It is time to start mining. Before you do so, we strongly recommend that you read and understand the guide found here.
In order to start mining you will need to install XEL Miner. This tool interacts with the XELINE command center, and serves the purpose of solving uploaded work tasks, also known as POW (Proof of Work). By doing so, you will be rewarded with XEL tokens for providing your CPU and GPU computational resources.
Despite what the name might suggest, XEL Miner is more than just a miner. It is a fully fledged ePL to C conversion and compilation tool that helps you to convert ePL programs into C, to compile them into executable machine code, and natively execute ePL programs on your local machine.
You will need to install git and clone the repository
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/xel-software/xel-miner
cd xel-miner
If you don't want to use OpenCL
cmake .
make install
If you want to use OpenCL
cmake . -USE_OPENCL
make install
Using CPU
./xel_miner -t <num_threads> -P <secret_phrase> -D
Using GPU
./xel_miner -t <num_threads> -P <secret_phrase> -D --opencl
Use ./xel_miner -h to see a full list of options.
You will need to install git and clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/xel-software/xel-installer-docker
or
You will need to download this project and extract it
You can start the XEL Miner using
$ bash xel-miner.sh start
You will need to install homebrew ( if not already installed )
/usr/bin/ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"
Then proceed with the installation
brew install gmp make cmake openssl
ln -s /usr/local/opt/openssl/include/openssl /usr/local/include/openssl
You will need to install git and clone the repository
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/xel-software/xel-miner
cd xel-miner
If you don't want to use OpenCL
cmake .
make install
If you want to use OpenCL
cmake . -USE_OPENCL
make install
Using CPU
./xel_miner -t <num_threads> -P <secret_phrase> -D
Using GPU
./xel_miner -t <num_threads> -P <secret_phrase> -D --opencl
Use ./xel_miner -h to see a full list of options.
You will need to install git and clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/xel-software/xel-installer-docker
or
You will need to download this project and extract it
You can start the XEL Miner using
$ bash xel-miner.sh start
apt-get update
apt-get install -y cmake libcurl4-openssl-dev libudev-dev screen libtool pkg-config libjansson-dev libssl-dev
You will need to install git and clone the repository
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/xel-software/xel-miner
cd xel-miner
If you don't want to use OpenCL
cmake .
make install
If you want to use OpenCL
cmake . -USE_OPENCL
make install
Using CPU
./xel_miner -t <num_threads> -P <secret_phrase> -D
Using GPU
./xel_miner -t <num_threads> -P <secret_phrase> -D --opencl
Use ./xel_miner -h to see a full list of options.
You will need to install git and clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/xel-software/xel-installer-docker
or
You will need to download this project and extract it
You can start the XEL Miner using
$ bash xel-miner.sh start
Now that you have installed XEL Miner, it’s time to start using it. Before launching the miner, its a good start to familiarize yourself with the help information
Once you are in the directory where your xel_miner executable is, take a look at the help
xel_miner.exe --help
Once you are in the directory where your xel_miner executable is, take a look at the help
./xel_miner --help
In the remainder of this tutorial, we will just cover the Linux and MacOS variant but the Windows one should be always analogous to that. After you have launched that command you will see the help
** XEL Compute Engine **
Miner Version: 0.9.6
ElasticPL Version: 0.9.4
Usage: xel_miner [OPTIONS]
Options:
-c, --config Use JSON-formated configuration file
--deadswitch Hardkill the instance after x seconds
-D, --debug Display debug output
--debug-epl Display EPL source code
-d, --delaysleep Sleep x seconds after submitting POW: useful for burstless debugging
-i, --ignoremask Debug only: ignore 0=nothing, 1=PoW, 2=Bty, 3=Both
-h, --help Display this help text and exit
-m, --mining PREF[:ID] Mining preference for choosing work
profit (Default) Estimate most profitable based on POW Reward / WCET
wcet Fewest cycles required by work item
workid Specify work ID
--no-color Don't display colored output
--opencl Run VM using compiled OpenCL code
--opencl-gthreads Max Num of Global Threads (256 - 10240, default: 1024)
--opencl-vwidth Vector width of local work size (1 - 256, default: calculated)
-o, --url=URL URL of mining server
-p, --pass Password for mining server
-P, --phrase Secret Passphrase for XEL account
--protocol Display dump of protocol-level activities
-q, --quiet Display minimal output
-r, --retries Number of times to retry if a network call fails
(Default: Retry indefinitely)
-R, --retry-pause Time to pause between retries (Default: 10 sec)
-s, --scan-time Max time to scan work before requesting new work (Default: 60 sec)
--test-miner Run the Miner using JSON formatted work in
--test-vm Run the Parser / Compiler using the XEL ePL source code in
--test-avoidcache Do not save metadata
--test-block Block-id for test run
--test-cont-bounty Search for bounties within test-vm environment
--test-cont-pow Search for proof-of-work within test-vm environment
--test-work Work-id for test run
--test-limit-storage Only allow storage sizes up to
--test-multiplicator <32-byte-hex> Multiplicator for testrun: must be exactly 32 hex chars
--test-publickey <32-byte-hex> Publickey for testrun: must be exactly 32 hex chars
--test-stdin Read storage values from stdin
--test-target <16-byte-hex> Target for test run: must be exactly 16 hex chars
--test-wcet-main Do not ignore WCET limits of main function in Test-Vm run
--test-wcet-verify Do not ignore WCET limits of verify function in Test-Vm run
-t, --threads Number of miner threads (Default: Number of CPUs)
-u, --user Username for mining server
-T, --timeout Timeout for rpc calls (Default: 30 sec)
--validate Validate logic in 'main' & 'verify' functions
--verify-only Use verify instead of main
-v, --version Display version information and exit
-X --no-renice Do not lower the priority of miner threads
Options while mining ----------------------------------------------------------
s + Display mining summary
d + Toggle Debug mode
q + Toggle Quite mode
We will not cover all options in this tutorial, only those which are required to get your miner ready to work on tasks on the XEL Blockchain. First of all, we want to take a look at the threads configuration parameter
t, --threads Number of miner threads (Default: Number of CPUs)
This parameter allows you to configure how many threads you want xel_miner to run on. The more threads you use, the faster xel_miner will find solutions. However, if you set this number too high your system may become unresponsive. The next parameter we want to look at is the url configuration:
-o, --url=URL URL of mining server
This allows you to point the miner to either a remote node or a local node. Either way is fine, but keep in mind that remote URLs do leak your private key to the server at the moment. If you do not trust the remote node, stick to a local one instead. The URL is always given in the form of http://hostname:port where hostname is the IP or FQDN of the host, and port is either 17876 for the mainnet or 16876 for the testnet.
The third important parameter is the passphrase flag:
-P, --phrase Secret Passphrase for XEL account
This is absolutely essential.
This is the passphrase to the account which will both pay the transactions fees for submitting work results and receive the rewards in exchange. if your passphrase has a space in it, make sure to put double quotes around it.
It is absolutely essential that you have some initial funds inside this account, otherwise you will not be able to submit any solutions.
For testing purposes you can just use your 12 word Xeline mnemonic code (enclosed in double quotes) since it’s very easy to get some XEL from the faucet to get started.
Now, for this tutorial, we want to launch a miner running just one thread, mining via our local node on the testnet. Hence, we start it like this:
./xel_miner -t 1 -o http://localhost:16876 -P
At this point, your miner is already solving proof-of-work packages and submitting bounties - solutions to algorithms for which it has found solutions.
If you encounter any difficulty while submitting your task to the blockchain you can always read more information on the official XEL wiki or seek assistance from our community.