Helium hotspot miner

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1

Hi i am new to balena and am using it to launch some helium hotspots . The software ima using is the following.

https://dashboard.balena-cloud.com/deploy?repoUrl=https://github.com/NebraLtd/helium-miner-software&defaultDeviceType=raspberrypi4-64

It all seems to be running correctly however I need to test it and am unable to get any of the docker containers to run it’s suppose to be able to run commands such as…

docker exec miner miner info height

When I try to run any docker command it tells me that it’s not a command if anyone could help shine some light on this for me or would be willing to work with me to better understand what’s going on here I would really appreciate it.

2

Hi @TyrellG, welcome to the Forums. There are a couple of factors to consider here, so here goes.

First and foremost, looking at that GitHub repo, it seems to be the Nebra repo for their particular hardware. While it’s great that they develop in the open, and are big contributors to open-source software, are you using one of their devices? What type of hardware are you deploying to?

Second, does the build complete, and do the containers download onto the device? When clicking on a device name in the Dashboard, and viewing its details, are there about 6 or 7 services running?

Third, balena devices do not run Docker, we build our own container runtime, called balenaEngine. Thus, the command would need to be altered to balena exec miner miner info height… But even more detailed, you need to consider a few other items:

That command assumes the name of the mining container is miner. Looking at the Nebra repo, they renamed it to helium-miner here: helium-miner-software/docker-compose.yml at master · NebraLtd/helium-miner-software · GitHub.

So, I believe your command needs to be altered to balena exec helium-miner miner info height.

Finally, that command needs to be run when SSH’ed into the HostOS, make sure you are not trying to open up a terminal and run that command from inside the mining container itself.

Hope that helps get you going.

1 Like
4

Hello @TyrellG just to complement David’s questions. Do you use an official Helium hotspot with a secure element on the LoRa concentrator? or you would like to run a Data Only Helium Hotspot?

Thank you!

5

For anyone following along, Nebra was able to resolve this one with the user. The container was restart-looping, and he needed to apply a DBUS patch. Once that was in place, the container stayed running, and he could run his desired commands.

7

on the same topic @mpous I am using the European version from the following location:

My hardware consists of a RAK2245 with a SX1301 concentrator.

I have a key from helium and have run this hotspot for a long time but it crashed.

Can you help me figure out what commands to send to find out if the miner is synching on the helium blockchain?

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8

@mantoles did you try to run miner info summary on the helium-miner?

did you add the Device Variable LORA_REGION? i saw on the Dockerfile template some variables needed → https://github.com/PastaGringo/balenaos-helium-gtw/blob/master/loragtwpktfwd/Dockerfile

or just follow the steps introduced by the author here → https://github.com/PastaGringo/balenaos-helium-gtw#modify-the-code

9

I did not modify the code from the author since I am deploying the EU version. I will take another look at it today.

the following command in the helium miner terminal returns the following:

$miner info summary → returns nothing

$miner miner status

returns:

a set of commands

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10

@mantoles could you please print the versions and miner info height?

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How the miner is not responding to commands

12

@mantoles if you run miner versions what do you see?

13

@mpous sorry it took me a while to get back to you.

I resolved the issue by building a new release and reflashing an image.

The summary shows me synching with the blockchain. I should be fully synched in a day or two

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1 Like
14

Indeed in 3-4 days your device should be mining again!

Let us know if this works @mantoles

15

Is this working again?

17

Hi Mark, my miner was up and running for a while but I switched locations. I just moved it to Europe. It seems like everything is working but my miner is not synchronizing on the blockchain. Is there a way to remove the miner data and start synching with the chain from scratch? I believe there is a conflict since the container is not synching in europe EU868 vs US900

18

Is your LoRa concentrator compatible with the EU region?

El dj., 14 d’abr. 2022, 21:29, Sophronis Mantoles via balenaForums <balena@discoursemail.com> va escriure:

19

yes it is. I started synching on the chain in the US and then moved it to Europe so I am not sure if that is a problem

20

Mmmm some questions:

  • What concentrator are you using?
  • Could you please share the variables?

El dj., 14 d’abr. 2022, 23:27, Sophronis Mantoles via balenaForums <balena@discoursemail.com> va escriure:

21

SX1301

RAK2245

It appears when I ping quay.io from that location it is not responding.

Not sure what is going on Mark.

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22

@mantoles could you please confirm what project aare you using from github?

on the other hand could you please share the logs that you see?

if you type miner info summary what errors do you see?

24

I will post the errors soon.

1 Like