Mining Grin on Grinmint — A Step-by-Step Tutorial

Around January 15th 2019 the Grin main network (mainnet) will be launched. This guide will help you setting up your miner and start mining on Grinmint.com.

Before going any further, you might be interested to read more about which proof-of-work algorithms Grin uses and how Grinmint will manage mainnet launch.

Overview

1. Hardware Prerequisites
2. Mining on Linux/macOS
3. Mining on Windows
4. Checking your Miner on Grinmint
5. Going Further: Payouts Requests and PoW Selection

1. Hardware Prerequisites

Before going any further, you should check if your computer has the computing power to mine Grin.

1.1. CPU Mining Setup

• Windows/macOS/Linux.
• A relatively recent CPU.
• 8 GB of memory.

It is good to remember that while most of the CPUs are compatible, GPUs are way more efficient at mining Grin.

1.2. GPU Mining Setup

• Windows/macOS/Linux.
• A GPU with at least 5.5 Gb of memory.
  Known minimum memory required is 5.5 GB for Cuckaroo (secondary PoW) and 11 GB for Cuckatoo (primary PoW).

Depending of your operating system and hardware you’ll need to use a specific mining software:

Grin Mining Software Matrix

2. Mining on Linux/macOS

2.1 Download Grin-Miner

Download the grin-miner version corresponding to your operating system on GitHub: https://github.com/mimblewimble/grin-miner/releases

2.2 Setting-up Grin-Miner

Now that you’ve downloaded the mining software, we will now edit the grin-miner.toml file inside the main directory.

First, You’ll need to edit 4 fields in the MINING CLIENT CONFIGURATION part.

• The Stratum server address with Grinmint address:

stratum_server_addr = "us-east-stratum.grinmint.com:4416"

• The Stratum server login with your email address followed by your worker name.
  We recommend that you use email+randomvalue@mail.com such as example+3456544Ardv@mail.com/workername for more privacy. You’ll still receive the email on example@mail.com.

stratum_server_login = "example+3456544Ardvf@mail.com/workername"

• The Stratum server password with a strong password:

stratum_server_password = "averystrongpassword"

• Enable TLS. This guarantees that no one can steal your password by listening to your connection:

stratum_server_tls_enabled = true

This is what it should look like:

That’s it for the mining part.

Now, let’s configure the mining plugins. Go to the corresponding section based on whether you want to mine with a CPU or GPU.

2.2.1 Setting up Grin-Miner for CPU mining

Enabled by default in the configuration file, you can go directly go to section 3.

2.2.2 Setting up Grin-Miner for GPU Mining (Nvidia)

In this section, we will edit the Grin-Miner settings to mine with your Nvidia GPU.

First go to the CUCKAROO (i.e. GPU-Friendly) MINER PLUGIN CONFIGURATION part.

• Comment the following lines (by adding # in front of each line):

#[[mining.miner_plugin_config]]
#plugin_name = "cuckaroo_cpu_compat_29"
#[mining.miner_plugin_config.parameters]
#nthreads = 1

• Then, uncomment the following lines (remove the #in front of each line):

[[mining.miner_plugin_config]]
plugin_name = “cuckaroo_cuda_29”
[mining.miner_plugin_config.parameters]
device = 1

If you have multiple GPUs you’ll need to copy those four lines for each device and change the device number.

2.2.3 Setting up Grin-Miner for GPU Mining (AMD)

Please note that currently you’ll only be able to mine Cuckatoo31 (ASIC Friendly proof-of-work) on Linux with your AMD card.

In this section, we will edit the Grin-Miner settings to mine with your AMD GPU.

First go to the CUCKAROO (i.e. GPU-Friendly) MINER PLUGIN CONFIGURATION part and comment the following lines (by adding # in front of each line):

#[[mining.miner_plugin_config]]
#plugin_name = "cuckaroo_cpu_compat_29"
#[mining.miner_plugin_config.parameters]
#nthreads = 1

Then go to the CUCKATOO (i.e. ASIC-Friendly) MINER PLUGIN CONFIGURATION part and uncomment the following lines (remove the #in front of each line):

[[mining.miner_plugin_config]]
plugin_name = "ocl_cuckatoo"
[mining.miner_plugin_config.parameters]
platform = 1
device = 0
edge_bits = 31

If you have multiple GPUs you’ll need to copy those six lines for each device and change the device number.

2.3. Start mining

In the command prompt, type the following lines:

cd grin-miner-vX.X.X
./grin-miner

The first line indicates that you want to go into the miner directory and the second line will start the mining program.

Check that your miner is connected to the pool. The connection status should be “Connected to Grin server at us-east.stratum.grinmint.com:4416”.

That’s it! You can now go to part 4.

If it’s the first time you connect to Grinmint, an account will be automatically created.

We recommend that you remove the password from your settings after that: you’ll still be able to connect and mine.

This will protect you in the event your miner gets compromised: the hacker won’t be able to withdraw your grins.

3. Mining on Windows

3.1. Download GrinGoldMiner

GrinGoldMiner (GGM) is an open source GPU miner compatible with AMD and Nvidia video cards. This miner currently does not support CPU Mining. It can be downloaded here:

mozkomor/GrinGoldMiner

GrinGoldMiner requires .NET Core 2.2 installed. Download it here:
https://dotnet.microsoft.com/download

3.2. Setting-up GrinGoldMiner

Just double click on GrinGoldMinerCLI. On first launch, GGM will ask you following information:

• Mining pool stratum address:us-east.stratum.grinmint.com.
• Mining pool stratum port:4416.
• Use TLS: Y.
• Pool login: your email address followed by your worker name. For example: satoshi@nakamoto.com/rig21.
• Pool password: a strong password. In this example: myverystrongpassword.

The final result should looks like this:

3.3 Start Mining

Then, just press enter. You should see the following screen:

That’s it! You can now go to the next part.

If it’s the first time you connect to Grinmint, an account will be automatically created.

We recommend that you remove the password from your settings after that: you’ll still be able to connect and mine.

This will protect you in the event your miner gets compromised: the hacker won’t be able to withdraw your grins.

4. Checking your Miner on Grinmint

Go on Grinmint website. You’ll see the following page:

Then fill out the email field with the login set above and press the magnifying glass button. You are now in your dashboard.

You should see you hash rate, the number of workers and balances.

If you don’t see anything here, check that you entered the correct email address. It might also take a few minutes for your miner to appear here.

Notice that on your dashboard there are 3 tabs: Dashboard, Payouts and Settings.

• Dashboard. Presents you with a summary of your miners and balance. Note that there are 2 types of balances: immature balance and unpaid balance. The immature balance will go into the unpaid balance once mature (after 1440 blocks or roughly one day).
• Payouts. This is where you can request to be paid and see the history of payouts.
• Settings. On this tab you can configure whether you want to be notified when one of your workers goes down. You can also specify a wallet IP to receive faster HTTP payouts.

That’s it — you are now mining on the Grin network with Grinmint!

5. Going Further: Payouts Requests and PoW Algorithm Selection

5.1. Payout Requests

Now that you have mining Grin, you might be interested in withdrawing them. The following guide will help you to do it: “How to Request Payouts on Grinmint”.

5.2. Pow Algorithm Selection

You might be wondering whether it is more interesting to mine the primary (Cuckatoo31+) or secondary (Cuckaroo29) proof-of-work. In order to determine that you can read What to mine? Choosing between Cuckatoo31+ and Cuckaroo29.

For updates and questions, join us on Telegram: https://t.me/Grinmint

Last update: Tuesday January 10th.