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Showing 11 of 11 results by BrokenTractor
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Board Hardware
Re: Official FutureBit Apollo II/BTC Software/Image and Support thread
by
BrokenTractor
on 07/02/2025, 03:43:55 UTC
I’d like the ability to shut down the internal miner and still have the pool continue to function with external miners.
I know others have said that yes the pool software does continue but the pool status page is not available if you shut down the internal miner.
I'd like to only use the pool and node features and only run external miners to this pool/node. The box would run so much cooler without the internal miner so the fan activation may have to be changed as well so there is still airflow.
Has anyone heard if this feature will be implemented in a future OS version?
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Topic
Board Hardware
Re: Official FutureBit Apollo II/BTC Software/Image and Support thread
by
BrokenTractor
on 01/12/2024, 23:54:22 UTC
I just rebooted the node and everything is up and running on v2.0.5.  I'll stay here since my node has been running well and I don't want to fix whats not yet broken on the node until these update bugs are fixed.  I don't want to have to go through reflashing a good memory card.


That is my thoughts as well. I am mining with 2 other miners using the node as well, all 3 using diff wallets and no problems. So no reason to chance updating it.

My choice was to download the update directly at https://github.com/jstefanop/apolloapi-v2/releases and then simply re-flash my 3 node machines back-to-back on new MicroSD's. It's pretty much risk free and it only took about 45 seconds on each machine to reconfigure with the minimal settings. The upside to this is that I can also keep the large update file on-hand for any future needs if necessary. If this version doesn't work out I still have the old v2.0.5 MicroSD's as well as the backups for each machine. So far so good on v2.0.6.

Cheers!

Hey PennyBit,     
I had made an old note that loading a newly flashed micro SD card would format the SSD card when it loaded for the first time. Has this behavior changed with v2.0.6? Does it now check first if you already have data on the SSD before trying to format it?
When you started v2.0.6 with the newly flashed micro SD card did it format your SSD card as well or do you still have all your Bitcoin Data intact?
I want to do it the way you did, since I have a new Micro SD card I want to use, as long as it doesn’t wipe all my node data. And if I take out the nvme SSD card before first startup will it try to create a data directory on the system disk instead?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoDD1LEI4DY

Thanks for your input guys. It looks like I was worried about nothing. I searched why I had made that note and found it was a very old issue with a much earlier version but was fixed in 2021. I found the below note in updated post #3 on page one of this thread.

Release 7/31/21
-Updated Apollo UI to latest 0.3.1
-Image no longer wipes SSD if it detects it has already been formatted
-Added additional swap memory to prepare for Lightning network/block explorer apps
-System level fixes/tweaks for stability
Post
Topic
Board Hardware
Re: Official FutureBit Apollo II/BTC Software/Image and Support thread
by
BrokenTractor
on 30/11/2024, 18:11:07 UTC
I just rebooted the node and everything is up and running on v2.0.5.  I'll stay here since my node has been running well and I don't want to fix whats not yet broken on the node until these update bugs are fixed.  I don't want to have to go through reflashing a good memory card.


That is my thoughts as well. I am mining with 2 other miners using the node as well, all 3 using diff wallets and no problems. So no reason to chance updating it.

My choice was to download the update directly at https://github.com/jstefanop/apolloapi-v2/releases and then simply re-flash my 3 node machines back-to-back on new MicroSD's. It's pretty much risk free and it only took about 45 seconds on each machine to reconfigure with the minimal settings. The upside to this is that I can also keep the large update file on-hand for any future needs if necessary. If this version doesn't work out I still have the old v2.0.5 MicroSD's as well as the backups for each machine. So far so good on v2.0.6.

Cheers!

Hey PennyBit,     
I had made an old note that loading a newly flashed micro SD card would format the SSD card when it loaded for the first time. Has this behavior changed with v2.0.6? Does it now check first if you already have data on the SSD before trying to formatting it?
When you started v2.0.6 with the newly flashed micro SD card did it format your SSD card as well or do you still have all your Bitcoin Data intact?
I want to do it the way you did, since I have a new Micro SD card I want to use, as long as it doesn’t wipe all my node data. And if I take out the nvme SSD card before first startup will it try to create a data directory on the system disk instead?
Post
Topic
Board Hardware
Re: Official FutureBit Apollo II/BTC Software/Image and Support thread
by
BrokenTractor
on 19/11/2024, 21:33:33 UTC
Basically, you have three options:

1) Wait. It will eventually get to 32, but for how long is anybody's guess. Maybe a minute, maybe more, maybe less.
2) Increase your Max Connections if you want more than 31/32. However, I've seen that it will just as often stay one under even then: 37/38 - 41/42, etc.
3) Go to https://bitnodes.io/ and find some juicy nodes to add to your list using the addnode=IPADDRESS:8333 command. I've found this will usually max out my connection choice: 32/32 - 42/42, etc.

Cheers!
Thank you for response. However, I am ok with the number of outgoing connection. My issue is that there is NO incomming connections, so the numer 32 is grayed out. How can I make sure that I there are incoming connections?

