What is the best way to confirm that the miners are hooked up to the pool correctly with my correct BTC address? Is it as simple as the console saying "Connected to solo.ckpool.org diff 442 with stratum as user ***btc address***"?
Was curious if I could easily join a shared pool and how that works. Can I simply join a shared pool and they payout my share? Would love to see confirmation of payment to address from a pool whether it's solo or shared.
Really just trying to make sure it's working properly in the super rare case a block is mined.
Yes, you can see the output of your miner, it will say where you are connected, and what's happening. That should be enough.
Also, every pool will offer you some kind of dashboard that you can connect to, and see what's happening to confirm this.
For example, with solo ck pool you just need to put your BTC address in this page and hit enter:
https://solo.ckpool.org Different pools have different rules to join them, some will require an account, others you can just point your miner there with your pay address as the username like ckpool.