Zcashd and Windows 10

Technology zcashd client
1

zcashd_windows.JPG1920Ɨ1080 197 KB

This is an unofficial and unsupported guide to running zcashd on windows 10. A few people have asked for this, caveat emptor!

  1. Install Windows 10 anniversary edition.

  2. Enable Bash for Windows:

  1. Follow the Zcash beta guide, to download, compile and install.

  2. There are issues with IPv6 sockets with WSL, so you must disable it. Use this zcash.conf file:
    daemon=1
    txindex=1
    testnet=1
    addnode=betatestnet.z.cash
    rpcuser=username
    rpcpassword=password
    server=1
    rpcallowip=127.0.0.1
    rpcbind=127.0.0.1
    rpcport=18232
    bind=0.0.0.0
    port=18233
    onlynet=ipv4
    #gen=1
    #genproclimit=6

  3. Run zcashd and use zcash-cli as normal. You can uncomment the #gen and #genproclimit lines to mine.

Post feedback here!

14 Likes
2

Well done! Could you post some stats of your computer (mainly CPU and memory) and also some solveequihash results?

3

Mining performance is ridiculously low, with my i7 6700k @ 4.16ghz I get 470 secs for the solveequihash, compared to like 60 on a virtualbox VM

4

I get pretty good performance, here is the benchmark run on my i7 6700k (not overclocked)

./src/zcash-cli zcbenchmark solveequihash 10
[
{
ā€œrunningtimeā€ : 45.04329100
},
{
ā€œrunningtimeā€ : 59.88469200
},
{
ā€œrunningtimeā€ : 59.82903900
},
{
ā€œrunningtimeā€ : 76.39860000
},
{
ā€œrunningtimeā€ : 40.11855100
},
{
ā€œrunningtimeā€ : 93.50694000
},
{
ā€œrunningtimeā€ : 28.89533200
},
{
ā€œrunningtimeā€ : 29.38560400
},
{
ā€œrunningtimeā€ : 29.38560400
},
{
ā€œrunningtimeā€ : 60.89339700
},
{
ā€œrunningtimeā€ : 60.68533000
}
]

5

Hmm, how many threads? What am I doing wrong haha. Although the 400 seemed to be due to me running the benchmark alongside 8 threads, I set my threads to 2 for the benchmark, which gives me 80-120 seconds. Still much more than you

6

I just launched it with one (default/didnā€™t specify number of processors), also didnā€™t start mining just ran the bench after launching

7

Iā€™ll post multicore Xeon benchmark when I get home. Waitā€¦ I run Win 7 x64 but that should work right?

8

The version discussed here is for Windows 10 64bit Anniversary Edition only. Itā€™s basically a full compatibility layer for running Linux applications on Windows and isnā€™t available on other versions of Windows as far as I can tell. Been messing with it for a few days and it works really well, compiled a few shell only programs and they run fine with no noticeable slow down. Not done any extensive testing though.

9

Works nice. Thanks! I went step by step and no issues. Mine 6+ zec in a 6 hour period. Not sure if that is good but I was pleased with the result. Had no idea Microsoft worked with Canonical to make this bash shell environment thingā€¦ Pretty cool stuff.

1 Like
10

This matches the results of my limited testing with zcash mining with docker, which is (imho) way easier to setup.

11

hi,thanks for ur guide,i have finished it.but i found that sometimes it has no connections,just like the following, do u know how to fix this?

ā€œversionā€ : 1000000,
ā€œprotocolversionā€ : 170002,
ā€œwalletversionā€ : 60000,
ā€œbalanceā€ : 0.00000000,
ā€œblocksā€ : 6493,
ā€œtimeoffsetā€ : 0,
ā€œconnectionsā€ : 0,
ā€œproxyā€ : ā€œā€,
ā€œdifficultyā€ : 74.25604237,
ā€œtestnetā€ : true,
ā€œkeypoololdestā€ : 1474370128,
ā€œkeypoolsizeā€ : 101,
ā€œpaytxfeeā€ : 0.00000000,
ā€œrelayfeeā€ : 0.00005000,
ā€œerrorsā€ : ā€œWARNING: check your network connection, 0 blocks received in the last 4 hours (96 expected)ā€
}

12

strange. I just did a new build and got the same result. Connections = 0. I turned off windows firewall and windows defender but still the same result. Still troubleshooting.

13

hmmmļ¼Œsometimes it is okā€¦i dont know if there is something wrong with my computer or networkā€¦:frowning:

14

scratching my head because mine just started working too out of no where. Just went for a walk, came home and fired up the daemon and it connectedā€¦ :confused:

15

Itā€™s quite unreliable for me as well, sometimes it connects, sometimes it doesnā€™t.
I also couldnā€™t really seem to send my mined coins to another transparent address (transaction rejected)
Sending to a hidden address at least the transaction worked, now I have 0 balance in both addresses :stuck_out_tongue:
That was like half an hour after the transaction, wasnā€™t able to check since and to wait for more confirmations.

16

ā€œversionā€ : 110200,
ā€œprotocolversionā€ : 170002,
ā€œwalletversionā€ : 60000,
ā€œbalanceā€ : 0.00000000,
ā€œblocksā€ : 0,
ā€œtimeoffsetā€ : 0,
ā€œconnectionsā€ : 0,
ā€œproxyā€ : ā€œā€,
ā€œdifficultyā€ : 1.00000000,
ā€œtestnetā€ : true,
ā€œkeypoololdestā€ : 1476622571,
ā€œkeypoolsizeā€ : 106,
ā€œpaytxfeeā€ : 0.00000000,
ā€œrelayfeeā€ : 0.00005000,
ā€œerrorsā€ : ā€œThis is a pre-release test build - use at your own risk - do not use for mining or merchant applicationsā€

Same to you. How can i fix it?

17

freshly mined coins can ONLY be sent from the coinbase transparent address (a UXTO taddr in the docs) to a hidden address (zaddr). Once they are sent to a zaddr they can then be sent to another taddr. Thatā€™s by design, and I donā€™t have the URL for the posts about it in front of me.

18

am I ready for launch?

I followed this guide and have zcash setup in ubuntu.
created a zaddress and pasted it into the config file for this GPU miner

is there anything else that needs to be done?
any config needed for when zcash is live?

19

How long does it take to get past ā€˜Activating best chainā€™ā€¦ had to start with -reindex after modifying the config file.

1 Like
21

Got it to work, nothing to see here :smiley: