BFGMiner 5.5.0: CPU/GPU/FPGA/ASIC mining software, GBT+Stratum, RPC, Linux/Win64

Mining
1

Announcing BFGMiner 5.5, the modular cryptocurrency miner written in C. BFGMiner features dynamic clocking, monitoring, and remote interface capabilities.

“St. Barbara’s Faithfully Glorified Mining Initiative Naturally Exceeding Rivals”, or just basically a freaking good miner.

This code is provided entirely free of charge by the programmer, so donations would be greatly appreciated.
Please consider donating: 1QATWksNFGeUJCWBrN4g6hGM178Lovm7Wh

Do NOT send me a private message directly, as I will ignore your message. I only provide support in public, so that others may benefit from the answer too. (An exception is if you want to pay me for direct support. In that case, please say so in your message.)
READ THE README FILES INCLUDED IN THE ARCHIVE BEFORE ASKING QUESTIONS.
Also, please note that this thread is for discussion of BFGMiner, its features and bugs - if you feel the need to troll or talk off-topic, start another forum thread (and PM me with it if you want my attention).

If you want to help develop BFGMiner, the best way to get in touch with us is on IRC.
We also have a development mailing list, mainly used to pre-announce upcoming releases for third-party packagers.

Latest release: 5.5.0

  • Arch: pacman -S bfgminer
  • Debian: aptitude install bfgminer
  • Gentoo: emerge bfgminer (consider accepting ~arch and/or adding the bitcoin overlay to get the latest version)
  • Ubuntu: apt-get install bfgminer (install the BFGMiner PPA for the latest version)
  • Win32: zip
  • Win64: zip

Features:

  • A large variety of device drivers for Bitcoin (SHA256d):
    • ASICMINER Block Erupter blades, cubes, USB miners (Emerald and Sapphire), and Tube
    • BFx2 Bitfury USB miner
    • Bi•Fury
    • Big Picture Mining Bitfury-based USB miners (BF1, RedFury, BlueFury)
    • BitCentury LittleFury USB miners
    • Bitmain AntMiner S1 - S4 and S5
    • Bitmain AntMiner U1 - U3
    • BlackArrow Prospero X-1.5
    • BTCFPGA’s ModMiner Quad FPGA-based mining device
    • Butterfly Labs’s FPGA and ASIC mining products (BitForce, MiniRig, Monarch)
    • Canaan Creative Avalon1/2/3 ASIC mining rigs
    • The Chili miner assembly
    • Cointamination
    • CoinTerra TerraMiner ASIC miner
    • Drillbit Thumb and Eight
    • DualMiner ASIC-based USB miner
    • Enterpoint’s Cairnsmore1 FPGA mining board
    • FPGA Mining X6500
    • GekkoScience Compac BM1384 USB stick
    • HashBuster mining boards
    • HashFast Baby Jet
    • Intron/C-scape BitFury-based mining boards
    • JingTian miner
    • Klondike boards
    • KnCMiner Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter, and Neptune
    • Metabank gen 1 (old) BitFury-based mining device
    • NanoFury NF1 and NF2 units
    • One String Miner
    • Qi Hardware’s Icarus and Lancelot FPGA mining boards
    • ROCKMINER 30 Gh/s R-BOX and T1
    • Spondoolies SP10 and SP30
    • Twinfury USB stick miner
    • Ztex’s 1.15x and 1.15y FPGA boards
    • OpenCL GPUs, such as AMD Radeons (disabled by default, see README.GPU)
      • Kernels: Diablo, DiaKGCN, Phatk and poclbm
      • BFI_INT patching for Catalyst versions before 13.2
      • Vector support
      • Dynamic intensity that keeps desktop interactive under load and maximises throughput when desktop idle
      • Support for mining with free Mesa/LLVM OpenCL
    • CPU (not enabled by default nor included in Windows build)
    • Coming soon:
      • Halong Mining DragonMint 16T
      • any device provided for development (PM me)
  • A variety of device drivers for scrypt:
    • AlcheMiner Alchemist miner
    • DualMiner ASIC-based USB miner
    • GAW War Machine
    • Gridseed mining devices
    • KnCMiner Titan
    • ZeusMiner units
    • OpenCL GPUs, such as AMD Radeons (disabled by default, see README.GPU)
      • Kernels: ckolivas, lsoc, psw, zuikkis
    • CPU (not enabled by default nor included in Windows build)
    • Coming soon:
      • any device provided for development (PM nwoolls and/or jstefanop)
  • CPU and OpenCL/GPU mining for Keccak (SHA-3)
  • Automatically can configure itself to failover to solo mining and local block submission when Bitcoin Core is running
  • Support for getblocktemplate decentralized mining protocol (no proxy needed!)
  • Builtin stratum and getwork proxy server
  • Very low overhead free C code for Linux and Windows with very low CPU usage
  • Integrated overclocking and fan control (including automatic adjustment, if configured)
  • Heavily threaded code hands out work retrieval and work submission to separate threads to not hinder devices working
  • Caching of submissions during transient network outages
  • Preemptive generation of work prior to completion of current work
  • Automatically detects failing pools and disables them
  • Multi-device support (all or discrete selection)
  • Summarised and discrete device data statistics of requests, accepts, rejects, hw errors, efficiency and utility
  • Watchdog thread to restart idle threads but not crash machine if they don’t respond
  • Summary displayed when quitting
  • Supports multiple pools with multiple intelligent failover mechanisms
  • On the fly menu based management of most settings
  • Trickling of extra work to backup pools if primary pool is responding but slow
  • On the fly enabling/disable/restarting of devices
  • Device temperature monitoring (for devices that support it)
  • Reuses persistent connections when possible
  • RPC interface for remote control
  • Ability to cope with slow routers
  • Lots of other stuff I can’t remember. See options.

