ADVANCED.md

Ansible cryptogrot.xmr-stak role

This role will install and configure the mining tool xmr-stak on Linux operating system. Using this role give you the possibility to configure xmr-stak with the needed backend from the latest official source code from GitHub.

Supported backend types:

• NVIDIA (CUDA 9.1)
• AMD/ATI (OpenCL)
• CPU

This role enables and configures the Linux Kernel hugepages to provide the best performances and so a better hashrate.

To increase security, a dedicated system user (miner) will be created, this user will have the Kernel hugepages configure for the soft and hard limits.

For a better redundancy, the xmr-stak process is handle by systemd. A unit will be created to run the process as a simple user and to make sure that the service is always started. We are offering two ways to manage the xmr-stak process (both via systemd):

1. As daemon under the miner system user
2. Within a screen session under the miner system user

If you choosed to run the process within screen, you will have to connect as miner user and then attach the screen session.

$ su - miner
$ screen -ls
$ screen -x XXXX.xmr-stak

To detach from the screen session, please use ctrl+a+d keys combination.

With the screen method on RedHat family distributions some SELinux rules have to be applied to avoid a reject from SELinux complaining about screen and systemd. Don't worry, the role will apply the rules if needed.

By default we dediced to let xmr-stak generate the correct CPU affinity/configuration, of course this could be changed by editing the cpu.txt configuration file in /etc/miner/ directory.

Supported algorithms:

• Cryptonigth (the one configured by default)
  • (Monero, Sumokin, Electroneum, Intense, etc...)
• Cryptonigth-ligth
  • (AEON, etc...)

For more information about the xmr-stak miner, please have a look here.

Requirements

Please make sure that ansible and python-pip are installed on your Linux distribution. This role has been developped using Ansible 2.4.x version, to install the latest Ansible version please run pip.

$ sudo pip install -U ansible

The role configures NVIDIA and AMD backend for xmr-stak only, you will need to install the kernel module (driver) by your self, we don't want to take this responsability. Please refer to the documentation related to your Linux distribution.

Role Variables

A description of the settable variables for this role should go here, including any variables that are in defaults/main.yml, vars/main.yml, and any variables that can/should be set via parameters to the role. Any variables that are read from other roles and/or the global scope (ie. hostvars, group vars, etc.) should be mentioned here as well.

---
# file: roles/xmr-stak/defaults/main.yml
xmr_stak_pool_address: itns001.cryptogrot.io
xmr_stak_pool_port: 6666
xmr_stak_wallet_address: iz4gjHNRvPnhGibn7QS41rRdKYnRSD91xcecqPfR3Ti9ZKXZASusYjxi4HcafJg4Pnass13Rif52s1ySyqdQuymy2th21urXx
xmr_stak_nvidia_support: false
xmr_stak_amd_support: false
xmr_stak_cpu_support: false
xmr_stak_httpd_support: false
xmr_stak_hwloc_support: false
xmr_stak_ssl_support: true
xmr_stak_build_options: "-DHWLOC_ENABLE={{ 'ON' if xmr_stak_hwloc_support else 'OFF' }} -DCUDA_ENABLE={{ 'ON' if xmr_stak_nvidia_support else 'OFF' }} -DOpenCL_ENABLE={{ 'ON' if xmr_stak_amd_support else 'OFF' }} {{ '-DOpenCL_LIBRARY=/usr/lib64/libOpenCL.so.1' if xmr_stak_amd_support and ansible_os_family == 'RedHat' else '' }} -DCPU_ENABLE={{ 'ON' if xmr_stak_cpu_support else 'OFF' }} -DXMR-STAK_CURRENCY=ALL -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX:PATH=/usr -DMICROHTTPD_ENABLE={{ 'ON' if xmr_stak_httpd_support else 'OFF' }} -DOpenSSL_ENABLE={{ 'ON' if xmr_stak_ssl_support else 'OFF' }} {{ xmr_stak_buid_extra_options }}"
xmr_stak_buid_extra_options: ""
xmr_stak_screen: false
xmr_stak_hugepages_size: 128

