Getting Started With CGminer/BFGminer 1. Windows environment Prepare Your Hardware If you have not already done so, prepare the storage space for your mining hardware. Ideally, it should be free of debris and dust. Also make sure that the area where your hardware will reside is stable and carefully protected from drinks and pets. Remove your hardware from packaging and get familiar with the cables it comes with. Depending on your model, you may have a power supply (sometimes referred to as a power brick, or "wall wart"). Plug your power supply in, and then plug the appropriate end into your device. In the case of the Jalapeno hardware, you may not have a power brick, but two USB cables instead - one cable will provide power over USB, while the other provides communication for mining. Plug the USB cable(s) into an open port or ports on your PC or mining host. For many, that will be a PC or laptop, but some may be using a Raspberry Pi or similar device. If you are hosting multiple pieces of mining hardware, you may be interested in purchasing a USB hub, which expands the available number of USB ports. Download Mining Software The choice of mining software to use is up to you. CGMiner and BFGMiner are two of the most popular choices. Their output and set up are very similar, and we'll show in the next step how to set up either. Download the mining software of your choice from one of the links below: https://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer https://github.com/luke-jr/bfgminer Once your download is completed, unzip or extract the files to your desktop, or preferred folder.
Configure Your Mining Software - BASIC Your hardware is now connected and powered on. It's not mining just yet. For that, let's configure your mining software. We'll aim to produce a simple, reusable "start up" file. Once we're done, you'll simply double-click on this file to launch your software. This section looks long, but it is not as difficult as it seems. If you are confused about the instructions, look at the included screen captures for guidance, and be sure to double check the details of each step. If you are not a member of a pool already, now is the time to do so. You'll need your credentials (called "worker" info) and some pool information to configure your mining software. Open your preferred text editor, such as Notepad, Notepad++, Vim, or gedit. We'll show the specifics of Notepad, but the steps are very similar for others. Type the following, replacing the example user info with that of your own. Code: cgminer -o stratum+tcp://uk1.ghash.io:3333 -u username.worker -p YourPasswordHere Code: bfgminer -o stratum+tcp://uk1.ghash.io:3333-u username.worker -p YourPasswordHere Double check you've entered the appropriate credentials and url, then save the file. This is not just a text file, though. On Windows you'll need to save the file with the ".bat" extension. To do this in Notepad: Click on File, then Save As The following save dialog will appear:
Next to "Save as type", open the drop-down menu and select "All Files" instead of "Text Documents(*.txt). Next to "File Name", enter "StartMining.bat", without quotes Double check that Save as type is not "Text Documents", and click save. Note for Linux users: instead of StartMining.bat, name your file StartMining.sh. After you save it, right click the file, click on "Properties", then under the "Permissions" tab tick the box for "Allow executing file as program". This will allow you to double-click the file to launch your mining software. For ease later, move "StartMining.bat" to the folder containing your mining software files. Start Mining Double click on your StartMining batch file, and you should see something like this: Congrats, you are now mining Bitcoin Configuring your mining software - ADVANCED You can also configure your mining software from within the miner program itself. I will use BFGMiner as an example: the miner has a [P]ool management option that allows you to [A]dd pools, [R]emove pools and [E]nable or [D]isable them. Your pool s connection data will be saved by default in the already created file bfgminer.conf.
To ADD a Pool After the miner has started press P to access pool management press A to add a pool enter pool s URL (press Enter) enter "worker" name or username at your pool (press Enter) enter password for that worker (press Enter) press S to access Settings to save your config file press W to write the file press Enter for bfgminer.conf or choose another file name To REMOVE a Pool After the miner has started press P to access pool management press R to remove a pool from the list above enter the # of the pool you want to remove (again, see list above, it should start with 0: Enabled GBT ) press S to access Settings to save your config file press W to write the file press Enter for bfgminer.conf or choose another file name
2. Mac OSX Installation Xcode To get started, you will need to install the Xcode. Xcode is a free download from the Apple App Store. Command Line Tools Next you ll need the Xcode Command Line Tools. Launch Xcode and then click the Xcode>Preferences menu item. Click the Downloads tab and then click Install next to Command Line Tools.
