every one of your miners is unnecessary.

[kjj]

With a fleet of rigs, I feel like BAMT is a better choice.  Running a p2pool node on every one of your miners is unnecessary.

Yeah, probably unnecessary.  But it takes no more effort to do.

[rTech]

0.2 torrent file is missing, fix link please so i can add it to my share machine

[Red Emerald]

With a fleet of rigs, I feel like BAMT is a better choice.  Running a p2pool node on every one of your miners is unnecessary.

Yeah, probably unnecessary.  But it takes no more effort to do.

Until updates come around.

[norulezapply]

This is a fantastic idea! Well done sir! I think i'll start using it soon myself Probably on a HDD rather than a USB stick though..

One thing I would say is please change the name! When I clicked on this I was expecting to see another crazy alt-coin!

[kjj]

0.2 torrent file is missing, fix link please so i can add it to my share machine

Fixed.  Not sure how my script missed that.  Thanks for pointing it out.

[kjj]

This is a fantastic idea! Well done sir! I think i'll start using it soon myself Probably on a HDD rather than a USB stick though..

One thing I would say is please change the name! When I clicked on this I was expecting to see another crazy alt-coin!

Because of the network provisioning, I get the best results with PXE booting and RAM drive.  No storage in my nodes at all.

Any suggestions for a new name?  I wanted to keep it similar to linuxcoin out of respect for Drgr33n's base that I built on, but clearly indicate that it uses p2pool.

With a fleet of rigs, I feel like BAMT is a better choice.  Running a p2pool node on every one of your miners is unnecessary.

Yeah, probably unnecessary.  But it takes no more effort to do.

Until updates come around.

Updates are super easy.  Just burn a new CD, write a new flash drive, or replace your PXE image, then reboot fully.

[rTech]

How about BitKnot that is short and easy to remember..

[kjj]

p2pcoin users need to update to version 0.3 ASAP.  This is due to a change in p2pool.  Sorry for the short notice.  I was out of town last week and somehow missed forrestv's post when I was catching up.

[Nyaaan]

How about BitKnot that is short and easy to remember..

That makes no sense bro, and it has the word 'bit' in it.

This is less confusing, and doesn't have bit, coin, miner, or anything in the name

[kjj]

Ha!

[RandomQ]

I tried version .3 from a DVD and USB. When booting from the DVD I got the p2pcoin screen and it just counts down from 10 and keep restarting back to 10. When I tried from USB using UNETBOOTIN it just brought up a blank terminal window with "BOOT:". I will keep watching this and test when the next version comes out.

[kjj]

I tried version .3 from a DVD and USB. When booting from the DVD I got the p2pcoin screen and it just counts down from 10 and keep restarting back to 10. When I tried from USB using UNETBOOTIN it just brought up a blank terminal window with "BOOT:". I will keep watching this and test when the next version comes out.

That's odd.  I've never seen that before.  I'll check it out tomorrow morning.

[lodcrappo]

How about BitKnot that is short and easy to remember..

That makes no sense bro, and it has the word 'bit' in it.

This is less confusing, and doesn't have bit, coin, miner, or anything in the name

may i suggest...

[rjk]

may i suggest...

Hahahahaha, awesome.

[kjj]

I tried version .3 from a DVD and USB. When booting from the DVD I got the p2pcoin screen and it just counts down from 10 and keep restarting back to 10. When I tried from USB using UNETBOOTIN it just brought up a blank terminal window with "BOOT:". I will keep watching this and test when the next version comes out.

That's odd.  I've never seen that before.  I'll check it out tomorrow morning.

Ok, the 0.3 ISO posted does fail to boot when burned to a CD.  I'll have 0.3.1 out with a fix soon.

I just tested it by using unetbootin on a Windows box to write it to a formatted USB stick.  For me, the USB boot still works fine.  Is the partition on your USB device marked as bootable?