[ANN] Puppet Master. Earn (much) more than 110% PPS.

[P4man]

@everyone who signed up;
Dont worry if you got no response yet. To accommodate everyone, Ive had to order a bigger server, right now Im waiting for btclot to set it up, and I will need a day or two after that to make sure its ready. Hopefully this weekend.

Send donations to my sig address
https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer/pull/243

P4man you might also want to look at the new 'check' command so you can check and tell your users that they haven't done it right ...

Anyway - of course this will be in the next release, not in 2.4.3 of course

Edit: Also, as per the API-README I wrote:
switchpool: cgminer v2.2.0
disablepool, enablepool: cgminer v2.3.0
addpool: cgminer v2.3.1-2
removepool: cgminer v2.3.4

--api-groups, check: next release

removepool (and disable/enable pool) isnt really needed for this phase of puppet master; it is only needed when we do contracted work, where someone can buy a mining contract, a bit like on gpumax. THis is (crudely) implemented but not used at this point, as it does require me holding coins in escrow, and frankly, there doesnt seem to be much demand for shares at >100% PPS.

As for the new version of cgminer; if this gets implemented somehow, then great. You may also want to check with Luke who is making similar changes to BFGminer, it would be nice if you implemented it in the same way.

Puppet master users are asked not to upgrade to a new version of cgminer (or bfgminer) until it has been tested with puppetmaster. I usually send out emails when I deem it safe to upgrade to a new version. Backwards compatibility with cgminer has been good so far, but I rather be safe than sorry.

As for GPUmax; Pirate did ask to limit the per user hashrate that connects/disconnects from gpumax because it causes trouble with load balancing. Ive implemented some changes to that effect and its one reason Im not accepting more than 5GH per user.

As for the API key, obviously there is a risk involved in giving the api key to someone else,  but it cant be greater than giving me full control over cgminer, which is what you do when you use puppet master. You shouldnt mine at a pool if you dont trust the pool op, and likewise, if you are afraid I will steal your hashes, dont sign up for puppetmaster.

[kano]

That list was old documentation (that I have written) for versions of when I added the pool commands to cgminer since you already stated versions - that documentation will give you the exact answers as opposed to guesses (it's in my API-README in cgminer)

I am the developer of the cgminer API from the start - so going with luke-jr's changes will not happen since I don't even know what he has done (or even if he has done it yet) and I've already told him about my changes anyway

It's already tested and implemented in the cgminer git and handles what anyone requiring a set of privileged commands given access to an IP address/subnet - it allows any set of commands of the users choice defined as available to an IP address just liek the current code already works - except with the change of allowing a set of commands rather than the current only 2 groups W: all, and non W: readonly commands.

I already said I would implement it in IRC 26-Jun 23:45 UTC and he made a comment about it in IRC to me 4hrs 40 minutes later at which point I repeated that I had already said before what I was doing and how it would be implemented (based on an idea I had months ago but no one had said they had any need of it)

The request "it would be nice if you implemented it in the same way." would be the same as me telling you how to write your pool hopping software and expecting you to change it ...

I'm rather used to making changes with no payment so I guess it will happen again to my part (API) of the cgminer software

[organofcorti]

Nice work p2man. Is Slush included in your configs? What are you using to determine when to hop them? Professional interest, you understand 

You might also want to point out that mining at multiple pools will reduce variance significantly, as an added bonus beyond pool hopping.

So, this is how Goat, Eclipse, etc. make money operating their "bonus pools"? By pool hopping? I've not even explored pool hopping, but it seems that it's abusing inaccurate payout measurement schemes at certain pools.

Did I get all that right?

Yes.

Goat did. Eclipse Mining Consortium doesn't. Maybe you meant Clipse? He claims his proxy doesn't pool hop though.

[P4man]

Emails sent out.

If you signed up and did not receive an email, check your spam box and add my email address to your contacts.

If its not in your spam box either, you probably didnt give me your email address, contact me via btc.puppet.master@gmail.com

[KIDC]

Nice work p2man. Is Slush included in your configs? What are you using to determine when to hop them? Professional interest, you understand 

You might also want to point out that mining at multiple pools will reduce variance significantly, as an added bonus beyond pool hopping.

So, this is how Goat, Eclipse, etc. make money operating their "bonus pools"? By pool hopping? I've not even explored pool hopping, but it seems that it's abusing inaccurate payout measurement schemes at certain pools.

Did I get all that right?

Yes.

Goat did. Eclipse Mining Consortium doesn't. Maybe you meant Clipse? He claims his proxy doesn't pool hop though.

I did mean Clipse, not EclipseMC. My bad.

[P4man]

The request "it would be nice if you implemented it in the same way." would be the same as me telling you how to write your pool hopping software and expecting you to change it ...

Ill have to try your changes later (or if some 2.5 users want to chime in, please do), but just to be clear: Im not saying who should define the API, I would just like to see both forks implement it the same way as much as possible, to make it easier for everyone. I know you and luke wont get through the same door, but  I was contacted by Luke shortly after making this announcement, and I told him the exact same thing: please make whatever change you make to BFGminer compatible with cgminer. I think the fork was unfortunate, and still hope BFGminer and CGminer can be merged again eventually, but even if not, there is no benefit to anyone if the API implementations are incompatible.

