Mining with Zebra in Docker

Some of our published Docker images have the .experimental suffix in their name. We compile these images with the getblocktemplate-rpcs feature, and you can use them for your mining operations. For example, executing

docker run -e MINER_ADDRESS="t1XhG6pT9xRqRQn3BHP7heUou1RuYrbcrCc" -p 8232:8232 zfnd/zebra:v1.1.0.experimental

will start a container on Mainnet and bind port 8232 on your Docker host. If you want to start generating blocks, you need to let Zebra sync first.

Note that you must pass the address for your mining rewards via the MINER_ADDRESS environment variable when you are starting the container, as we did in the example above. The address we used starts with the prefix t1, meaning it is a Mainnet P2PKH address. Please remember to set your own address for the rewards.

The port we mapped between the container and the host with the -p flag in the example above is Zebra's default Mainnet RPC port. If you want to use a different one, you can specify it in the RPC_PORT environment variable, similarly to MINER_ADDRESS, and then map it with the Docker's -p flag.

Instead of listing the environment variables on the command line, you can use Docker's --env-file flag to specify a file containing the variables. You can find more info here https://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/commandline/run/#env.

Mining on Testnet

If you want to mine on Testnet, you need to set the NETWORK environment variable to Testnet and use a Testnet address for the rewards. For example, running

docker run -e NETWORK="Testnet" -e MINER_ADDRESS="t27eWDgjFYJGVXmzrXeVjnb5J3uXDM9xH9v" -p 18232:18232 zfnd/zebra:v1.1.0.experimental

will start a container on Testnet and bind port 18232 on your Docker host, which is the standard Testnet RPC port. Notice that we also used a different rewards address. It starts with the prefix t2, indicating that it is a Testnet address. A Mainnet address would prevent Zebra from starting on Testnet, and conversely, a Testnet address would prevent Zebra from starting on Mainnet.