NightMiner

A very simple pure Python implementation of a CryptoCurrency stratum CPU mining client. Currently supports scrypt (litecoin) and SHA256d (bitcoin).

At a Glance

• Simple, one file
• Supports Scrypt (litecoin, dogecoin, etc) and SHA256d (bitcoin, namecoin, etc)
• Stratum (and only stratum)
• Zero dependencies (beyond standard Python libraries)
• 100% pure Python implementation
• Attempts to detect faster implementations of scrypt (pure Python is SLOW)
• Enable protocol chatter (-P) to see messages to and from the server

Command Line Interface

python nightminer.py [-h] [-o URL] [-u USERNAME] [-p PASSWORD]
                     [-O USERNAME:PASSWORD] [-a {scrypt,sha256d}] [-B] [-q]
                     [-P] [-d] [-v]

-o URL, --url=              stratum mining server url
-u USERNAME, --user=        username for mining server
-p PASSWORD, --pass=        password for mining server
-O USER:PASS, --userpass=   username:password pair for mining server
-a, --algo                  hashing algorithm to use for proof of work (scrypt, sha256d)
-B, --background            run in the background as a daemon
-q, --quiet                 suppress non-errors
-P, --dump-protocol         show all JSON-RPC chatter
-d, --debug                 show extra debug information
-h, --help                  show the help message and exit
-v, --version               show program's version number and exit
Example:
    python nightminer.py -o stratum+tcp://foobar.com:3333 -u user -p passwd

API

The API can be used by anyone wishing to create their own modified miner to learn more about the protocol, test their own pool or experiment with new algorithms.

import nightminer

Selecting a scrypt implementation (optional)

By default, the fastest detected library will be used; but if you wish to force a specific implementation:

nightminer.set_scrypt_library(library = nightminer.SCRYPT_LIBRARY_AUTO)
print nightminer.SCRYPT_LIBRARY

Subscription

After connecting to a stratum server, there is a small level of handshaking and then occasional messages to maintain state. The

Subscription

Properties: *

id

worker_name

difficulty

target

target

extranounce1

extranounce2_size

setsubscription(subscriptionid, extranounce1, extranounce2_size) Sets up the subscription details. Reply from the server to

mining.subscribe

set_difficulty(difficulty) Sets the current difficulty. Sent from the server as a

mining.set_difficulty

setworkername(worker_name) Sets the worker's name after the server has authenticated the username/password. Reply from the server to

mining.authorize

createjob(jobid, prevhash, coinb1, coinb2, merkle_branches, version, nbits, ntime) Creates a new job. Sent from the server as a

mining.notify

Job

When the server has a new job to work on it sends a

mining.notiffy

Job

Properties: *

id

prevhash

coinb

coinb2

merkle_branches

version

nbits

ntime

target

extranounce

extranounce2_size

Subscription

hashrate

merklerootbin(extranounce2_bin) Calculate the Merkle root, as a binary string.

mine(nouncestart = 0, nouncestride = 1) Iterates over all solutions for this job. This will run for an extrememly long time, likely far longer than ntime would be valid, so you will likely call

stop()

stop() Causes the

mine()

Miner

This is a sub-class of

SimpleJsonRpcClient

Subscription

Properties: *

url

username

password

serve_forever() Connect to the server, handshake and block forever while handling work from the server.

Use Cases

Create a standard miner

miner = Miner('stratum+tcp://foobar.com:3333', 'username', 'password')
miner.server_forever()

Experimenting with a new algorithm...

For this example, we will create a CryptoCoin based on MD5.

import hashlib

Create the Subscription object (proof-of-work should be 32 bytes long)
class SubscriptionMd5(nightminer.Subscription):
  def ProofOfWork(self, header):
    return hashlib.md5(header).digest() + ('0' * 16)

If you wish to manually find a few valid shares: ```python

Create a subscription (and fill it in a bit with what a proper server would give us)

subs = SubscriptionMd5() subs.setsubscription('mysubsid', '00000000', 4) subs.setdifficulty(1.0 / (2 ** 16)) subs.setworkername('myfakeworker')

Create a job

job = subs.createjob('myjob', ('0' * 64), ('0' * 118), ('0' * 110), [ ], '00000002', 'deadbeef', '01234567')

Search for 5 shares

sharecount = 0 for validshare in job.mine(): print "Found a valid share:", validshare sharecount += 1 if share_count == 5: break

print "Hashrate:", job.hashrate ```

Or if you already have a server ready to go with your algorithm: ```python

Register the Subscription

SubscriptionByAlgorithm['my_algo'] = SubscriptionMd5

Start a miner

miner = Miner('stratum+tcp://localhost:3333', 'username', 'password', 'myalgo') miner.serverforever() ```

FAQ

Why would you do this? I was trying to tinker around with Litecoin, but found it difficult to find a simple, complete example of how to decode the endianness of the provided parameters and build the block header. So, the obvious next step is to create a full client to experiment with.

Why is this so slow? It is written in Python. It is not meant to be fast, more of a reference solution or something that can be easily hacked into to test your own pool.

On my MacBook Air, with one thread I get around 3,000 hashes/s using the

ltc_scrypt

What is this ltc_scrypt you speak of? It is a Python C-binding for a C implementation of scrypt found in p2pool (https://github.com/forrestv/p2pool). To add to your own system:

> # Download the source
> curl -L https://github.com/forrestv/p2pool/archive/13.4.tar.gz > p2pool-13.4.tar.gz

> # Untar
> tar -xzf p2pool-13.4.tar.gz
> # Build and install
> cd p2pool-13.4/litecoin_scrypt/
> python setup.py build
> sudo python setup.py install

After this is installed, this miner will be about 2,000 times faster.

Why am I am only getting rejected shares? Make sure you are using the correct algoithm, that means

--algo=scrypt

--algo=sha256d

How do I get a question I have added? E-mail me at [email protected] with any questions, suggestions, comments, et cetera.

Can I give you my money? Umm... Ok? :-)

Bitcoin -

1LNdGsYtZXWeiKjGba7T997qvzrWqLXLma

LXths3ddkRtuFqFAU7sonQ678bSGkXzh5Q

N6JLCggCyYcpcUq3ydJtLxv67eEJg4Ntk2