The default Outbound connections a Bitcoin Core node will make is 10, sometimes 11. This is hard coded into the application. You can force it a little higher with the addnodes command.
All the rest of the connections you have are Inbound connections.
31/32 means you have 10 Outbound and 21 Inbound connections.

Post
Topic
Board Hardware
Re: Official FutureBit Apollo II/BTC Software/Image and Support thread
by
BrokenTractor
on 13/11/2024, 18:07:47 UTC
You need to format the new 2TB drive with the format command in settings. Don't format your old data drive.  Just to make sure all is good.   I did that with my new drive.  Then if you have a usb to pcie adapter, copy your 1TB drive to your new 2TB drive.  takes about 45 mins.  then shutdown, swap and reboot and it should work fine.  THat's my experience.  Keep the 1TB as a backup.  That's what I have.

I did the reindex-chainstate , took longer.  I found it to slow down the process on the raspberry pi. The raspberry cpu isn't fast enough for reindex-chainstate.  Also lack of ram slows the process.    Seems to actually be quicker to start an IBD after a formatted drive and it is quicker.  However, I highly recommend a backup like above.  Once my IBD was complete I copied the drive for a backup.  I also would backup the nvme drive mid IBD download when I was having problems with the raspberry pi crashing mid download.  That made recovery quicker in future crashes.  My hardest part was the IBD.  Once done my system is now running much better.  

I have low trust in the reliability of the included microsd card.  The original is possibly a much older 16GB microsd.   I purchased a new one cheap and with much higher bandwidth and more memory, Cheapest one I could find.  I flashed it and find it more stable than the included card was.



A follow up question about doing IBD and overcoming what seems to be too much stress for the RAM & processor.

I've got a backup NVME with about the first-half of the IBD on it. I would like to see if there's advice on the procedures for starting a node (Apollo BTC installing 2.0.5) by using the backed-up blockchain data.

Its a 2TB NVME drive in the node, with a 1TB NVME connected via USB and a flashed micro SD to install the system.

Questions are things like which folders need to go over and in what order should steps be taken from initial boot. Thank you!

/blocks  &  /chainstate
OK I haven’t done this before but I have been reading about copying the Bitcoin Core blockchain to another system and this is what I plan to do when I receive my Apollo II later this week.
I have a fully synched v22 Bitcoin Core node running on an Ubuntu PC that I’ve been playing with and I will copy it over to the new 2 TB SSD to avoid re-downloading the entire blockchain again, which might take me a week.
Bitcoin is installed on my Ubuntu PC in the home directory in the hidden folder .bitcoin. There are three subfolders within .bitcoin,   /blocks, /chainstate  & /wallets.
/blocks is 699.6 GB
/chainstate is 12.5 GB
I will not be moving over the /wallets folder or the individual files in the .bitcoin folder, files like bitcoin.conf mempool.dat, peers.dat... These are specific to that PC install and I believe the ones on the Apollo II system will already be in place or will be created on statrtup.
So basically I am moving over just two folders under the .bitcoin folder,  /blocks  &  /chainstate. That’s it.
Here’s what I plan to do when I receive the system.
Connect a monitor, keyboard and mouse. Power on and log into the Apollo system with minimum configurations settings. Stop the miner and node if they are running. Use a file manager on the desktop to make sure the file structure is the same on the SSD,  “cd /media/nvme/bitcoin” to look for the blocks and chainstate folders. If they are there then rename them to oldblocks and oldchainstate just to save them for now. Shutdown the system, remove the SSD and put on a USB/pcie adapter into my Ubuntu PC. I will put a fan blowing on the SSD during this copy as this will probably be the most work this SSD will ever experience, copying 700+ GB to it in one go. Obviously the Bitcoin Core node will not be running on my PC to ensure the files are all closed properly. After a successful copy, shutdown the PC, move the SSD back over to the Apollo II system and power it on and complete the setup.

I think it will work. Maybe someone else can chime in if this process looks reasonable or if I’ve left something out. Hope this helps. Good luck mining...
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Topic
Board Hardware
Re: Official FutureBit Apollo II/BTC Software/Image and Support thread
by
BrokenTractor
on 11/11/2024, 19:58:14 UTC
To configure Solo mining I want to use the local Bitcoin Core Wallet as my pay to wallet, so I want to make sure I enter the correct address for the wallet when setting up Solo mining.
Is the below procedure how I would generate an address for the local wallet?
Stop the Apollo node and miner if running. Start the Bitcoin GUI and create the wallet. Hit the “Receive” button and then “Create new receiving address”. This will show a new window with a QR code, a URI and an Address. This Address is what I would use as the Wallet address in the SOLO pool configuration. Is that Correct?
Post
Topic
Board Hardware
Re: Official FutureBit Apollo II/BTC Software/Image and Support thread
by
BrokenTractor
on 10/11/2024, 09:02:16 UTC
Is there any advantage to upgrading the MicroSD card from 16 GB to 32 GB?
Can this additional space be utilized to prevent any system issues?
I plan on upgrading to an “Industrial” grade card since it has a wider functioning temperature range than the consumer grades, and just need to decide if 32 GB will make a difference or not.
Post
Topic
Board Mining software (miners)
Re: BFGMiner 5.5.0: CPU/GPU/FPGA/ASIC mining software, GBT+Stratum, RPC, Linux/Win64
by
BrokenTractor
on 10/01/2018, 14:16:07 UTC
Anyone using an Avalon 741 with BFGMiner to solo mine?
I was going to try and get one if the price wasn’t too high.
Post
Topic
Board Mining software (miners)
Re: BFGMiner 5.4.2: GBT+Stratum, RPC, Mac/Linux/Win64, Antminer S1-S5, solo stratum
by
BrokenTractor
on 03/01/2018, 20:52:13 UTC
The below log shows a new block being created every minute on the 35 second mark with the fees increasing, until the completed block 502417 arrives in the Core from a peer node at 20:10:12.
A new block is then created that very same second and I assume passed to BFGminer, with a much lower fee than the one created 37 seconds prior.
It seems that all the prior blocks being created, just in case they are needed, are trumped by this new block created just after a completed block arrives.
Why is it such a lower fee? I suspect because when the completed block arrived, the Bitcoin Core removed all the transactions used in that completed block from the Mem pool of available transactions. Pretty much making all prior blocks created for BFGminer invalid as some of those transactions may have been in this newly completed block.

