Manually test that Zcash mining pools can use Zebra to mine blocks on testnet

[teor2345]

Motivation

We should run Zebra with mining pool software before asking other mining pools to test it.

Complex Code or Requirements

A bunch of us have done some work on this, it's tricky to get the right dependencies to deploy most mining pools.

Related Work

• Manually test that each mining RPC works correctly #5686
• Manually test the getblocktemplate RPC creates valid blocks #5803
• Manually test that the Zebra and zcashd mempools are similar #5935

Here is our previous discussion about mining pool testing.

[teor2345]

I think we should put a time limit of one day on this ticket. If we can't get it working quickly, we can contact an actual mining pool later to help with testing, when we've done more RPCs.

[mpguerra]

I think we should put a time limit of one day on this ticket. If we can't get it working quickly, we can contact an actual mining pool later to help with testing, when we've done more RPCs.

Agreed

@ZcashFoundation/zebra-team can whoever has done some research and/or testing add their notes to this issue.

Scheduling for Sprint 2 as I'd like to get all of the testing resolved in the next sprint

[mpguerra]

Hey team! Please add your planning poker estimate with Zenhub @arya2 @conradoplg @dconnolly @oxarbitrage @teor2345 @upbqdn

[mpguerra]

moving to Sprint 3 for now

[teor2345]

I did some testing on this back in December, it was tricky because I couldn't get the node dependencies right. And some of the C libraries wouldn't compile on my machine.

But maybe using the node dependency lock files will help.

[upbqdn]

I made it work by modifying the source code and installation configs. I could pack it all into some container.

[teor2345]

Even just a diff from the original source would help!

[mpguerra]

Let's document any successes we've had with this here and what we have done. This will help with #6028

[teor2345]

Let's document any successes we've had with this here and what we have done. This will help with #6028

These instructions are now at:
https://github.com/ZcashFoundation/s-nomp/blob/zebra-mining/zebra-instructions.md

Anyone can open PRs to improve them.

[arya2]

🎉 The 6 Sols/s is a little sad but the instructions worked well for me. I had some trouble with installing dependencies for s-nomp, I think export CXXFLAGS="-std=gnu++17" is important there.

[teor2345]

The 6 Sols/s is a little sad but the instructions worked well for me.

This is normal for 1-3 cores, so it might help to document it in the instructions.

I had some trouble with installing dependencies for s-nomp, I think export CXXFLAGS="-std=gnu++17" is important there.

Can you please open an PR to update the instructions? I think those flags are marked as optional, but if they are required we should remove the "optional".

https://github.com/ZcashFoundation/s-nomp/blob/zebra-mining/zebra-instructions.md

[oxarbitrage]

I was able to mine as well:

[mpguerra]

I think everyone has managed to mine a block now. 👏