[kano]

The request "it would be nice if you implemented it in the same way." would be the same as me telling you how to write your pool hopping software and expecting you to change it ...

Ill have to try your changes later (or if some 2.5 users want to chime in, please do), but just to be clear: Im not saying who should define the API, I would just like to see both forks implement it the same way as much as possible, to make it easier for everyone. I know you and luke wont get through the same door, but  I was contacted by Luke shortly after making this announcement, and I told him the exact same thing: please make whatever change you make to BFGminer compatible with cgminer. I think the fork was unfortunate, and still hope BFGminer and CGminer can be merged again eventually, but even if not, there is no benefit to anyone if the API implementations are incompatible.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=78192.msg1013749#msg1013749

Also, what was the exact UTC date/time he contacted you? ... just curious

[filharvey]

How is this going for people? What sort of returns are you getting?

I'm thinking of joining it this week.

Phil

[GenTarkin]

I like it a lot so far. We have been pretty dang lucky recently. Seeing 150-200% pps. More people comin on board nearly daily! Will contiue to see how it goes

[organofcorti]

Glad to hear P2man's getting some coin for all the work he's done.

[GenTarkin]

Yeah for sure, id say hes nearly perfected hopping.

[organofcorti]

Yeah for sure, id say hes nearly perfected hopping.

Why "nearly perfected"? 150 - 200% PPS without you having to manage anything or spend hours keeping an eye on pools to check their html doesn't change, then editing the regex when it does? I haven't used it but if it does everything as advertised, I'd say it's as good as it can get.

[kano]

Though I maybe shouldn't say this
I wrote  a hopping script for the API before the version with switchpool was even released.
While writing the API code change to include 'switchpool' I immediately thought of this and thus tried it out straight away.
Worked easily enough ... and was a simple test of the change
It's easy to identify ~50% of blocks coz they say where they came from, it's the other ~50% that can be a little tricky - you need to be connected to each pools 'wallet' and see which one told you about the block first and also handle small pools/solo that come through another larger pool - however, this could be handled by knowing the wallet addresses of the pools you are hopping - and that can be done with tools like: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=88584.20 (unless it's a new address every time)

[GenTarkin]

Yeah for sure, id say hes nearly perfected hopping.

Why "nearly perfected"? 150 - 200% PPS without you having to manage anything or spend hours keeping an eye on pools to check their html doesn't change, then editing the regex when it does? I haven't used it but if it does everything as advertised, I'd say it's as good as it can get.

I said nearly perfect because perfect would be predicting all blocks with 100% accuracy. Thats simply not possible but this is pretty dang close!

[wildemagic]

I love being a puppet !

Nice work p4man.

kind regards

[wildemagic]

Wish it wasnt so cloudy, then I would have more photons to generate electrons to generate bitcoins <grins>

kind regards

[juhakall]

After setting up all my miners, I noticed that one of them started with a very high fee balance compared to any of my other miners. The balance was over 2000 shares right after the miner showed up on the list. I'm just curious whether this is working as intended, since all the other miners (even including the obscured ones) have much lower fee balances.

I understood that the fee balance grows steadily by 1 share for every 20 shares a user has submitted to his own pool accounts. However, this miner that had a fee balance of over 2000 right away had already been mining for about a day and half at ~1400MH/s before I set up the port forward. I only restarted it afterwards to change my api settings and add the pools, but the old settings allowed read-only access too. Could Puppet Master have picked those 40k+ shares that I had submitted before actually using it, and calculated them on the fee? At least the math would add up. In that case, the initial fee would be uncalled for, and for some other users, this problem might be even worse.

[P4man]

After setting up all my miners, I noticed that one of them started with a very high fee balance compared to any of my other miners. The balance was over 2000 shares right after the miner showed up on the list. I'm just curious whether this is working as intended, since all the other miners (even including the obscured ones) have much lower fee balances.

I understood that the fee balance grows steadily by 1 share for every 20 shares a user has submitted to his own pool accounts. However, this miner that had a fee balance of over 2000 right away had already been mining for about a day and half at ~1400MH/s before I set up the port forward. I only restarted it afterwards to change my api settings and add the pools, but the old settings allowed read-only access too. Could Puppet Master have picked those 40k+ shares that I had submitted before actually using it, and calculated them on the fee? At least the math would add up. In that case, the initial fee would be uncalled for, and for some other users, this problem might be even worse.

You guessed right. Most new users that join have very recently restarted cgminer so we are talking about a handful of shares, if that, and even then I usually manually deduct the amount of "old" shares from the fees; in your case, I was asleep and your machine had been running for days, which is why the above happened. Once puppetmaster collected the initial stats, restarting cgminer no longer helps, as ppm keeps a rolling history.

But fear not, its all in the db, whatever you paid in fees is credited, Ill reset your stats.

[abracadabra]

watching 

[P4man]

watching  

This is a boring thread to watch Im afraid. No 50 pages of drama explaining why which server was down when, why rejects where high or payments delayed. Ill leave it up to you do decide wether that is because no one is using it, or because Puppet Master "just works".