It seems to me that you shouldn’t create a new block until after the current completed block has arrived and the Mem pool has been updated with available transactions.


2018-01-03 20:07:35 CreateNewBlock(): block weight: 3992232 txs: 2203 fees: 378086720 sigops 21168
2018-01-03 20:08:35 CreateNewBlock(): block weight: 3992656 txs: 2419 fees: 410225647 sigops 24184
2018-01-03 20:09:35 CreateNewBlock(): block weight: 3992140 txs: 2480 fees: 471696205 sigops 25236
2018-01-03 20:10:12 UpdateTip: new best=00000000000000000086ed3aef84344e66870d3328bd5debfbbf18a5d4688285 height=502417 version=0x20000000 log2_work=87.79324 tx=288749882 date='2018-01-03 20:10:04' progress=1.000000 cache=112.6MiB(855803txo)
2018-01-03 20:10:12 CreateNewBlock(): block weight: 3992428 txs: 860 fees: 210806676 sigops 6272
2018-01-03 20:11:12 CreateNewBlock(): block weight: 3992460 txs: 1135 fees: 246322036 sigops 9720
2018-01-03 20:12:13 CreateNewBlock(): block weight: 3992348 txs: 1479 fees: 278896141 sigops 12880

Post
Topic
Board Mining software (miners)
Re: BFGMiner 5.4.2: GBT+Stratum, RPC, Mac/Linux/Win64, Antminer S1-S5, solo stratum
by
BrokenTractor
on 03/01/2018, 18:31:04 UTC
I am solo mining with Ubuntu 16, Bitcoin Core 15, BFGminer 5.4.2-29, Antminer S3.
BFGminer is requesting a new block be created by the Bitcoin core every minute like clockwork.
Is this expected behavior?
This seems to be excess work being placed on the core for no reason.
Is there a startup flag for BFGminer to control this?

Bitcoin debug.log
2018-01-03 17:39:32 CreateNewBlock(): block weight: 3992620 txs: 2293 fees: 294454986 sigops 20460
2018-01-03 17:40:32 CreateNewBlock(): block weight: 3992316 txs: 2421 fees: 363545029 sigops 24536
2018-01-03 17:41:33 CreateNewBlock(): block weight: 3992700 txs: 2581 fees: 385087979 sigops 25060
2018-01-03 17:42:33 CreateNewBlock(): block weight: 3992140 txs: 2593 fees: 408387089 sigops 26268
2018-01-03 17:43:33 CreateNewBlock(): block weight: 3992480 txs: 2609 fees: 432487630 sigops 27896
2018-01-03 17:44:33 CreateNewBlock(): block weight: 3992116 txs: 2761 fees: 452136320 sigops 29688

It seems the sequence of events should be...
- A completed block arrives in the Bitcoin core from one of the peers.
- Bitcoin Core notifies BFGminer of this blocks arrival.
- BFGminer sends a request to the core to create a new block from the available transaction in the Mem pool. “CreateNewBlock”
- Bitcoin core passes the new block to BFGminer, who then distributes the header out to the miners.

It seems that a “CreateNewBlock” would only occur when it is needed after a completed block has arrived. Can anyone shed some light on this process? Thanks.
Post
Topic
Board Mining software (miners)
Re: BFGMiner 5.4.2: GBT+Stratum, RPC, Mac/Linux/Win64, Antminer S1-S5, solo stratum
by
BrokenTractor
on 30/12/2017, 08:43:39 UTC
Is BFGMiner 5.4.2 available for Ubuntu 16.04 users?
I have a new install of Ubuntu 16.04.
Bitcoin Core 15.1
BFGMiner 5.2.0
I am trying to upgrade to 5.4.2 to see if will resolve an issue and when I use the command
apt-get install bfgminer
it says I am already at the latest version 5.2.0. I installed it only a week ago.
How do I get upgraded to 5.4.2 if it is available for Ubuntu?

Confession: I am a newly convert to Linux so go easy on me.