If the text next to Xcode Command Line Tools says Installed, carry on to the next step. Homebrew Next you ll need to install Homebrew. Homebrew is a package manager for OS X that provides a sane way of installing *nix tools, libraries, and their dependencies. Open up Terminal.app and run the following command (from the Homebrew homepage): ruby -e "$(curl -fssl https://raw.github.com/mxcl/homebrew/go/install)" After you install Homebrew, make sure you run the following command (as the installer should instruct you): brew doctor Make sure you address all errors or warnings before proceeding as they may prevent the miners from installing. Miners Once Homebrew is successfully installed, you can run the following commands to install cgminer and bfgminer: brew tap nwoolls/xgminer brew install cgminer or: brew tap nwoolls/xgminer brew install bfgminer If you specify the HEAD (two dashes) parameter for brew install, then the latest sourcecode will be pulled for the miner from Github rather than using the latest official release. You can visit the Github repository to view the package contents. If you run into errors installing the above formulas, you can try running brew install with the debug verbose parameters to find where things went wrong. I d also recommend using brew doctor to diagnose any issues. Driver Installation To load the required Apple drivers (if you intend to use bfgminer) execute the following commands: sudo kextload -b com.apple.driver.appleusbcdc sudo kextload -b com.apple.driver.appleusbcdcacmdata To unload those drivers (if you intend using cgminer) execute the following:
sudo kextunload -b com.apple.driver.appleusbcdc sudo kextunload -b com.apple.driver.appleusbcdcacmdata Detection Once you have the proper Bitcoin mining software installed and the kernel extensions loaded (or unloaded), you can use the -d? argument to list available devices with bfgminer: bfgminer -d? -S bigpic:all [2013-12-19 01:54:19] Started bfgminer 3.8.1 [2013-12-19 01:54:25] Devices detected: [2013-12-19 01:54:25] Device (driver=bigpic; procs=1; path=/dev/cu.usbmodem3a21) 1 devices listed or with cgminer: cgminer -d? [2013-11-21 16:49:06] Started cgminer 3.8.2 [2013-11-21 16:49:09] Devices detected: [2013-11-21 16:49:09] 0. BF1 0 (driver: bitfury) [2013-11-21 16:49:09] 1 devices listed Usage Both cgminer and bfgminer are command-line utilities. You can either run them without any command line parameters and fill in the prompts for mining pool URL and credentials, or you can use the following format to specify your pool: cgminer -o stratum+tcp://uk1.ghash.io:3333 -u username.worker -p YourPasswordHere or: bfgminer -o stratum+tcp://uk1.ghash.io:3333-u username.worker -p YourPasswordHere If you have multiple graphics cards, you ll want to use the no-opencl-binaries parameter with bfgminer to avoid a crash on startup. This is not necessary with cgminer as it detects OS X and applies the same workaround automatically. 3. Installing cgminer on Ubuntu Installation requirements $ sudo su # apt-get install git autoconf libtool libcurl4-openssl-dev libncurses5-dev pkg-config yasm make First, become root. Then install all required software and libraries to compile cgminer.
