Hi Windpath, thanks for the info here, im running some s1 and was having hard time with google on a definitive response to setting the pseudo share.
couple of questions
1. is 0.00000116 a static constant, or based off dynamic number? Wondering if i need to redo the math periodically to keep my miners running efficiently.
2. do you know of any downsides to restarting p2pool, i noticed i lost a few shares once i had done so, but technically i dont understand why that would be. i did however update the -a payout address, perhaps that restages the pool?
3. "expected time to share" seems to stay around 7-12hrs, im assuming its because the pool doesn't have any stats to work off of yet?
4. "payout if a block were found NOW" seems to remain at 0, any tips on that?
5. know of any p2pool advanced docs/manuals out there?
Thanks for any info
Great questions, gigabitfx. I'd like to add to the information that windpath has already provided:
1) Setting pseudo-share difficulty determines how many shares from your miner that the p2pool node evaluates. In p2pool, your miners must submit a share of a given difficulty to be considered. For example, if you set your pseudo-share difficulty to 1, every single share your miner finds will be considered. It makes the graph look very smooth, but floods the node with useless traffic. If you set the pseudo-share difficulty to 1024, then only shares that are greater than 1024 will be considered. The graph looks very spiky, but the node doesn't have to deal with the extraneous traffic.
The p2pool node will assign pseudo-share difficulty automatically based upon the node's combined hash rate. If you're running your own private node, you really don't need to bother setting either pseudo-share or share difficulty. If you're mining on someone else's node, then you might want to set them if the hash rate you're contributing is significantly higher/lower than what the node currently has.
2) You won't lose shares if you restart your node. Your shares are stored in the share chain. The default behavior of p2pool does not persist your node's shares across restarts (windpath solved this by creating a database); however, rest assured that every share you've found is part of the share chain.
3) Your expected time to share is based upon your hash rate and the current difficulty target. The formula is exactly the same as the expected time to find a block of BTC:
Difficulty * 2**32 / hashrate / 86400 = number of days to find a share
It has no bearing on whether the node has been running for a while or have any stats to work with.
4) This is kind of misleading since it isn't well explained. This value is the expected payout to the NODE's wallet - not to your miner - UNLESS your miner is the same wallet as your node. So, let's assume you have started your node as:
./run_p2pool.py -a SOMEWALLETADDRESS
If you configure your miners with the user name "SOMEWALLETADDRESS" then that expected payout if block found now value will show what you expect. If you configure your miners with the user name "ANOTHERWALLETADDRESS" then that expected payout value will show 0 (unless you charge a fee to mine on your node, in which case it would show whatever charges have been assessed to your miners).
5) I don't know of any advanced manuals. The best information I've found is here on these forums, the p2pool wiki and through reading the p2pool code. This thread is a great place to learn, although going through nearly 440 pages is kind of painful
Hope this helps.