bfgminer/README.ASIC

SUPPORTED DEVICES

Currently supported ASIC devices include Avalon, Bitfountain's Block Erupter
series (both USB and blades), a large variety of Bitfury-based miners,
Butterfly Labs' SC range of devices, HashBuster boards, Klondike modules, and
KnCMiner's Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn.


AVALON 1
--------

Currently, Avalon boards are best supported by connecting them directly (or via
a hub) to a regular PC running BFGMiner. It is also possible to install the
OpenWrt packages of BFGMiner to the Avalon's embedded controller, but this is
not a simple task due to its lack of available flash space.

To use the Avalon from a regular PC, you will need to specify two options:
First, add the -S option specifying the avalon driver specifically. For example,

-S avalon:\\.\COM9

Next, use the --set-device option to provide the device configuration.
If you are translating options from --avalon-options (cgminer and older versions
of BFGMiner), note the values are baud:miner_count:asic_count:timeout:clock.

    baud=N         The device is essentially hard coded to emulate 115200 baud,
                   so you shouldn't change this.
    miner_count=N  Most Avalons are 3 module devices, which come to 24 miners.
                   4 module devices would use 32 here.
    asic_count=N   Virtually all have 10, so don't change this.
    timeout=N      This defines how long the device will work on a work item
                   before accepting new work to replace it. It should be changed
                   according to the frequency (last setting). It is possible to
                   set this a little lower if you are trying to tune for short
                   block mining (eg p2pool) but much lower and the device will
                   start creating duplicate shares.
    clock=N        This is the clock speed of the devices. Only specific values
                   work: 256, 270, 282 (default), 300, 325, 350 and 375.

Sample settings for valid different frequencies (last 2 values):
34:375
36:350
39:325
43:300
45:282
47:270
50:256


AVALON 2/3
----------

Avalon 2/3 units communicate with a UART, usually attached to your host via a
generic USB UART adapter. Therefore, you will need to manually probe the correct
UART device with the -S option:

-S avalonmm:\\.\COM22

Next, use the --set option to configure at least your desired clock frequency
and voltage.

Avalon 2: --set avalonmm:clock=1500 --set avalonmm:voltage=1
Avalon 3: --set avalonmm:clock=450 --set avalonmm:voltage=0.6625

You may also want to set the fan speed, which is specified as a percentage:

--set avalonmm:fan=95


BFSB, MEGABIGPOWER, AND METABANK BITFURY BOARDS
-----------------------------------------------

Both BFSB and MegaBigPower (V2 only at this time) boards are supported with the
"bfsb" driver. Metabank boards are supported with the "metabank" driver. These
drivers are not enabled by default, since they must be run on a Raspberry Pi in
a specific hardware configuration with the boards. To enable them, you must
build with --enable-bfsb or --enable-metabank. Do not try to use these drivers
without the manufacturer-supported hardware configuration! Also note that these
drivers do not properly support thermal shutdown at this time, and without
sufficient cooling you may destroy your board or chips!

To start BFGMiner, ensure your Raspberry Pi's SPI is enabled (you can run the
raspi-config utility for this). For Metabank boards, you must also load the I2C
drivers (do not try to modprobe both with a single command; it won't work):
    modprobe i2c-bcm2708
    modprobe i2c-dev
Then you must run BFGMiner as root, with the proper driver selected.
For example:
    sudo bfgminer -S bfsb:auto


BI*FURY
-------

Bi*Fury should just work; you may need to use -S bifury:<path>

On Windows, you will need to install the standard USB CDC driver for it.
    http://store.bitcoin.org.pl/support

If you want to upgrade the firmware, unplug your device. You will need to
temporarily short a circuit. With the USB connector pointing forward, and the
heatsink down, look to the forward-right; you will see two tiny lights, a set of
2 terminals, and a set of 3 terminals. The ones you need to short are the set of
2. With them shorted, plug the device back into your computer. It will then
pretend to be a mass storage disk drive. If you use Windows, you can play along
and just overwrite the firmware.bin file. If you use Linux, you must use mcopy:
    mcopy -i /dev/disk/by-id/usb-NXP_LPC1XXX_IFLASH_ISP-0:0 firmware.bin \
        ::/firmware.bin
After this is complete, unplug the device again and un-short the 2 terminals.
This completes the upgrade and you can now plug it back in and start mining.


