Merge pull request #309 from mattcode55/topic-mine-to-pool

First revision of pool mining user guide

resources/user-guides/index.md

@@ -67,7 +67,7 @@ title: "User Guides"
                 </div>
 <div class="row start-xs text-center" markdown="1">
 
-User Guides for Mining coming soon.
+[How to mine on a pool with xmr-stak-cpu](mine-to-pool.html)
 
 </div>
             </div>

resources/user-guides/mine-to-pool.md

@@ -0,0 +1,117 @@
+---
+layout: static_page
+title: How to mine on a pool with xmr-stak-cpu
+---
+# Selecting a pool
+
+There are many pools to choose from, a list is available at
+[moneropools.com](https://moneropools.com). Mining on a larger pool could mean
+more frequent payouts, but mining on a smaller pool helps to keep the network
+decentralised.
+
+# Selecting a CPU miner
+
+Just like pools, there are a lot of miners to choose from. The one that you
+should pick depends on the hardware you want to mine on. This guide will only
+use a CPU miner, and will be using
+[xmr-stak-cpu](https://github.com/fireice-uk/xmr-stak-cpu). Alternatives include
+[wolf's CPUMiner](https://github.com/wolf9466/cpuminer-multi) and
+[sgminer-gm](https://github.com/genesismining/sgminer-gm). However, their
+configuration is slightly different and will not be covered in this guide.
+
+## For Windows Systems
+
+If you are using a Windows system, the developer of xmr-stak-cpu provides
+binaries to download on the
+[GitHub release page](https://github.com/fireice-uk/xmr-stak-cpu/releases).
+
+Download `xmr-stak-cpu-win64.zip` and extract it somewhere you'll be able to
+find it again.
+
+## For Other Operating Systems
+
+If you're not using Windows, you will have to compile xmr-stak-cpu for yourself,
+luckily this isn't as hard as it sounds. Before you can compile the miner, you
+will need to install some of its prerequisites.
+
+For Debian-based distros:
+
+    sudo apt-get install libmicrohttpd-dev libssl-dev cmake build-essential
+
+For Red Hat based distros:
+
+	sudo yum install openssl-devel cmake gcc-c++ libmicrohttpd-devel
+
+<!-- TODO: Add dependencies for other operating systems? -->
+
+Following this, you just need to use cmake to generate the build files, run
+make and copy the config file:
+
+    mkdir build-$(gcc -dumpmachine)
+	cd $_
+	cmake ../
+	make -j$(nproc)
+	cp ../config.txt bin/
+	cd bin
+
+Don't celebrate just yet, as the miner needs to be configured. Running the miner
+now should give you a block of text to copy and paste:
+
+![image1](png/mine_to_pool/1.png)
+
+Open `config.txt` and *replace* the two `"cpu_threads_conf"` lines with the text
+you just copied. It should look something like this afterwards:
+
+![image2](png/mine_to_pool/2.png)
+
+Scroll down in the file until you see the lines containing `"pool_address"`.
+*Replace* the contents of the second set of quotes with the address and port of
+the pool you chose earlier. You can find this information on the pool's website.
+
+Put your wallet address between the quotes on the wallet address. You may leave
+the password blank unless the pool specifies otherwise.
+
+After this, your config should look something like this:
+
+![image3](png/mine_to_pool/3.png)
+
+# Running the miner
+
+**Save the config** file and run the miner!
+
+![image4](png/mine_to_pool/4.png)
+
+Some pools allow you to monitor your hashrate by pasting your address into their
+website. You can also monitor your hashrate by pressing the `h` key.
+
+# Tuning the miner
+
+You might see nasty messages like this:
+
+	[2017-07-09 12:04:02] : MEMORY ALLOC FAILED: mmap failed
+
+This means that you can get around a 20% hashrate boost by enabling large pages.
+
+## Large pages on Linux
+
+Firstly stop the miner (if it's running), run the following commands to enable
+large pages and then start the miner as root:
+
+	sudo sysctl -w vm.nr_hugepages=128
+	sudo ./xmr-stak-cpu
+
+## Large pages on Windows
+
+Taken from `config.txt`:
+
+>By default we will try to allocate large pages. This means you need to "Run As Administrator" on Windows
+You need to edit your system's group policies to enable locking large pages. Here are the steps from MSDN
+1. On the Start menu, click Run. In the Open box, type gpedit.msc.
+2. On the Local Group Policy Editor console, expand Computer Configuration, and then expand Windows Settings.
+3. Expand Security Settings, and then expand Local Policies.
+4. Select the User Rights Assignment folder.
+5. The policies will be displayed in the details pane.
+6. In the pane, double-click Lock pages in memory.
+7. In the Local Security Setting – Lock pages in memory dialog box, click Add User or Group.
+8. In the Select Users, Service Accounts, or Groups dialog box, add an account that you will run the miner on
+9. Reboot for change to take effect.