Introduction

This page documents the configuration of the P2Pool software used by my Monero mining farm. I have configured P2Pool to connect my collection of machines running XMRig to the Monero Mini Sidechain.

The socket service creates a named pipe that connects the the P2Pool daemon’s standard input. This pipe is used to interact with the daemon once it’s running. By using this architecture, you can run processes (e.g. a cron script) to send commands to the P2Pool daemon while still running it as a service. The actual P2Pool service definition calls a shell script (shown below) that passes in all the options used to start the P2Pool daemon.

Pre-Requisites

Linux Operating System

I am running Debian, but these instructions apply to basically any machine running Linux.

P2Pool Software is Installed

The instructions here assume you have the P2Pool software installed on your system. I have a document on how to download, compile and install the software here. This procedure assumes you have the software installed in /opt/prod:

ls -l /opt/prod
total 12
lrwxrwxrwx  1 root  root     11 May 22 22:58 p2pool -> p2pool-v4.6
drwxr-xr-x  7 root  root   4096 May 31 17:33 p2pool-v4.6

Setup the Service

The P2Pool Daemon is an interactive process that accepts commands. In order to take advantage of this feature while still running it as a service this implementation uses two distinct services. The primary service is the actual P2Pool Daemon. The secondary service sets up a named pipe which allows the user to send commands to the P2Pool Daemon by echoing commands into the named pipe.

Configuration File

This file should be created in the conf directory where you installed P2Pool (e.g. /opt/prod/p2pool-v4.6/conf). A complete listing is shown below.

# Where the mining payouts should be sent
WALLET="48wY7nYBsQNSw7v4LjoNnvCtk1Y6GLNVmePGrW82gVhYhQtWJFHi6U6G3X5d7JN2ucajU9SeBcijET8ZzKWYwC3z3Y6fDEG"

# Set the P2Pool base directory.
P2P_DIR=/opt/prod/p2pool

# Configure access to the Monero Daemon that hosts the blockchain
MONERO_NODE="192.168.0.176"
ZMQ_PORT=20083  # NOTE: The standard port is 18083
RPC_PORT=20081  # NOTE: The standard port is 18081

# P2Pool settings
ANY_IP="0.0.0.0"
STRATUM_PORT=3335
P2P_PORT=38890
LOG_LEVEL=1
IN_PEERS=16
OUT_PEERS=16

Startup Script

I use a shell script to start the P2Pool Daemon. A few points about the startup script:

The script is not run directly, it’s used by a systemd service.
P2Pool is configured to mine on the mini sidechain (the --mini switch).
The script reads it’s settings from a p2pool.ini file.
Be sure to substitute your own Monero wallet address for the WALLET variable in the p2pool.ini file.
The MONERO_NODE is the IP of a machine that hosts the Monero Blockchain i.e. runs the monerod daemon
- The ZMQ_PORT and RPC_PORT need to match what the monerod daemon’s configuration
The P2P_DIR is the directory where you have the P2Pool software installed

A complete listing is shown below. It should be installed in the bin directory that’s within the P2Pool installation directory (e.g. /opt/prod/p2pool-v4.6/bin).

#!/bin/bash

# Read in the P2Pool settings
source /opt/prod/p2pool/conf/p2pool.ini## The p2pool.ini File

# Setup sub-directories
API_DIR=${P2P_DIR}/api
RUN_DIR=${P2P_DIR}/run
LOG_DIR=${P2P_DIR}/logs
BIN_DIR=${P2P_DIR}/bin

# P2Pool daemon log file
P2P_LOG="${LOG_DIR}/p2pool.log"
# The P2Pool daemon
P2POOL="${BIN_DIR}/p2pool"

# Create the API directory if it doesn't already exist
if [ ! -d $API_DIR ]; then
  mkdir ${API_DIR}
fi

# Create the run directory if it doesn't already exist
if [ ! -d ${RUN_DIR} ]; then
	mkdir -p ${RUN_DIR}
fi

# Create the logs directory if it doesn't already exist
if [ ! -d ${LOG_DIR} ]; then
	mkdir -p ${LOG_DIR}
fi

# Actually start P2Pool
$P2POOL \
	--host ${MONERO_NODE} \
	--wallet ${WALLET} \
	--mini \
	--no-color \
	--stratum ${ANY_IP}:${STRATUM_PORT} \
	--p2p ${ANY_IP}:${P2P_PORT} \
	--rpc-port ${RPC_PORT} \
	--zmq-port ${ZMQ_PORT} \
	--loglevel ${LOG_LEVEL} \
	--in-peers ${IN_PEERS} \
	--out-peers ${OUT_PEERS} \
	--data-api ${API_DIR}

Setup the Daemon Service

This file is installed in /etc/systemd/system and is named p2pool.service. A full listing of the file is shown below:

[Unit]
Description=P2Pool Full Node
After=network.target p2pool.socket
#Requires=monerod.service
BindsTo=p2pool.socket

[Service]
User=db4e
StandardInput=socket
Sockets=p2pool.socket
WorkingDirectory=/opt/prod/p2pool/
Type=simple
Restart=always
ExecStartPre=sysctl vm.nr_hugepages=3072
ExecStart=/opt/prod/p2pool/bin/start-p2pool.sh
TimeoutStopSec=60
StandardOutput=file:/opt/prod/p2pool/logs/p2pool.log
StandardError=file:/opt/prod/p2pool/logs/p2pool.err

[Install]
WantedBy=multi-user.target

Setup the Socket Service

This file is installed in /etc/systemd/system and is named p2pool.socket. A full listing of the file is shown below:

[Unit]
Description=P2Pool Socket

[Socket]
User=db4e
ListenFIFO=/opt/prod/p2pool/run/p2pool.stdin
RemoveOnStop=true

[Install]
WantedBy=sockets.target

Refresh systemd

To refresh systemd’s configuration after creating the service and socket definitions use the command below:

sudo systemd daemon-reload

To have the P2Pool daemon automatically start at boot time use the command below:

sudo systemd enable p2pool.service

That’s it! You’re done! You can safely reboot the server to confirm that the Monero daemon starts up automatically at boot time. Check the /opt/prod/p2pool/logs/p2pool.log file for logging information.

Manual Starts

You can also start the service without rebooting:

sudo systemd start p2pool

Manual Stops

sudo systemctl stop p2pool

Checking the Status

sudo systemctl status p2pool

Credits

I authored the wrapper script to actually start P2Pool, but I found the solution to using a named pipe and P2Pool service definition in this Reddit post by Krewlar. Kudos to Krewlar for doing the heavy lifting for this solution.