Mining with Zebra in Docker

Zebra's Docker images can be used for your mining operations. If you don't have Docker, see the manual configuration instructions.

Using docker, you can start mining by running:

docker run --name -zebra_local -e MINER_ADDRESS="t3dvVE3SQEi7kqNzwrfNePxZ1d4hUyztBA1" -e ZEBRA_RPC_PORT=8232 -p 8232:8232 zfnd/zebra:latest

This command starts a container on Mainnet and binds 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 with the ZF funding stream address 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.

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.

If you don't want to set any environment variables, you can edit the docker/default-zebra-config.toml file, and pass it to Zebra before starting the container. There's an example in docker/docker-compose.yml of how to do that.

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 --name zebra_local -e NETWORK="Testnet" -e MINER_ADDRESS="t27eWDgjFYJGVXmzrXeVjnb5J3uXDM9xH9v" -e ZEBRA_RPC_PORT=18232 -p 18232:18232 zfnd/zebra:latest

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.

To connect to the RPC port, you will need the contents of the cookie file Zebra uses for authentication. By default, it is stored at /home/zebra/.cache/zebra/.cookie. You can print its contents by running

docker exec -it zebra_local cat /home/zebra/.cache/zebra/.cookie

If you want to avoid authentication, you can turn it off by setting

[rpc]
enable_cookie_auth = false

in Zebra's config file before you start the container.