Episode: 1551
Title: HPR1551: Bitcoin Mining
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr1551/hpr1551.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-18 04:57:49

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Okay, one of my projects was to set up a set and forget Bitcoin mining rig.
My father and I both did our research and at the time decided to both purchase a Bitcoin
mining cube.
Also known as an ASIC miner blocker up to cube.
It can be found on ebay or amazon, a quick google search and you should see people selling
them.
100 bucks.
So choices choices after deciding on the hardware to do the work, I then needed to power both
cubes.
My father found in order to Corsair RM850 computer power supply.
So after powering, the next part is what hardware is going to run a stratum proxy.
A stratum proxy is required because ASIC miner cubes use what is called a get work protocol.
And most pools require stratum.
I'm not going to go into great detail, but get work protocol for stratum proxy is mainly
about network usage and the amount of requests that get sent to the pool you decide to
mind with.
I will get a little more in the pools later.
Okay, back on topic.
So I choose a stratum mining proxy written by a guy who goes by the name Slush.
The hardware I chose to use is an old droid YouTube from hard kernel.
The old droid is a neat little computer for about 60 bucks USD shipped to my home in USA.
Made from a company on Korea.
Some squicks, facts for this nifty little device are a 1.7 gigahertz quad core on processor
and two gigabytes of RAM built in.
Ten by 100 megabits per second either net and three high speed USB to no ports.
And a nifty mini HDMI if you decide to make it more than a headless machine.
Okay, so all the parts have arrived.
It's time to start making everything work together to get some coin mining going.
So following old droids instructions, a simple headless Debbie and Lenny install gets loaded
onto a four gigabyte micro SDH C card.
Both cubes and the old droid get plugged into a 16 port switch which feeds the rest of the
house.
Now do I really need to specify the 16 port switch is also connected to a router that is
subsequently connected to a modem and there is working internet already and router modem
switch are all powered on.
Back to the old droid so Debbie is installed and the device is hooked to the internet.
This is to power the little thing.
Well, the easiest way I could get that done was, you guessed it, a 5 volt line coming from
the Corsair Power Supply.
Once the old droid was up and running, I checked my router to find the old droids IP and
then used putty for windows ssh to ssh into the old droid because I had chosen to go headless
from the start just to keep the overhead down.
Step one, change the root password.
Step two, create a non-privileged user and give it access rights to use the internet.
The rest was all just a bunch of copy and paste for building striding mining proxy from
slushes get hub source.
Goop leaves your friend at times.
After I finally successfully build the straddle proxy from get hub, I make a copy and place
it in the home from my random username and of course, change ownership of the move file
to the user's home it got placed into.
Now the fun part, before I even try pointing the new spiffy looking cube minors at the
proxy, I need the proxy to be persistent between reboots.
My simple way of getting that done was a screen session and using a script that gets executed
on boot automatically using my not so privileged user account.
I'll give you a hint and say Sudo comes in handy.
Okay, through trial and error because I'm not all that Linux savvy, I get the result I'm
looking for, the old droid boots and runs a straddle mining proxy, silently in a screen
session without divine intervention from me.
Next, I dive into setting up both cube minors to see my proxy, which is pointing to my
mining pool of choice.
And again, I'll talk about mining pools later.
Setting up the cubes himself was easier than anticipated, thanks to Google.
Finding a forum post called Dougie's Doggies Comprehensive Asick Minor Cube Setup.
This guide goes into how to hook the power up to what setting to change to for what you
want the miner to do.
So now we have the cubes pointing to our proxy on the old droid and the old droid getting
mining work from the pool that straddle proxy is pointing at.
Cube minors looks good and everything is set correctly, but you will probably have
the same issue I and many other people have.
Cube minors on the same subnet as Android cell phones don't mine, but at a fraction
of their speed.
And the cubes have a lot of errors.
I'm not sure why and have yet to find out the reason, but yes, cube minors hate Android
phones or vice versa.
My quick easy dirty solution was to simply place another router with a different subnet
between a mining setup and the rest of my network.
So now it goes modem router that deals with the house, a switch, and then another router
that feeds the cube minors in the old droid.
Yes, I know.
I can hear all of you tech savvy people cringing and horror and screaming.
That is what a virtual land is for, but hey remember, not that tech savvy and just wanted
to quick dirty running piece and hate it works.
So now with my cubes and old droid behind the second router bam, both cubes mining away
at top speed, which happens to be about 31 giga hashes per second per cube.
So now we can talk a little, not mean just a little about mining pools.
Once again, go and be your friend, do some research, choose a mining pool, but keep in mind
if you go the asic miner cube route, you're limited to only shop 256 mining, no script
mine.
My choked pool of choice happened to be mega multi pool, why?
Just because it's what I chose.
As a little side note, I also used the Corsair power supply to power the second router,
I hate wall works.
I would give you prices on everything, but hey, they have gone down since my investment
and I'm trying to just give you the gist of what's involved, not hold your hand through
the entire process.
Trust me, through the entire process I used Google a lot.
If anything I've said is useful, good deal.
Sorry, I can't go into more detail, this was a process I did months ago and I did not
document my success and failures, but this gives the general what you need to do to get
them going.
I'm on list of random old projects as a minecraft server for my kids, most of the neighborhood
kids plan, a Plex SabNZBD couch potato and sick beard server, if you don't know what
that is, copy and paste Plex SabNZB couch potato and sick beard into your favorite search
engine, you'll figure it out real fast.
And my current project involves a 50cc moped that has been modified to the gills, more and
more performance parts, tuning, more tuning and a little trick I did with an aerobando
2 sensor and a digital multimeter to get the dreaded carb tunes, yes I hate carburetors.
If any of those interests you, post a comment for this podcast and I'll be more than happy
to share my wins and losses.
Or if you need more info on setting up a set and forget mining platform, post a comment.
Any podcast I do next, I will make sure to get all my ducks in a row and give you more
of a, here is how it's done type of description, but this is a start, thank you for your time.
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