Large Farm Guide: How to manage many rigs using PIMP and miner.farm

[melt]

Overview

This guide is targeted toward those who have a PiMP volume key (25+ rigs). The first section outlines best practices and how to manage many rigs using SSH and script commands. The second section provides some guidance on using volume keys with PiMP.

Best Practices

Naming

How long can the Agent name be? Miner.farm Agent names technically can be up to 255 characters. However, it is usually kept under 16 for display purposes.

How to Change the Agent name? There are 2 ways:
Using the command line:
Use command: minerfarm --setname myRigNamebla1 or whatever you like to name the rig.
Using the Agent Console:
Launch the Agent Console with the command: minerfarm
Hit c to configure.
Use <tab> key to go to next field.
Put in the new name, then tab to Save and Exit.

Some ideas for naming the rigs:

Some people like to use a portion of the MAC address of the rig, ex: 0b16ca
Some people like to use a portion of the IP address and/or description of the rig. Ex: m193-3x1070
Some people make their own asset tag chart or system using shelf/bay/room/rig numbers.

How to configure a new rig the fastest way using command line:

• After the key is validated and the rig boots for the first time, SSH in and use any of these commands:
• Pimpup the rig immediately without prompting by using the command pimpup --auto
• Set the Miner.farm API keys: minerfarm -s shortkey -l longkeyhere
• Set the rigs name: minerfarm --setname awesomePimpRig1
• Add a miner: pimp --add [whatever]
• Test the miner: pimp --test 1 then Control+C out to stop the miner.
• Edit the conf or copy the conf in using scp: scp root@192.168.1.210:/opt/confs/claymore.dual.customized.pcfg /opt/confs
• Test the miner again: pimp --test 1 then Control+A,release,D out to detach and leave miner running.
• Repeat for any other configurations you want to load.
• Configure the GPU fans/clocks: gputool --config
• Edit the GPU config: nano /root/gpu-config.json or copy it in with scp.
• Run it again using gputool --config and verify rig is mining properly.

How to suppress "The authenticity of host [whatever] can't be established."

Add this to your ~/.ssh/config to auto-accept all host keys for ssh out:

Use the command: nano ~/.ssh/config

Put this in the file:

Host *
    StrictHostKeyChecking no

Control-X, [Y]es, enter to save it. Now it will not ask you about host keys.

Volume key users

The volume key is for PIMP OS, and is used with the pimpkey command to validate a rig. It is a special type of key given to people who purchase 25+ license blocks at a time.

If you are using a volume key you must use one additional initialization command one time on each rig to add it to the volume group. This information is provided on the e-mail with your volume key.

Note: Buying PIMP OS licenses is required regardless of your miner.farm plan. If you want to be able to remotely monitor and control the rigs you will also need a miner.farm plan that has enough miners available to support your farm size.

Also, You will also get a count of the rigs that are on the farm and re-count button in your miner.farm account page to take a re-count of the number of rigs currently on the farm. This is done after you have done some re-imaging, to re-allocate those licenses to newer images/rigs.