---
# file: roles/xmr-stak/vars/main.yml
xmr_stak_git_url: https://github.com/fireice-uk/xmr-stak.git
xmr_stak_git_branch: master
xmr_stak_dir: /opt/xmr-stak
xmr_stak_build_dir: /opt/xmr-stak/build
xmr_stak_config_dir: /etc/miner
xmr_stak_log_dir: /var/log/miner
xmr_stak_cuda_file: https://developer.nvidia.com/compute/cuda/9.1/Prod/local_installers/cuda_9.1.85_387.26_linux
xmr_stak_wallet: iz4gjHNRvPnhGibn7QS41rRdKYnRSD91xcecqPfR3Ti9ZKXZASusYjxi4HcafJg4Pnass13Rif52s1ySyqdQuymy2th21urXx
xmr_stak_user: miner
xmr_stak_group: miner
xmr_stak_uid: 3000
xmr_stak_gid: 3000

# file: roles/xmr-stak/templates/etc/miner/config.txt.j2
{{ xmr_stak_pool_password | default('') }}
{{ xmr_stak_nicehash | default('false') }}
{{ xmr_stak_tls | default('false') }}
{{ xmr_stak_tls_fingerprint | default('') }}
{{ xmr_stak_pool_weight | default(1) }} }
{{ xmr_stak_currency | default('monero') }}
{{ xmr_stak_call_timeout | default(10) }}
{{ xmr_stak_retry_time | default(30) }}
{{ xmr_stak_giveup_limit | default(0) }}
{{ xmr_stak_debug_level | default(3) }}
{{ xmr_stak_print_motd | default('true') }}
{{ xmr_stak_h_print_time | default(60) }}
{{ xmr_stak_aes_override | default('null') }}
{{ xmr_stak_use_slow_memory | default('warn') }}
{{ xmr_stak_tls_secure_algo | default('true') }}
{{ xmr_stak_daemon_mode | default('false') }}
{{ xmr_stak_flush_stdout | default('true') }}
{{ xmr_stak_http_port | default(0) }}
{{ xmr_stak_http_user | default('') }}"
{{ xmr_stak_http_passord | default('') }}"
{{ xmr_stak_prefer_ipv4 | default('true') }}

When you deploy xmr-stak via this Ansible role, a donation to our pool will be configured (as the same done by the xmr-stak dev team) automatically. By default the miner will donate 2% of the hashpower (2 minutes in 100 minutes) to our pool.

{{ xmr_stak_donation_value | default('2.0') }}" }
{{ xmr_stak_donation_pool | default('donate.cryptogrot.io') }}
{{ xmr_stak_donation_wallet | default(xmr_stak_wallet) }}

To disable the donation you will just have to configure the xmr_stak_donation_value variable to 0.

There is a xmr_stak_packages variable in xmr-stak/vars/ directory related to each Linux distribution supported.

• Debian
• Ubuntu
• CentOS
• Fedora
• RedHat (the system should be registered on RHN)

Dependencies

The role doesn't have any dependency, you could just run ansible-galaxy install --roles-path . cryptogrot.xmr-stak and the role will be downloaded automatically from Ansible Galaxy.

Make it run

Pre-requirements

Few things to prepare before starting. Ubuntu/Debian

$ sudo apt install python-pip -y

Fedora

$ sudo dnf install python-pip -y

CentOS 7

$ sudo yum install python-pip -y

Deployment

$ sudo pip install -U pip ansible
$ mkdir -p ~/ansible/{inventories/xmr-stak,playbooks/xmr-stak,roles}
$ cat << EOF > ~/ansible/ansible.cfg
[defaults]
host_key_checking = False
roles_path = ./roles
EOF
$ cat << EOF > ~/ansible/playbooks/xmr-stak/site.yml
---
- name: Building xmr-stak miner program
  hosts: all
  user: debian
  become: true

  roles:
    - cryptogrot.xmr-stak
EOF
$ ansible-galaxy install --force --roles-path ~/ansible/roles cryptogrot.xmr-stak

First, the Ansible inventory as to be created ~/ansible/inventories/xmr-stak/hosts file. Here we are trying to provide an example for different distributions.

