Merged mining + timetravel fix @19200 - must upgrade

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jtimon
Posts: 27
Joined: Fri Jul 22, 2011 5:36 pm
os: linux

Re: Merged mining block number

Post by jtimon »

Ok, so the date is impossible to know for sure. What date do you guys expect approximately?
Sorry if this question has been answered before.
After that moment, namecoin miners must also mine for bitcoin or can they keep on just mining for namecoin (if for wathever reason they don't want to do it).
Does this change make the namecoin security a low limit for the bitcoin security?

smoothie
Posts: 34
Joined: Sun Jul 10, 2011 4:45 am
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Re: Merged mining block number

Post by smoothie »

Yup the sooner the merged mining can take hold the better both networks (BTC and NMC) will be once the software update has been tested.

Hopefully the bitcoin mining pools update their software given that they hold the majority of the hashing power on that network.

Once you understand the concept it is kinda slick in that you are optimizing the hashing power to be used across multiple networks without any inter dependency on each other.

Do we have an ETA?

Block 24,000 seems quite a ways away. Probably 2 to 3 months away at the very least.

Once merged mining takes hold you will see the namecoin difficulty catch up to the bitcoin difficulty and reach parity in the near future after it has been started.

vinced
Posts: 63
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 1:16 am

Re: Merged mining block number

Post by vinced »

I have a new version up which allows more than one auxiliary chain to be mined. This version also includes a fix for aux proof-of-work validation.
doublec wrote:Has this been merged into master already? Is it checking for block 24,000? People have been complaining about git master rejecting blocks.
This was merged into master as of the previous commit. Apologies if this was premature. I have not looked into the rejected blocks yet. Is there a detailed report anywhere?
!v | Namecoin founder | https://dot-bit.org/

sacarlson
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Joined: Mon Jul 25, 2011 4:44 am
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Re: Merged mining block number

Post by sacarlson »

Your last changes seem to have done the trick for the problems I was seeing. I've now merged your mergedmine branch commit 6849ac73f3577c1b445787993d134a596c89c09b with my branch of MultiCoin-exp last released commit 4e13e3527eca861964bb. preliminary test are good. more details of setup and continued updated results can be seen at: http://forum.bitcoin.org/index.php?topi ... #msg394289 .
Thanks from all of us at MultiCoin!!

doublec
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Re: Merged mining block number

Post by doublec »

vinced wrote:Is there a detailed report anywhere?
The report is basically, checkout the current git master. Build and run it with a clear datadir. It doesn't download any blocks or make any connections. I haven't tested your latest changes.

smoothie
Posts: 34
Joined: Sun Jul 10, 2011 4:45 am
os: linux

Re: Merged mining block number

Post by smoothie »

vinced wrote:I have a new version up which allows more than one auxiliary chain to be mined. This version also includes a fix for aux proof-of-work validation.
doublec wrote:Has this been merged into master already? Is it checking for block 24,000? People have been complaining about git master rejecting blocks.
This was merged into master as of the previous commit. Apologies if this was premature. I have not looked into the rejected blocks yet. Is there a detailed report anywhere?
Can this version be run on the current BTC and NMC networks? Or are we still testing?

I'm with casascius on this in that if the proof of work can be submitted to the other network (btc or nmc) then as we are mining we could essentially be submitting proof of work that could either get us BTC or more likely NMC while mining for btc.

vinced
Posts: 63
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 1:16 am

Re: Merged mining block number

Post by vinced »

doublec wrote:
vinced wrote:Is there a detailed report anywhere?
The report is basically, checkout the current git master. Build and run it with a clear datadir. It doesn't download any blocks or make any connections. I haven't tested your latest changes.
Thank you, I found the issue. A new version tagged nc0.3.24.53-rc2 is up on my repository. The previous version rejected current production blocks because it was checking for the new block version ID prematurely.

To reduce confusion about which version is stable, I will use the following format for stable version tags: nc0.0.00.00 and no release candidate notation at the end. As with bitcoin, 'master' is an integration branch so any particular commit might not be stable. Only tagged commits are intended for production use.

Currently, the only stable version is nc0.3.21.91, but I have hopes for nc-0.3.24.53-rc2 being final.
!v | Namecoin founder | https://dot-bit.org/

vinced
Posts: 63
Joined: Wed May 18, 2011 1:16 am

Re: Merged mining block number

Post by vinced »

smoothie wrote: Can this version be run on the current BTC and NMC networks? Or are we still testing?
You should be able to run the mergedmine branch on the bitcoin network and the master branch on the namecoin network right now. In fact, that would be very helpful for testing.

You won't be able to successfully submit auxiliary work to namecoin until block 24000, but you can submit normal work as usual. You can even use the merged mining proxy. If you use the proxy, the normal work will be accepted, and the auxiliary work will be rejected. You won't lose any hash power, assuming no bugs.

If you do any of this you should watch closely for any problems.

Anybody in favor of moving up the starting block number to 19500 if no bugs are found in the current version over the next week? At the current block rate, this would be about four weeks.
!v | Namecoin founder | https://dot-bit.org/

doublec
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Re: Merged mining block number

Post by doublec »

vinced wrote:
smoothie wrote: Anybody in favor of moving up the starting block number to 19500 if no bugs are found in the current version over the next week? At the current block rate, this would be about four weeks.
My concern with this is it not being enough time to get people to update the client. Ideally we'd have it set to a block in the future and have a couple of releases before then to enable people to update. Then by the time it activates everyone is on the new version. Are you able to send a network message to clients asking them to upgrade?

smoothie
Posts: 34
Joined: Sun Jul 10, 2011 4:45 am
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Re: Merged mining block number

Post by smoothie »

doublec wrote:
vinced wrote:
smoothie wrote: Anybody in favor of moving up the starting block number to 19500 if no bugs are found in the current version over the next week? At the current block rate, this would be about four weeks.
My concern with this is it not being enough time to get people to update the client. Ideally we'd have it set to a block in the future and have a couple of releases before then to enable people to update. Then by the time it activates everyone is on the new version. Are you able to send a network message to clients asking them to upgrade?

This update won't take long to get out into the namecoin community. If we all who post here do some due diligence in posting to this forum as well as forum.bitcoin.org we will get the word out in a matter of two weeks tops (four weeks is plenty of time assuming we have no bugs).

I'm in favor of block 19500.

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