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Setting up CLI XMR p2pool mining with XMRig

Feb 08, 20255 min read

Soon I will be setting up a node entirely from scratch and CLI, but for this I had already set up a local node and p2pool mining using the Monero wallet GUI,

I wasn’t satisfied with this solution…I had to install XRDP to get a remote GUI connection, and remoting into the machine was an awful chore just to check my balance / progress mining. But, it was good to get my feet wet. I wanted to get everything working via CLI so it was just a matter of SSHing instead of struggling with RDP.

This reddit thread, admittedly a little bit old and not addressing some key points, got me mostly where I needed to go. I filled in the gaps with this video and some previous working knowledge from the GUI setup guide.

The key points I’m referring to that the thread did not address was getting all of this to run in the background. I’m used to starting everything with a script or having an option to send it to the background, but my trusty >/dev/null 2>&1 wasn’t working, ctrl + z then bg and disown wasn’t working, nohup wasn’t working…and I couldn’t find a built-in option to send p2pool to the background (I could for XMRig, but I needed both to run in the background or it wasn’t really viable).

I ended up just creating a dedicated tmux session (there’s actually an issue on their Github addressing this) to hold my mining session. I already have tmux attach aliased to ta and I figured that would be the best approach now that I’m used to using tmux for everything.

This, and setting up the local node a while back (my initial delve into XMR in general), was the majority of the struggle with getting everything up and running. Once I figured out how to background processes properly (or rather, not background them at all, and instead stick them in a multiplexer), everything just worked and the mining started.

Set up Monero daemon

Download and extract monero-wallet-cli

Run the following to start the daemon:

monerod --zmq-pub tcp://127.0.0.1:18083 --rpc-bind-ip 127.0.0.1 \
--confirm-external-bind --disable-dns-checkpoints --enable-dns-blocklist --detach

--zmq-pub tcp://127.0.0.1:18083 is necessary for p2pool mining. The two DNS flags I had seen before in the initial GUI guide, although I’m not entirely certain what they do (something else to research). The --detach command runs it in the background.

This all needs to go in a startup script / custom systemd service, so I keep mining in the event of a brownout, but I haven’t gotten to that yet.

(Also of note: I’m not sure if the --rpc-bind-ip or --confirm-external-bind flags are necessary, but I was running into some issues with p2pool establishing connection with it. I’ll have to test - unsure if the issues were stemming from bg-ing the daemon incorrectly instead of using --detach or if I was actually having an issue and this fixed it.)

Note

Updated 2025-02-13 - followed guide here

Added:

  • --out-peers and --in-peers flags
  • two priority nodes

Removed:

  • --rpc-bind-ip and --confirm-external-bind
monerod --zmq-pub tcp://127.0.0.1:18083 \
--out-peers 32 --in-peers 64 \
--add-priority-node=p2pmd.xmrvsbeast.com:18080 \
--add-priority-node=nodes.hashvault.pro:18080 \
--disable-dns-checkpoints --enable-dns-blocklist \
--detach

Set up p2pool

Download and extract p2pool:

Run the following to start p2pool:

./p2pool --host 127.0.0.1 --wallet <wallet-address>

Note

Updated 2025-02-13: Add the --mini flag to the p2pool command line to start mining on the mini chain. As I understand it - meant for smaller hashrate miners (like yours truly). More frequent payouts, but it supposedly averages out over time. I was sitting around for 2 or 3 days waiting on a payout before realizing I was on the main chain.

./p2pool --mini --host 127.0.0.1 --wallet <wallet-address>

Set up XMRig

Download and extract XMRig:

Edit config.json:

  • Set URL line to 127.0.0.1:3333 (The port affects the difficulty, I think? I have yet to try different ports, 3333 seemed reasonable given the relatively small power of the machine I am using)
  • Set user line to your wallet address

Run the following to start mining (note that sudo is important to get the MSR optimizations):

sudo ./xmrig

Note

Updated 2025-02-13: the -o flag should be specified. Also, any wallet address set in the config file will be ignored (you’re setting the wallet address in the p2pool command).
The -B flag sends it to the background, if desired. I’ve been leaving it running in a tmux session.

sudo ./xmrig -o 127.0.0.1:3333 [-B]

Check your balance

I just aliased this to xmr…

monero-wallet-cli --wallet-file <path-to-wallet-file> --daemon-address 127.0.0.1:18081

Next steps

  • Spin up a secondary machine to mine, and document the full CLI process. Mainly lacking the setting up a local node part.
  • Verify that I am seeding the blockchain.
  • Figure out transaction fees, and test the sweep_all command to transfer balances between wallets.
  • Look into 3333, 5555, and 7777 ports - which one is going to be optimal for my mining rig?
  • Run some tests with/do some digging into XMRig to see if I can get better performance out of this machine.
  • Create systemd script for monerod.
  • Create startup mining script for p2pool and XMRig.

Update: registering for XMRvsBEAST raffle

Rules here, register here

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