[miner]
192.168.0.2          ansible_user=fedora ansible_python_interpreter=/usr/bin/python3
192.168.0.3          ansible_user=root
192.168.0.4          ansible_user=ubuntu
192.168.0.5          ansible_user=centos
192.168.0.[13:30] ansible_user=debian ansible_port=22

This command will configure xmr-stak to mine with CPU and connect to itns001.cryptogrot.io pool on port 6666 with the wallet ID iz69...ihJF5FY7ed319xS...1kXj1N7yRa...Gmwfrh

$ ansible-playbook -i ~/ansible/inventories/xmr-stak/hosts ~/ansible/playbooks/xmr-stak/site.yml -e "xmr_stak_cpu_support=true xmr_stak_hwloc_support=true xmr_stak_pool_address=itns001.cryptogrot.io xmr_stak_pool_port=6666 xmr_stak_pool_wallet=iz69...ihJF5FY7ed319xS...1kXj1N7yRa...Gmwfrh"

Tricks & Tips

It is possible to run only few parts of the role, that could be very useful if you only want to reconfigure xmr-stak without rebuild everything from the sources. Please find below a list of available tags for this roles:

• xmr-stak: Run all the tasks
• xmr-stak-prepare: Run tasks that will prepare the field
• xmr-stak-install: Run tasks related to the clone, donation, compilation, configuration, service
• xmr-stak-sysctl: Run tasks related to hugepages configuration
• xmr-stak-pam: Run tasks that applied memlock limit to the miner user
• xmr-stak-selinux: Run tasks to install SELinux module (only for RedHat family distribution)
• xmr-stak-systemd: Run tasks that will configure the systemd service unit
• xmr-stak-config: Run tasks that will configure xmr-stak
• xmr-stak-clean: Run tasks for cleaning purpose, removing build directory, cache, etc...

For example, to reconfigure xmr-stak, the Ansible command would be:

$ ansible-playbook -i ~/ansible/inventories/xmr-stak/hosts ~/ansible/playbooks/xmr-stak/site.yml -e "xmr_stak_cpu_support=true xmr_stak_hwloc_support=true xmr_stak_pool_address=itns001.cryptogrot.io xmr_stak_pool_port=6666 xmr_stak_pool_wallet=iz69...ihJF5FY7ed319xS...1kXj1N7yRa...Gmwfrh" -t xmr-stak-config

If something changed in the config.txt file, the xmr-stak service will be restarted.

Example Playbooks

Please find below few examples of Ansible playbook to configure the xmr-stak miner to make it fit with your needs. The playbook should be created in ~/ansible/playbooks/xmr-stak/ directory under the site.yml name.

CPU

---
- name: Building xmr-stak miner for CPU usage
  hosts: miner
  user: debian
  become: true

  vars:
    - xmr_stak_cpu_support: true
    - xmr_stak_hwloc_support: true
    - xmr_stak_pool_address: itns001.cryptogrot.io
    - xmr_stak_pool_port: 6666
    - xmr_stak_aes_override: true
    - xmr_stak_wallet_address: iz69...ihJF5FY7ed319xS...1kXj1N7yRa...Gmwfrh

  roles:
    - cryptogrot.xmr-stak

AMD GPU

---
- name: Building xmr-stak miner for AMD GPU usage
  hosts: miner
  user: debian
  become: true

  vars:
    - xmr_stak_amd_support: true
    - xmr_stak_pool_address: itns001.cryptogrot.io
    - xmr_stak_pool_port: 6666
    - xmr_stak_wallet_address: iz69...ihJF5FY7ed319xS...1kXj1N7yRa...Gmwfrh

  roles:
    - cryptogrot.xmr-stak

NVIDIA GPU

---
- name: Building xmr-stak miner for NVIDIA GPU usage
  hosts: miner
  user: debian
  become: true

  vars:
    - xmr_stak_nvidia_support: true
    - xmr_stak_pool_address: itns001.cryptogrot.io
    - xmr_stak_pool_port: 6666
    - xmr_stak_wallet_address: iz69...ihJF5FY7ed319xS...1kXj1N7yRa...Gmwfrh

  roles:
    - cryptogrot.xmr-stak

License

GPLv3

Author Information

cryptogrot - contact@cryptogrot.io - 2018