How-To-Crypto-Mine-for-Monero-XMR-on-Ubuntu-20.04-with-XMRig

System Setup

For this setup we can use a desktop or laptop and install Ubuntu 20.04 LTS. We go over the full setup assuming a fresh install of the OS is ready for us.

If you have not installed the OS yet, feel free to choose the "minimal" install since that is all we need. However, feel free to install whatever you like.

Note: Optionally, consider using a dedicated Rasperry Pi (or similar) to run a hardware firewall such as the openwrt router. We will use the ubuntu firewall known as ufw, but we also want a hardware firewall as well. For a full guide on setting that up, see my write-up at https://github.com/mikenizo808/How-To-Install-openwrt-on-Raspberry-Pi

Credit / Motivation

Thanks to Network Chuck for the motivation and and literally the commands. We essentially follow his video for setting up Raspberry Pi, except that we use Ubuntu, and (spoiler) the commands are exactly the same.

Check out Chuck's great video on the topic of XMRig on Raspberry Pi at:

https://youtu.be/hHtGN_JzoP8

List Video Card

lspci | grep VGA

Note: We are only interested in the video card to make your system stable, not for mining since Monero does not benefit from gpu. See the write-up at https://monerostuff.blogspot.com/2021/01/can-i-mine-monero-with-graphics-card.html for more details.

Example Output

#nvidia system
mike@ubuntu02:~$ lspci | grep VGA
01:00.0 VGA compatible controller: NVIDIA Corporation TU116 [GeForce GTX 1660 Ti] (rev a1)

#amd system
mike@ubuntu004:~$ lspci | grep VGA
0a:00.0 VGA compatible controller: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Device 73ff (rev c7)

Nouveau Driver

By default, modern Nvidia cards should work okay with the native Ubuntu driver known as Nouveau. This runs automatically and requires no interaction. However, depending on the os release you are running and other factors, your results may vary (i.e. some crashes or lots of crashes).

The Nvidia Driver

If your system uses an AMD card then no drivers are needed. However, if using an Nvidia card, you can optionally switch from the default nouveau driver to the nvidia driver.

Simply launch the Software & Updates application and navigate to the Additional Drivers tab. There you will see the various versions available; Click the one at the top of the list for the latest.

Optional Networking - Install net-tools with apt

For convenience, we can install net-tools which will let us do ifconfig to see our network info if ever needed (or just use the default ip addr command, though the output is not great for that one.). For these reasons and more, we install net-tools.

sudo apt install net-tools

About ssh on your Desktop and Miner Node

Let's discuss who needs software installed to be able to reach them from terminal using ssh.

First, let's review the software involved:

• openssh-server - This allows things to ssh to us. This requires installation if desired.

• openssh-client - This let's you ssh to things and is installed by default.

For my desktop, I do not need things to ssh to me (though I could allow it for the convenience of being able to scp files to myself). So, nothing needs to reach me; However, I do want to reach other things (i.e. terminal using ssh to my Miner nodes).

As such, the other nodes will need to be running the "Server" component of ssh. Here, we install openssh-server and configure the Ubuntu ufw firewall.

#install
sudo apt install openssh-server

#Optional - check service status
sudo systemctl status sshd

#Optional - Show apps that Ubuntu firewall (a.k.a `ufw`) has defined by name.
sudo ufw app list

#Choose the network to allow through firewall
sudo ufw allow from 10.100.0.0/16 to any app OpenSSH

#enable firewall
#sudo ufw enable

#restart ssh
sudo systemctl restart sshd

Note: There are many ways to allow ssh access, this is just one example using my network. For more details and general examples, see https://ubuntu.com/server/docs/security-firewall. If you want to reset the firewall to defaults you can run sudo ufw reset.

Installing XMRig Open Source Mining Software

Spoiler: every single command is exactly the same for Ubuntu or Raspberry Pi, so feel free to run XMRig on both.

## install requirements
sudo apt install -y git build-essential cmake libuv1-dev libssl-dev libhwloc-dev

#change directory
cd ~/Downloads

#clone repo
git clone https://github.com/xmrig/xmrig.git

#change directory
cd xmrig

#make directory
mkdir build

#change directory
cd build

#cmake (don't forget the .. which says the bits are up one directory)
cmake ..

