# BOINC and crypto currency mining



## LVLouisCyphre (May 3, 2022)

I had a hard time figuring out exactly where to post this.  I want to create my own computing cluster with BOINC for crypto currency mining.  There's been a little bit of a talk about using BOINC for personal crypto mining rigs and also using BOINC to sell your computing power in exchange for a cut of their mining profits.  My BOINC rig will consist of the following;


Lenovo Thinkserver RD230
Lenovo Thinkserver TS430
(4) HP Microserver G7 N54L

All of the server data ports will have 1 GbE connected to my Cisco WS-C3550-12T.  The management ports will go into my second switch which would be a Cisco WS-C2924M-XL or a Cisco WS-C2960-48.

I've noticed in the ports there's no BOINC server, just a client.  There appears to be a BOINC server for Linux.
The official BOINC page at UC Berkley has their instructions for MySQL which I'm not a fan of.  I had to deal with that white elephant of a port when my former employer ran Enterasys (formerly Cabletron) Spectrum.  If I have to run an SQL database it will be PostgreSQL.  Is there any advice or FAQs on using PostgreSQL in lieu of MySQL because of a sysadmin's preference?  I suspect it's no big deal.


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## SirDice (May 3, 2022)

LVLouisCyphre said:


> I want to create my own computing cluster with BOINC for crypto currency mining.


Unless the power you use to run those machines is free you're not going to get any decent return. It's going to cost more, it'll be cheaper just to buy those bitcoins.

Mining is typically done on GPUs because they consume less power and have a much higher hashrate. But even that isn't enough anymore. Most of the bitcoin mining is done on custom ASICs nowadays.

(I have two systems mining etherium, I'm not breaking even at the moment, it is actually costing me money. Price of electricity has gone up significantly recently and the value of bitcoin has dropped)


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## LVLouisCyphre (May 3, 2022)

SirDice said:


> Unless the power you use to run those machines is free you're not going to get any decent return. It's going to cost more, it'll be cheaper just to buy those bitcoins.
> 
> Mining is typically done on GPUs because they consume less power and have a much higher hashrate. But even that isn't enough anymore. Most of the bitcoin mining is done on custom ASICs nowadays.



Yes, the power is free.  It's something called solar.  I live in southern Nevada with plenty of sun.  I have more solar power than I know what to do with.


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## SirDice (May 3, 2022)

LVLouisCyphre said:


> Yes, the power is free. It's something called solar. I live in southern Nevada with plenty of sun. I have more solar power than I know what to do with.


Must be nice. You should see my monthly electric bill. I live alone and use more electricity than a family with 4 kids


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## sidetone (May 3, 2022)

When the cost isn't worth it anymore, I think it makes more sense for combining computing power that solves actual (scientific or other) problems.


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## LVLouisCyphre (May 3, 2022)

SirDice said:


> Must be nice. You should see my monthly electric bill. I live alone and use more electricity than a family with 4 kids


When NVEnergy was blocking solar back when I was living in my 1788 sq ft home (2008-15), it was like pulling teeth to get solar installed.  I remember those power bills when I had my personal data center and lab in the loft of my home..  I had a computing cluster of almost a dozen servers.

Now Nevada will subsidize new solar installations with all of the tax incentives and what not.  You're too far up north to benefit from solar with only about half the month having a sunny day in contrast to where I am where I have almost 300 sunny days a year with each day having an almost full day of daylight sun hours.  

It's also theoretically possible to put together a data center in a bus, FMTV, RV or van and have it run off of solar if you do it right providing that you stay within the sun belt of the country you're in.  If I end up buying a FMTV with the sliders on it (M1087), I may just try that for giggles.  You can get retired FMTVs cheap for under $4K USD.  A primary purpose of an M1087 FMTV was for field data and telecommunications equipment.  Chances are it will have a beefy alternator to be able to handle a computing cluster.  What will kill you there will be the cost of fuel with fuel prices being the way they are now.   What will get really interesting is when we see the PHEV RVs and vans.

Are your mining rigs running FreeBSD?  BOINC does have some GPU processing capabilities.


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## LVLouisCyphre (May 3, 2022)

sidetone said:


> When the cost isn't worth it anymore, I think it makes more sense for combining computing power that solves actual (scientific or other) problems.


There's nothing saying that you can't distribute your ocmputing power among personal as well as public projects.


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## SirDice (May 3, 2022)

LVLouisCyphre said:


> Are your mining rigs running FreeBSD?


No, sorry. Use Windows there. Mainly because I'm lazy and the site I joined up with had a really easy to use miner, wallet, everything. Signed up, installed the app and I was up and running within a couple of minutes. The application is Linux or Windows, already had Windows running on those machines, so that was an easy choice to make.

No GPU mining on FreeBSD unfortunately. Need CUDA for that.


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## LVLouisCyphre (May 3, 2022)

SirDice said:


> No, sorry. Use Windows there. Mainly because I'm lazy and the site I joined up with had a really easy to use miner, wallet, everything. Signed up, installed the app and I was up and running within a couple of minutes. The application is Linux or Windows, already had Windows running on those machines, so that was an easy choice to make.
> 
> No GPU mining on FreeBSD unfortunately. Need CUDA for that.


BOINC has the capability of using GPUs.  I suspect that would be handled by the FreeBSD BOINC client unless of course that's missing in the FreeBSD port.


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## cracauer@ (Dec 26, 2022)

SirDice said:


> No GPU mining on FreeBSD unfortunately. Need CUDA for that.



How do Linux users mine on AMD cards? OpenCL?


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