BIG PICTURE MINING BITFURY USB
------------------------------

These miners are sensitive to unexpected data. Usually you can re-plug them to
reset to a known-good initialisation state. To ensure they are properly detected
and used with BFGMiner, you must specify -S bigpic:all (or equivalent) options
prior to any other -S options (which might probe the device and confuse it).


BLOCK ERUPTER BLADE
-------------------

Blades communicate over Ethernet using the old but simple getwork mining
protocol. If you build BFGMiner with libmicrohttpd, you can have it work with
one or more blades. First, start BFGMiner with the --http-port option. For
example:
    bfgminer --http-port 8330
Then configure your blade to connect to your BFGMiner instance on the same port,
with a unique username per blade. It will then show up as a PXY device and
should work more or less like any other miner.


BLOCK ERUPTER USB
-----------------

These will autodetect if supported by the device; otherwise, you need to use
the '--scan-serial erupter:<device>' option to tell BFGMiner what device to
probe; if you know you have no other serial devices, or only ones that can
tolerate garbage, you can use '--scan-serial erupter:all' to probe all serial
ports. They communicate with the Icarus protocol, which has some additional
options in README.FPGA


HEX*FURY
--------

Hex*Fury uses the bifury driver. Miners using earlier boards may need to
workaround bugs in the firmware:
    bfgminer --set bifury:chips=6 --set bifury:free_after_job=no
This may cause poor behaviour or performance from other bifury-based devices.
If you encounter this, you can set the workarounds per-device by using their
serial number (which can be seen in the TUI device manager; in this example,
141407160211cdf):
    bfgminer --set bifury@141407160211cdf:chips=15 ...


KLONDIKE
--------

--klondike-options <arg> Set klondike options clock:temptarget


KNCMINER (Jupiter)
--------

KnCMiner rigs use a BeagleBone Black (BBB) as the host; this is pluged into a
"cape" with a FPGA and connections for 4-6 ASIC modules (depending on the cape
version). Note that in addition to the usual dependencies, this driver also
requires i2c-tools (aka libi2c-dev on some systems). The BBB comes with the
Ångström Distribution by default. The following is a step by step install for
BFGMiner on this system;

-----------------Start------------
cat >/etc/opkg/feeds.conf <<\EOF
src/gz noarch http://feeds.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/v2013.06/ipk/eglibc/all/
src/gz base http://feeds.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/v2013.06/ipk/eglibc/armv7ahf-vfp-neon/base/
src/gz beaglebone http://feeds.angstrom-distribution.org/feeds/v2013.06/ipk/eglibc/armv7ahf-vfp-neon/machine/beaglebone/
EOF

opkg update
opkg install angstrom-feed-configs
rm /etc/opkg/feeds.conf
opkg update

opkg install update-alternatives
opkg install automake autoconf make gcc cpp binutils git less pkgconfig-dev ncurses-dev libtool nano bash i2c-tools-dev
while ! opkg install libcurl-dev; do true; done

curl http://www.digip.org/jansson/releases/jansson-2.0.1.tar.bz2 | tar -xjvp
cd jansson-2.0.1
./configure --prefix=/usr CC=arm-angstrom-linux-gnueabi-gcc --disable-static NM=arm-angstrom-linux-gnueabi-nm
make install && ldconfig
cd ..

git clone git://github.com/luke-jr/bfgminer
cd bfgminer
./autogen.sh
./configure --host=arm-angstrom-linux-gnueabi --enable-knc --disable-other-drivers CFLAGS="-I$PWD/uthash/src"
make AR=arm-angstrom-linux-gnueabi-ar

/etc/init.d/cgminer.sh stop
./bfgminer -S knc:auto -c /config/cgminer.conf

---------------END-------------

KNCMINER (Titan)
--------

Titan uses RaspberryPi as a controller.