#make (choose how many procs to compile on)
make -j4

Note: Using the "-j" parameter with make speeds up the compile time with the integer being how many procs you have or want to compile on. On my desktop with 16 procs, I compile using -j14 so I keep two procs for the system. Remember that this only speeds up the compile time, and the resulting binary will be the same.

Optional - Copy xmrig to /opt

You can run xmrig immediately by typing ./xmrig from the build directory. Or, we can copy the bits someplace official.

#create directory
sudo mkdir /opt/xmrig

#copy bits
sudo cp ./xmrig /opt/xmrig/xmrig

#test
/opt/xmrig/xmrig --help

Choose a "pool"

You can mine on your own but most people join a mining pool such as moneroocean. To join a pool we just point to gulf.moneroocean.stream:10128 (or other pool you may choose); There is no sign-up or login.

You can learn more (and also watch your hashrate in realtime) from a web browser to:

https://moneroocean.stream/

Run xmrig

This is an example using a mining pool from moneroocean, and also my "Wallet ID".

Note: If you do not have a "Wallet ID" yet not worry as we get to that later.

#syntax
</path/to/xmrig> -o <mining pool address> -u <your monero wallet address> -p <optional label for worker> 

#example
/opt/xmrig/xmrig -o gulf.moneroocean.stream:10128 -u someWalletAddress -p someDescription

#example with my wallet
/opt/xmrig/xmrig -o \
gulf.moneroocean.stream:10128 \
-u 48VWWKR6kEzByCxSZSTtJYMUgZzM83eTfMAZKbkirmktDMn7XcXaQxsRxja1GACmSaVmHxi5GDg9HGDtRTtSjnm36GZ1CqU \
-p ubuntu4

Note: Where -p is a friendly name for your instance; This can be the same as the hostname of your mining device, or whatever helps you remember which nodes are which.

Keyboard Shortcuts for xmrig

When xmrig is running in terminal, there are a several command shortcuts such as the following:

h - Hash rate s - Shares c - Connection (shows your connection quality etc.)

Setup Monero Wallet

From your desktop or some other computer we will setup the Monero Wallet (an application). This will make your unique id so you can get paid from XMR.

Follow the steps to download and verify your binaries at:

https://www.getmonero.org/resources/user-guides/verification-allos-advanced.html

Important: For either GUI or CLI downloads, be sure to use at least version 0.17.2.3, since there were major bugfixes in this release. Here, we use use 0.17.3.1, which is already old so always be sure to check for new releases.

Installing Monero Wallet

You can just download and launch the app, but the recommendation is to perform the following technique to verify the bits.

#Optional - show working directory
pwd

#Optional - change to desired directory such as home or downloads.
cd ~/Downloads

#get the gpg key
wget -O binaryfate.asc https://raw.githubusercontent.com/monero-project/monero/master/utils/gpg_keys/binaryfate.asc

#show fingerprint
gpg --keyid-format long --with-fingerprint binaryfate.asc

#If fingerprint above matches, proceed by importing the gpg key
gpg --import binaryfate.asc

#get hash file
wget -O hashes.txt https://www.getmonero.org/downloads/hashes.txt

#verify hash
gpg --verify hashes.txt

#download monero binary (unless you already have it downloaded already)
wget -O monero-gui-linux-x64-v0.17.3.1.tar.bz2 https://downloads.getmonero.org/cli/linux64

#verify the binary
shasum -a 256 monero-gui-linux-x64-v0.17.3.1.tar.bz2

Note: The checksum output from the last command above should return the same info as provided by the hashes.txt file.

Checking File Validity manually

The sha256 hash for each of the current releases is available on the downloads page. The following is the hash for the Linux 64 GUI version v0.17.3.1.

02e8e32455383cf32030e33511656492a352788a619a0c9220ec360c2e863ef9

Using grep to check the hashes.txt

We can use grep to search for our hash, so get that on the clipboard and paste it in, similar to the following.

grep 02e8e32455383cf32030e33511656492a352788a619a0c9220ec360c2e863ef9 ./hashes.txt

Example Output

mike@ubuntu03:~/Downloads$ grep 02e8e32455383cf32030e33511656492a352788a619a0c9220ec360c2e863ef9 ./hashes.txt 
02e8e32455383cf32030e33511656492a352788a619a0c9220ec360c2e863ef9  monero-gui-linux-x64-v0.17.3.1.tar.bz2

View the Guide for Monero GUI

https://github.com/monero-ecosystem/monero-GUI-guide/releases

Optional - Install the Monero CLI

Not needed, but you can optionally install the Monero CLI. This can be skipped if using the Monero GUI version.