Human readable changelog:

  • Multi-blockchain support: BFGMiner can now be told which pools use the same “mining goals”, and will track the blockchain independently for ones that don’t. This allows you to mine multiple cryptocurrencies concurrently using any pool strategy (including balance and load-balance).
  • Multi-algorithm support: BFGMiner is now capable of hashing on both scrypt and SHA256d work at the same time, and you can assign the mining algorithm to use on a per-goal basis. As with multi-blockchain support, this works even in balancing strategies. Note that at this time, only CPU, OpenCL, and Proxy drivers actually support multiple algorithms at the same time (DualMiner must be preconfigured for only one, and GridSeed remains scrypt-only).
  • Stratum extensions for mining goals: New experimental methods mining.capabilities and mining.set_goal for Stratum allow you to expose control of the mining algorithm to the pool. These extensions are considered draft and may be changed based on the needs of multiblockchain pool operators.
  • RPC: Also extended for multiple mining goals/algorithms. Interface is subject to change.
  • kncasic: New driver for KnCMiner Neptune (and 2nd-gen Jupiter modules).
  • minion: New driver for BlackArrow Prospero X1.5.
  • titan: Work flushing optimisations from KnCMiner, and reduce processor view from per-core to per-die.
  • Keccak: Support for the SHA-3 winner hash as a proof-of-work algorithm.
  • opencl: Workaround broken global work offset support in buggy drivers.
  • opencl: GPU mining is now disabled by default for scrypt. Use -S opencl:auto to enable it.

Full changelog:

