Re: Official FutureBit Apollo II/BTC Software/Image and Support thread

@ Any Apollo II Gurus,

I have a question about what should have been a simple configuration but it stumped me nonetheless . . .

Background:
I have 9 Apollo II units, 3 of which are full node units, and 6 of which are standard units. Of the 3 full node units, I've attached 2 standard hashing units to each of the full node units. That makes 9 total. I've been running one full node unit as a SOLO node with 2 standard hashing units attached with no problems. The other two full node units with 2 attached hashing units each have been running on an "outside pool" with no problems. However, I decided to change things up and now here's where I encountered an odd issue . . . stay with me . . .

Issue:
I decided to point all of my Apollo II units to my single Apollo SOLO node and keep some other non-Apollo equipment on pool mining. BTW, everything in on LAN network, including all the Apollo's. However, when I enter the IP address (192.xxx.x.x:3333 & Username: <bitcoin address>) of the Solo Node unit into the Apollo II units that I previously had pool mining I get an error stating "invalid pool url" as if the IP entry is of the wrong nomenclature. I noticed there is no delay in the error as if the IP address was never even considered and more like an IP address can't be accepted from one Apollo to another in the interface field. So, just for fun I tested out several of my non-Apollo units and pointed them to the same Apollo SOLO node without issue using just the IP and wallet address. I also reverse tested the other 2 Apollo II full node units to act as the single SOLO node and the exact same problem occurs with the other Apollos when using just an IP and wallet address. However, I did find a workaround (I think) but that still leaves me with more questions than answers . . .

Workaround:
I eventually tried using "stratum+tcp://192.xxx.x.x:3333" in the required pool url field for the other 2 sets (2x node & 4 standard) of the Apollo II units even though all these units are on the LAN network. And it seems to work. What gives? Another FYI, I'm using headless connections via browsers - if that makes any difference. Anyway, I've never had to enter "stratum+tcp://..." on any non-Apollo units on my network to get the Apollo II SOLO NODE to recognize them, so this is confusing as it only occurs between Apollos. Any thoughts?

Lastly:
All the Apollo II units now show up as a "total" of 9 workers using the "stratum+tcp://192.xxx.x.x:3333" in the pool url field but they are not listed under the "SOLO Mining Users" category on the actual SOLO node miner even though they have ".workername" appended to the BC address. Only the combined hashboards from the solo unit are displayed. Thoughts?

Closing:
I am on v2.0.5 on all node machines. I am using headless w/browsers. All 3 nodes machines have good & high quality 16GB MicroSD cards and up-to-date 2TB NVME node cards. So, all's good under the hood there. Thoughts? Maybe a bug?

Cheers!

Has anyone come up with any ideas on the above issues? How about you jstefanop? Am I overlooking something simple?

Cheers!

I am not sure if this helps but I have 2 Avalon miners pointed to my Apollo node and I use different wallet addresses for each miner, so the solo miner page shows each miner separate with its best share and hash rate.

Thanks for the reply. Yes, by adding different wallet addresses for each miner you are actually adding different "users" to your Apollo pool and so the "User" count will go up accordingly, and it will also display a numeric total of "workers". However, in our case of being mostly "small home farms" this process is certainly the exception and not the rule. We can't be expected to create wallet addresses for each and every miner we want designated as a "worker" on our node just so we can monitor them. And in fact, I do believe at one point (possibly on v2.0.4) you could add a "worker" by using "same_wallet_address.worker" and each would display separately on the Solo Mining interface listing as a single User. See link for example image: https://ibb.co/THcqhHk

Also, I'm still trying to figure out why I have to use "stratum+tcp://" in front of the local IP on the Apollos I'm using to point at the full node: "stratum+tcp://192.xxx.x.x:3333" in the required pool URL field. I don't have to do this on any other miner I use to point at the Apollo full node as I can simply use the IP "192.xxx.x.x:3333" in the required pool URL field.

Cheers!