Build instructions:
-----------------Start------------

git clone git@github.com:KnCMiner/bfgminer.git
cd bfgminer
./autogen.sh
./configure --enable-scrypt --enable-titan --disable-other-drivers CFLAGS="-Iuthash/src"
make
sudo /etc/init.d/bfgminer.sh restart
screen -r

---------------END-------------

MONARCH
-------

The Butterfly Labs Monarch devices can be used as either USB devices, or in a
PCI-Express slot. As USB devices, they are essentially plug-and-play. If you
wish to use them via PCI-Express, however, you must first load the proper
driver. BFGMiner can work with either Linux uio (2.6.23+, requires root access)
or Linux vfio (3.6+, requires IOMMU support).

To enable uio on your cards, you may need to do:
    sudo modprobe uio_pci_generic
    echo 1cf9 0001 | sudo tee /sys/bus/pci/drivers/uio_pci_generic/new_id

Enabling vfio is similar, but allows you to run BFGMiner without root
privileges. Since setting this up is more complicated, BFGMiner includes a
setup-vfio script (which must be run with root permissions). Simply run:
    sudo setup-vfio --unsafe --user $(whoami) 1cf9 0001
You will be asked about each Monarch found, and must answer 'yes' to each one.

If you wish to manually setup VFIO, follow these steps:
First, load the kernel module:
    sudo modprobe vfio-pci
Next, identify what the device ids are for your card(s):
    lspci -D | grep 1cf9  # the first number of each line is the device id
From that, you can identify its IOMMU group, and list all devices sharing that
group:
    readlink "/sys/bus/pci/devices/$DEVICE_ID/iommu_group"
    ls "/sys/kernel/iommu_groups/$IOMMU_GROUP_ID/devices/"
All of the devices listed (other than the Monarch), if any, will need to be
disabled and unbound! To do that, use:
    echo "$DEVICE_ID" | sudo tee "/sys/bus/pci/devices/$DEVICE_ID/driver/unbind"
    echo "$DEVICE_CODE" | sudo tee /sys/bus/pci/drivers/vfio-pci/new_id
Note that $DEVICE_ID should be something like "0000:01:00.0" and $DEVICE_CODE is
something like "1cf9 0001" (this example is the Monarch itself).
If you want to run BFGMiner as a normal user:
    chown "$USERNAME" "/dev/vfio/$IOMMU_GROUP_ID"
Depending on your system, you may also need to do:
    echo 1 | sudo tee /sys/module/vfio_iommu_type1/parameters/allow_unsafe_interrupts


ONESTRINGMINER
--------------

OneStringMiner boards use the bifury driver. Miners using earlier boards may
need to workaround bugs in the firmware:
    bfgminer --set bifury:chips=15 --set bifury:free_after_job=no
If you have different devices using the bifury driver, see the section on
Hex*Fury for applying workarounds per-device.


GRIDSEED
--------

Gridseed units, at the present time, come in two versions: Blade - a 40 chip
unit and Orb - a 5 chip unit. Orb units can be used to mine both SHA256d and
scrypt based coins whereas the Blade is scrypt only, although BFGMiner only
supports scrypt mode at this time.

BFGMiner allows a miner to connect both types of units to a single miner
instance and provides for granular control of the clock frequencies for each
device and each chip on each device. The basic use of this feature is to use the
--set option on from the command line:

bfgminer --scrypt -S gridseed:all --set gridseed@<serial_number>:clock=825

for multiple devices, add multiple --set arguments.

Additionally, these can be added to the bfgminer.conf file for persistence like
this:

"set" : [
        "gridseed@<serial_number>:clock=825",
        "gridseed@<serial_number>:clock=850",
        "gridseed@<serial_number>:clock=875"
]

To find the device serial number, start bfgminer and press <M> to manage
devices, then <Page Down> or <down arrow> through the list of devices and take
note of the device serial number in the device information shown.

...
Select processor to manage using up/down arrow keys
 GSD 0a:       |  74.4/ 72.9/ 10.2kh/s | A:  1 R:0+0(none) HW:0/none
  STM32 Virtual COM Port from STMicroelectronics
Serial: 6D85278F5650
Clock speed: 875
...

So for example, an entry would look like this:
        gridseed@6D85278F5650:clock=875


---

This code is provided entirely free of charge by the programmer in his spare
time so donations would be greatly appreciated. Please consider donating to the
address below.

Luke-Jr <luke-jr+bfgminer@utopios.org>
1QATWksNFGeUJCWBrN4g6hGM178Lovm7Wh