  • opencl: Fail gracefully if clGetProgramInfo/CL_PROGRAM_NUM_DEVICES returns zero
  • opencl: Remember results of global offset testing
  • opencl: Only save kernel binary when we built from source
  • opencl: Only try to patch BFI_INT when compiling a kernel from source
  • opencl: Major refactor, splitting up opencl_load_kernel into many new functions
  • titan: Initialise variables to satisfy compilers
  • Bugfix: opencl: Correctly handle non-goffset kernels
  • Fixing column spacing of non-curses device output
  • Bugfix: opencl: free memory if clState creation fails
  • Titan: Do not do actual configuration job in API thread context. Instead, send commands to the worker thread to do the actual job.
  • Titan: bugfix: dies are not configured if die#0 is OFF
  • Titan: unused function argument
  • Titan: unused variables
  • Update knc-asic: Titan FPGA image with spi->i2c commands removed and fixed some lock-up scenarios
  • Titan code rework: Use one bfgminer processor per die (instead of core)
  • minion: Reinitialise chips if they don’t seem to be progressing
  • minion: Read temperature sensor
  • minion: TUI clock speed control
  • minion: Include “Frequency” in RPC status
  • minion: Add “clock” setting
  • minion: Set configuration parameters we care about
  • minion: Reset chip at initialization
  • minion: Configure PLL to 900 MHz at startup
  • minion: Report hashes done as accurately as we can
  • minion: Core enable/disable control
  • minion: Implement queue flushing
  • minion: Implement basic mining
  • lowl-spi: linux_spi_txrx2 to include device protocol dumping
  • minion: Detection code for the Prospero X1
  • Actually add version.c file
  • Only rebuild a minimal version.c file when git commit changes
  • Bugfix: Use HASH_ADD_KEYPTR for const char *, not HASH_ADD_STR
  • Bugfix: Re-lock stgd_lock when we don’t have a malgo-specific pool to use
  • scrypt: Disable OpenCL by default
  • opencl: Remove support for “OCL1” kernel define (indicated OpenCL 1.1+)
  • opencl: Autodetect whether global offset actually works
  • opencl: Add no-goffset support to scrypt kernels
  • opencl: Determine kernel support for goffset by code analysis
  • opencl: Add “goffset” setting to override detection of support for global work offsets
  • util: seek_data_cb: Check validity of offset
  • Allow libcurl to rewind the upload buffer
  • cpu: Set the priority of miner threads to idle on Windows
  • cpu: Use _SC_NPROCESSORS_CONF instead of _SC_NPROCESSORS_ONLN
  • cpu: Do not set thread affinity on single-processor systems
  • Adding additional boolean keywords enable and disable
  • AUTHORS: Move Pelle and Vitalii to “Current Maintainers” since they actively maintain the Titan driver
  • AUTHORS: Add Ronny Van Keer (Keccak C implementation)
  • Titan: supply its own rolling hashrate implementation
  • A driver can supply its own rolling hashrate function (in case generic rolling hashrate implementation does not work)
  • Bugfix: configure: kncasic does not actually need i2c-tools
  • Keccak: Simplify keccak_hash_data
  • keccak: Adapt opencl intensity interpretation to have approximately the same desktop interactivity affect as SHA256d
  • Keccak: Include support in various builds
  • Travis: Update with Keccak
  • opencl/keccak: Add non-goffset support
  • opencl/keccak: Unroll all the hash rounds properly
  • opencl: Add Keccak support via “fullheader” kernel interface
  • keccak: Adapt for BFGMiner
  • Keccak: Import algorithm code as-is
  • opencl: Add a simple “fullheader” kernel interface
  • Update stratum mining.capabilities method to use a single Object for all parameters
  • Bugfix: Correct USE_SHA256D macro name to ensure SHA256d is always preferred as default algorithm
  • cpu: Generic scanhash that can support any PoW algorithm
  • RPC: Include Hash Method in minecoin for new algorithms
  • opencl: Teach findnonce to behave based on kernel interface rather than mining algorithm
  • opencl: Get min_nonce_diff from struct mining_algorithm
  • Move malgo-specific code to dedicated source files
  • opencl: Simplify kernel-specific data handling
  • Update knc-asic: Fix issue with detect_die crashing due to errors in response
  • titan: Init last_nonce on die reconfiguration to avoid lots of “unknown work” messages
  • Bugfix: titan: Extra garbage was sent on SPI with new commands
  • titan: Remove temporary log messages for manual report checks
  • titan: Wrong variable used in new per-die iteration
  • titan: Do manual core checks in parallel with normal ones
  • titan: Fix: Only one die was checked after flush in last commit
  • titan: Manually check all cores for reports after flush
  • opencl: Remove redundant checks for USE_OPENCL
  • cpu: Remove redundant checks for USE_CPUMINING
  • opencl: Only attempt to BFI_INT patch SHA256d kernels
  • Significantly rewrite configure script to handle driver dependencies cleaner
  • Make SHA256d mining optional
  • Bugfix: cointerra: Can handle nonces down to pdiff 1
  • kncasic: Initialise first_cgpu to silence false warning
  • Bugfix: Clarify goffset decision code, and refuse to compile kernels in situations where they won’t work
  • Bugfix: opencl: Output buffer must be readable by kernel since it is used with a count/position iterator
  • Bugfix: opencl: Skip NULL kernel interface entry
  • DevAPI: hashes_done: Simplify and improve precision of max_nonce calculation
  • opencl: Avoid duplicating kernel_interfaces mapping in select_kernel
  • opencl: Avoid duplicating kernel_interfaces mapping in opencl_scanhash_get_kernel
  • cpu: Drivers should not be doing fulltest on their own, so remove it
  • cpu: Pass full work struct to scanhash functions
  • kncasic: Split up each ASIC channel to its own device
  • kncasic: Use consistent naming for KNC_MAX_DIES_PER_CORE
  • kncasic: Refactoring: coreid is not used, remove it
  • kncasic: Refactoring: put all device architecture defines in one place (knc-asic.h)