Installation Clone cgminer s GitHub repo, prepare for the compilation and run the compilation process: # cd /opt/ # git clone git://github.com/ckolivas/cgminer.git # cd cgminer/ #./autogen.sh --disable-opencl --disable-adl --enable-cpumining # CFLAGS="-O2 -Wall -march=native"./configure --disable-opencl --disable-adl --enablecpumining # make -j8 Testing If you have a GPU and you managed to run it, you may want to skip disabling OpenCL or ADL. Run the following command: #./cgminer benchmark Mining If the compilation is successful, the speed of your CPU(s) will be displayed. Now you need to register on ghash.io, if you have not already done so, and run mining with your worker s credentials: #./cgminer -o stratum+tcp://uk1.ghash.io:3333 -u username.worker -p YourPasswordHere 4. Installing bfgminer on Ubuntu Installation requirements First, become root. Then install all required software and libraries to compile bfgminer. $ sudo su apt-get install git autoconf automake libtool pkg-config libcurl4-gnutls-dev libjansson-dev uthashdev libncurses5-dev Installation Clone bfgminer s GitHub repo, prepare for the compilation and run the compilation process: # cd /opt/ # git clone git://github.com/luke-jr/bfgminer.git
# cd bfgminer/ #./autogen.sh --disable-opencl --disable-adl --enable-cpumining # CFLAGS="-O2 -Wall -march=native"./configure --disable-opencl --disable-adl --enablecpumining # make -j8 Testing If you have a GPU and you managed to run it, you may want to skip disabling OpenCL or ADL. Run the following command: #./bfgminer benchmark Launching If the compilation is successful, the speed of your CPU(s) will be displayed. Now you need to register on ghash.io, if you have not already done so, and run mining with your worker s credentials: #./bfgminer -o stratum+tcp://uk1.ghash.io:3333 -u username.worker -p YourPasswordHere CGMiner specific configuration options: --enable-avalon Compile support for Avalon (default disabled) --enable-bflsc Compile support for BFL ASICs (default disabled) --enable-bitforce Compile support for BitForce FPGAs (default disabled) --enable-bitfury Compile support for BitFury ASICs (default disabled) --enable-hashfast Compile support for Hashfast (default disabled) --enable-icarus Compile support for Icarus (default disabled) --enable-knc Compile support for KnC miners (default disabled) --enable-bab Compile support for BlackArrow Bitfury (default disabled) --enable-minion Compile support for BlackArrow Minion ASIC (default disabled) --enable-klondike Compile support for Klondike (default disabled) --enable-modminer Compile support for ModMiner FPGAs(default disabled) --without-curses Compile support for curses TUI (default enabled) --with-system-libusb Compile against dynamic system libusb (default use included static libusb) BFGMiner specific configuration options: --disable-avalon Compile support for Avalon (default enabled) --enable-cpumining Build with cpu mining support(default disabled) --enable-opencl Compile support for OpenCL (default disabled) --disable-adl Build without ADL monitoring (default enabled) --disable-bitfury Compile support for Bitfury (default enabled) --enable-bfsb Compile support for BFSB (default disabled) --disable-bigpic Compile support for Big Picture Mining USB (default enabled) --disable-littlefury Compile support for LittleFury (default enabled)
--disable-nanofury Compile support for NanoFury (default enabled) --disable-hashbuster Compile support for HashBuster Nano (default enabled) --disable-hashbuster2 Compile support for HashBuster Micro (default if libusb) --enable-metabank Compile support for Metabank (default disabled) --disable-bitforce Compile support for BitForce (default enabled) --disable-icarus Compile support for Icarus (default enabled) --disable-klondike Compile support for Klondike (default enabled) --enable-knc Compile support for KnC (default disabled) --disable-modminer Compile support for ModMiner (default enabled) --disable-x6500 Compile support for X6500 (default enabled) --disable-ztex Compile support for ZTEX (default if libusb) --enable-scrypt Compile support for scrypt mining (default disabled) --with-system-libblkmaker Use system libblkmaker rather than bundled one (default disabled) --with-udevrulesdir=dir Install udev rules into this directory --without-sensors Build with libsensors monitoring (default enabled) --without-curses Compile support for curses TUI (default enabled) --without-libmicrohttpd Compile support for libmicrohttpd getwork server (default enabled) --without-libevent Compile support for libevent stratum server (default enabled) --without-libusb Compile using libusb (default enabled) --without-libudev Autodetect FPGAs using libudev (default enabled)