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How to mine with Zebra on testnet

Important

Note: s-nomp has not been officially updated for NU5 or later network upgrades (NU6, NU6.1). The ZcashFoundation fork below includes partial fixes, but this setup is provided for testing purposes only. For production mining, consider using mining pool software that supports current Zcash network upgrades.

The zebra-mining branch of the ZcashFoundation s-nomp fork includes fixes that:

  • Disable mining pool operator payments and miner payments (they just pay to the address configured for the node)
  • Provide basic compatibility with Zebra’s RPC interface

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. Sync times vary depending on hardware and network conditions, typically 8-12 hours on testnet or 2-3 days on mainnet.

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/latest/get-started/

    sudo apt-get 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