  • kncasic: Add lock to protect concurrent accesses to knc_state
  • kncasic: Fix auto
  • Build system fixes for kncasic driver
  • configure: Deduplicate Linux i2c-dev.h checks for KnCMiner drivers
  • Travis: Update for kncasic driver
  • kncasic: Only show the relevant die for RPC stats
  • kncasic: Use proc_repr for logging
  • kncasic: Split up logical processors
  • kncasic: Silence warning about unhandled enumeration values
  • Bugfix: kncasic: Proper format specifications
  • kncasic: Remove unused code
  • kncasic: Minimal changes to get it compiling
  • kncasic: Import gen 2 driver from cgminer commit bc153552be8591250cb3214bf5202501d4a39922
  • titan: Move thread_reportin() call to poll function
  • titan: reportin every process_report to avoid falsely tripping the watchdog
  • titan: Remove unused variables
  • Bump knc-asic submodule
  • titan: Increase FPGA to ASIC SPI frequency to 6 MHz
  • titan: Use new get_work_status prototype and print FPGA CRC error counters to log
  • Titan flush optimization fix: Don’t send get_info commands when FPGA is speaking to ASIC
  • titan: All dies use same nonce working range
  • Titan flush optimization bugfix: FPGA status was checked once per poll instead of once per ASIC
  • Titan flush optimization: Bugfix: Flush time measurement only worked with one ASIC
  • Titan flush optimization: Point knc-asic submodule to include new FPGA image
  • Titan flush optimization: Remove temporary debug messages
  • Titan flush optimization: Keep works in local queue until slot number is reused
  • Titan flush optimization: Point knc-asic submodule to needed revision
  • Titan flush optimization: Measure new flush time
  • Titan flush optimization: Send works to all dies after flush
  • Titan flush optimization: First rough implementation
  • Titan: Less clobber on the screen: group some “failure” messages
  • Bugfix: Prefer not using work created just to ensure a specific algorithm is queued, so strategies work as much as possible
  • Stratum: Enable mining.set_goal to change parameters on the current goal
  • cpu: Fail gracefully if unsupported mining algo gets into scanhash
  • opencl: Fail gracefully if unsupported mining algo gets into opencl_scanhash_get_kernel
  • SSM: Send goal malgo to goal-enabled clients
  • Allow pools with #change_goal_malgo attribute to change the mining algorithm used by their assigned goal
  • Gracefully fail when no pool can be found to generate specific-algo work
  • Remove opt_scrypt
  • dualminer: Replace opt_scrypt with a per-device “scrypt” option
  • dualminer: Make dual_mode a per-device option as it should be
  • opencl: Nearly complete migration to per-work mining algorithms
  • pool_actively_desired: If we are the highest priority, workable pool for a given algorithm, we are needed
  • Ignore opt_queue for unused mining algorithms
  • Set name and aliases on mining algorithms
  • When hotplug is enabled and a mining algorithm is configured for the first time, schedule a rescan of hardware to pick up anything now applicable that may not have been before
  • Try to keep enough work queued for each mining algorithm in use
  • Move select_loadbalance and select_failover logic into their own functions
  • Keep track of how much work is staged per-algorithm
  • Keep track of how many goals reference each mining algorithm
  • Abstract goal_set_malgo function
  • Build a mining_algorithms list
  • get_work: Restore previous getwork rollntime behaviour
  • get_work: Only return work items compatible with processor (degrades getwork rollntime support)
  • opencl: Support for per-work mining algorithms
  • Build without POW_SCRYPT at all
  • opencl: Defer loading kernel until it is needed
  • opencl: Split initCl into opencl_create_clState and opencl_load_kernel
  • SSM: Implement mining.capabilities including proxying mining.set_goal
  • Replace mining.goal.subscribe with mining.capabilities
  • Stratum: Avoid resetting the goal if the old and new name match
  • Allow specifying goal options as eg, --pool-goal name:malgo=scrypt
  • cpu: Support for per-work mining algorithms
  • Replace cgpu.min_nonce_diff with drv.drv_min_nonce_diff(cgpu, malgo)
  • proxy: Avoid assumptions about mining algorithm at initialisation
  • Core only: Partially move most of opt_scrypt to mining_goal
  • opencl: Reintroduce independent intensity setting internally
  • Move MAX_*_INTENSITY stuff to driver-opencl.h
  • proxy: Minimise minimum difficulty for proxy clients
  • Enable --generate-to option (was --coinbase-addr) to work with non-default goals
  • Save pool goals in written config files
  • README: Update documentation for multiple blockchain support
  • RPC: Add “Difficulty Accepted” to “coin” command
  • RPC: Add “Mining Goal” to “pools” command
  • RPC: Accept an additional argument for “addpool” to indicate mining goal by name
  • Stratum: Support for mining.set_goal(“goal name”) - currently just resetting the user-configured goal
  • Teach longpoll logic about multiple mining goals
  • RPC: Include non-default goals in reply to “coin” command
  • Ignore generation address/script on pools using non-default mining goals
  • Only include block display lines for active goals
  • Move income to block display line, and show extra block display lines for each additional mining goal
  • New --pool-goal option to set a distinct named goal per-pool
  • Parameterise most references to global mining_goal_info
  • Move block_time to be per block_info
  • Show “?” for income if block height is unknown
  • Move block height tracking onto block_info
  • Calculate current_fullhash only when needed (for RPC ‘coins’)
  • Replace current_block_id with blkchain->currentblk[->block_id]
  • Move current_hash to goal->current_goal_detail
  • Clean up struct block_info names
  • Use full prevblock hash as block key (also gets rid of dead code)
  • Move global variables related to the blockchain or mining goals on to global structs