How to mine with Zebra on testnet

Important

s-nomp has not been updated for NU5, so you'll need the fixes in the branches below.

These fixes disable mining pool operator payments and miner payments: they just pay to the address configured for the node.

Install, run, and sync Zebra

  1. Configure zebrad.toml:

    • change the network.network config to Testnet
    • add your testnet transparent address in mining.miner_address, or you can use the ZF testnet address t27eWDgjFYJGVXmzrXeVjnb5J3uXDM9xH9v
    • ensure that there is an rpc.listen_addr in the config to enable the RPC server
    • disable the cookie auth system by changing rpc.enable_cookie_auth to false

    Example config:

    [consensus]
checkpoint_sync = true

[mempool]
eviction_memory_time = '1h'
tx_cost_limit = 80000000

[metrics]

[network]
crawl_new_peer_interval = '1m 1s'
initial_mainnet_peers = [
    'dnsseed.z.cash:8233',
    'dnsseed.str4d.xyz:8233',
    'mainnet.seeder.zfnd.org:8233',
    'mainnet.is.yolo.money:8233',
]
initial_testnet_peers = [
    'dnsseed.testnet.z.cash:18233',
    'testnet.seeder.zfnd.org:18233',
    'testnet.is.yolo.money:18233',
]
listen_addr = '0.0.0.0:18233'
network = 'Testnet'
peerset_initial_target_size = 25

[rpc]
debug_force_finished_sync = false
parallel_cpu_threads = 1
listen_addr = '127.0.0.1:18232'
enable_cookie_auth = false

[state]
cache_dir = '/home/ar/.cache/zebra'
delete_old_database = true
ephemeral = false

[sync]
checkpoint_verify_concurrency_limit = 1000
download_concurrency_limit = 50
full_verify_concurrency_limit = 20
parallel_cpu_threads = 0

[tracing]
buffer_limit = 128000
force_use_color = false
use_color = true
use_journald = false

[mining]
miner_address = 't27eWDgjFYJGVXmzrXeVjnb5J3uXDM9xH9v'

  2. Run Zebra with the config you created:

    zebrad -c zebrad.toml

  3. Wait for Zebra to sync to the testnet tip. This takes 8-12 hours on testnet (or 2-3 days on mainnet) as of October 2023.

Install s-nomp

General instructions with Debian/Ubuntu examples

Install dependencies

  1. Install redis and run it on the default port: https://redis.io/docs/getting-started/

    sudo apt install lsb-release
curl -fsSL https://packages.redis.io/gpg | sudo gpg --dearmor -o /usr/share/keyrings/redis-archive-keyring.gpg

echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/redis-archive-keyring.gpg] https://packages.redis.io/deb $(lsb_release -cs) main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/redis.list

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install redis
redis-server

  2. Install and activate a node version manager (e.g. nodenv or nvm)

  3. Install boost and libsodium development libraries

    sudo apt install libboost-all-dev
sudo apt install libsodium-dev

Install s-nomp

  1. git clone https://github.com/ZcashFoundation/s-nomp

  2. cd s-nomp

  3. Use the Zebra fixes: git checkout zebra-mining

  4. Use node 10:

    nodenv install 10
nodenv local 10

    or

    nvm install 10
nvm use 10

  5. Update dependencies and install:

    export CXXFLAGS="-std=gnu++17"
npm update
npm install
Arch-specific instructions

Install s-nomp

  1. Install Redis, and development libraries required by S-nomp

    sudo pacman -S redis boost libsodium

  2. Install nvm, Python 3.10 and virtualenv

    paru -S python310 nvm
sudo pacman -S python-virtualenv

  3. Start Redis

    sudo systemctl start redis

  4. Clone the repository

    git clone https://github.com/ZcashFoundation/s-nomp && cd s-nomp

  5. Use Node 10:

    unset npm_config_prefix
source /usr/share/nvm/init-nvm.sh
nvm install 10
nvm use 10

  6. Use Python 3.10

    virtualenv -p 3.10 s-nomp
source s-nomp/bin/activate

  7. Update dependencies and install:

    npm update
npm install

Run s-nomp

  1. Edit pool_configs/zcash.json so daemons[0].port is your Zebra port
  2. Run s-nomp using npm start

Note: the website will log an RPC error even when it is disabled in the config. This seems like a s-nomp bug.

Install a CPU or GPU miner

Install dependencies

General instructions
  1. Install a statically compiled boost and icu.
  2. Install cmake.
Arch-specific instructions 
sudo pacman -S cmake boost icu

Install nheqminer

We're going to install nheqminer, which supports multiple CPU and GPU Equihash solvers, namely djezo, xenoncat, and tromp. We're using tromp on a CPU in the following instructions since it is the easiest to install and use.

  1. git clone https://github.com/ZcashFoundation/nheqminer
  2. cd nheqminer
  3. Use the Zebra fixes: git checkout zebra-mining
  4. Follow the build instructions at https://github.com/nicehash/nheqminer#general-instructions, or run:
mkdir build
cd build
# Turn off `djezo` and `xenoncat`, which are enabled by default, and turn on `tromp` instead.
cmake -DUSE_CUDA_DJEZO=OFF -DUSE_CPU_XENONCAT=OFF -DUSE_CPU_TROMP=ON ..
make -j $(nproc)

Run miner

  1. Follow the run instructions at: https://github.com/nicehash/nheqminer#run-instructions
# you can use your own testnet address here
# miner and pool payments are disabled, configure your address on your node to get paid
./nheqminer -l 127.0.0.1:1234 -u tmRGc4CD1UyUdbSJmTUzcB6oDqk4qUaHnnh.worker1 -t 1

Notes:

  • A typical solution rate is 2-4 Sols/s per core
  • nheqminer sometimes ignores Control-C, if that happens, you can quit it using:
    • killall nheqminer, or
    • Control-Z then kill %1
  • Running nheqminer with a single thread (-t 1) can help avoid this issue