To download the Monero CLI (if desired) navigate to the same downloads page as the GUI version (just scroll to bottom to find it):

Launch the Monero GUI

You can just launch it from your downloads or home drive wherever you placed it. However, you might want to move the bits to a standard location such as opt.

#make a directory
sudo mkdir /opt/monero

#move the bits (adjust this path for your setup!)
sudo mv "/path/to/monero-gui-linux-x64-v0.17.3.1" /opt/monero/

#change directory
cd /opt/monero

#open a file browser in current directory
xdg-open .

#To launch, double-click the file that says "AppImage"
monero-wallet-gui.AppImage

Start Mining

The following is an overview of the steps required to start mining now..

## Secure your network
    - Run a hardware firewall
    - Disable bluetooth and WIFI
    - Connect to network via ethernet 

## From your main system, if you have not already:

    - Participate in the secure network
    - This means turning off your bluetooth and WIFI
    - Consume network from your hardware router using ethernet
    - Launch Monero GUI
    - Use the guided setup / quick-start to generate a user key (this identifies your wallet).
    - Click "Account" in the left pane
    - In the right pane, click the Clipboard icon to "Copy address to clipboard".

## From an ssh terminal to your mining device

    #change directory to where you placed the bits
    cd /opt/xmrig/
    
    #start the XMRig miner (adjust as needed to point to the desired pool, etc)
    ./xmrig -o gulf.moneroocean.stream:10128 -u <your monero key> -p <friendly name>

Note: Where -u is your Monero "key" you copied to your computer's clipboard earlier (using Monero GUI).

Note: The -p parameter allows you to name this particular runtime (useful if running more than one device). This information then shows up on the dashboard at https://moneroocean.stream

When will I see XMR Earnings appear?

Put away the Monero Wallet because you will not see earnings there for a while. Instead, focus on the pool webpage to see your earnings before reaching the pool limit.

The default payment threshold varies for each pool. For moneroocean.stream the default is 0.3 XMR that must be earned before payment; However, you can lower this setting to 0.003 to get paid quicker!

To configure your minimum payout, click the Miner options icon from the link below.

https://moneroocean.stream/

Note: This is where you normally watch your stats from. The Miner options icon is near the top right of the page, between XMR Total Due and XMR Paid. The icon looks like 3 vertical bars.

Tip: Try to keep the default setting (0.003) since that gives the cheapest XMR tx rate (cost to cash out). The default rate is 1.32 % (when set to 0.003), and when getting paid as fast as possible the rate is 13.33 % (i.e. when set to 0.03).

Donating to things you like

Once you start making some xmr, you can optionally donate for fun and practice. In the Monero Wallet application, I add the following to my "Address Book" and send a small donation. You can check the FAQ for the sites or developers you want to support to check how to contribute.

# donate to monero
888tNkZrPN6JsEgekjMnABU4TBzc2Dt29EPAvkRxbANsAnjyPbb3iQ1YBRk1UXcdRsiKc9dhwMVgN5S9cQUiyoogDavup3H

# donate to xmrig
48edfHu7V9Z84YzzMa6fUueoELZ9ZRXq9VetWzYGzKt52XU5xvqgzYnDK9URnRoJMk1j8nLwEVsaSWJ4fhdUyZijBGUicoD

Summary

In this guide, we got you up and running with XMRig open source mining software on Ubuntu 20.04. Credit and props to Network Chuck for the motivation and literally the commands!

Also worth mentioning again is that setting up XMRig on Raspberry Pi uses exactly all of the same commands as Ubuntu (so add some Pi nodes!).

As for hashrate, my Raspberry Pi 4 nodes solve at about 90 to 107 hashes/sec, and my AMD desktop gets about 4000/sec by default (8k when following the official performance guides). Be sure to check out the "Next Steps" below for a walk-through on getting high performance from your setup.

Finally, be aware it may take a couple of days before you see any balance above complete zeros, since the mining pools usually have some limit before your first payout shows up.

PS - Remember that with the cost of electricity, mining should really only be done to break even and have fun!

Next Steps

This is a good time to relax and enjoy some decent hashrates, but with just a couple more steps, you can literally double your performance. In the article below, we walk through the official performance papers and show techniques to get those hashrates up.

https://github.com/mikenizo808/Increasing-XMRig-Performance-on-Ubuntu