ethash-ecip1043

Ethash reference implementation, adapted for ECIP-1043

This repository contains

• a runnable version of ethash.py that produces the same results as real-life Ethash
• an adaptation (ethash_ecip1043.py) that implements the DAG size limiting mechanism proposed in ECIP-1043
• a dummy pool server that implements part of the Ethereum JSON-RPC API and that can be used for testing miner implementations

The Web server is still work in progress and ECIP-1043 support is only very lightly tested.

ethash.py

ethash.py is a slightly cleaned up version of the Ethash reference implementation. It has been tested with data obtained from real-life ETH/ETC mining.

run-ethash.py is a program that hashes using ethash.py. It accepts the following three arguments:

• the decimal epoch number
• the hexadecimal header hash, as a very long integer beginning with 0x
• the hexadecimal nonce, also beginning with 0x

It then computes:

• the seedhash for the requested epoch
• the compressed mix, obtained by hashing header plus nonce
• the result, obtained from the same operation.

The result is the value that is then used for comparison with the difficulty target.

Example run:

./run-ethash.py 359 0x667c94657d5b6922693e2e6ac77b80861b80ff949c795ef4b18551e8c389a2f1 0x710a38013066d8ce
seed c1dbf14bc84f90759c7c94280874014180ae6af9d9768eda2fc1b7c2725c85f4
cmix f4eda3ca5e96f93fc4e13695461a2c032c430259fb9b00461a0b390b97a6a0d3
res  00000000fed70aa5ab78624bf7500e847d200fa1e88e1103fca12724fb5b35bb

ethash_ecip1043.py

Like ethash.py, but has two additional variables:

• ecip1043_activation_epoch defines at epoch at which the DAG size is frozen, as defined in ECIP-1043
• ecip1043_fixed_epoch is the epoch to whose size the DAG size is set

When invoking the run-ecip1043.py program, these variables can be set with the command-line option --ecip1043=activation_epoch,fixed_epoch

Example run:

./run-ecip1043.py --ecip1043=350,64 359 0x667c94657d5b6922693e2e6ac77b80861b80ff949c795ef4b18551e8c389a2f1 0x710a38013066d8ce
seed c1dbf14bc84f90759c7c94280874014180ae6af9d9768eda2fc1b7c2725c85f4
cmix b00e8f2de5907690031516ecf0c909de92e0d92a8661921a169781d273836f19
res  69276d0c9aef70f8bfc985e2c7d7cb5c639b0939c5a18aeecf0d0e46ceea212e

pool.py

pool.py is a very simple pool server that speaks (only) the stratum protocol that uses eth_getWork.

The pool server allows miners to connect and register, generated mining jobs for them, and verifies their submissions using ethash_ecip1043.py

Commands

The following commands can be entered on the pool server's console (standard input):

• diff bits
  The pool difficulty in bits. Defaults to 24 bits.
• ecip1043 [activation,fixed]
  Sets the activation and fixed epoch for ECIP-1043. The arguments must be decimal numbers. If no arguments are given, an impossibly high activation epoch is set, disabling ECIP-1043 mode.
• epoch epoch
  The decimal number of the epoch the pool will ask miners to mine in (the miners are not told the exact block number). To make miners that have already obtained a job from the pool switch to the new epoch, use the job command after epoch.
• help
  In case you get lost.
• job
  Sends a new mining job to all the connected miners that have previously sent an eth_getWork request.
• start port
  Start the pool server on the specified TCP port. The port is a decimal number.
• submit hdr nonce
  Submit a mining result, consisting of header and nonce. Both are hexadecimal numbers beginning with 0x.

The console is left by sending an EOF.

Command-line options and arguments

The following options are accepted:

• -d bits or --difficulty=bits
  Set the difficulty, like with the diff command.
• -c or --cache
  Enables caching of the cache data. Since computation of the cache is rather slow in Python, the cache can optionally be stored in a file. This file is named epoch.cache (Note: for ECIP-1043 support, we will also need to add the frozen epoch number.)
• -e epoch or --epoch=epoch
  Set up the indicated epoch before starting to accept commands or connections.
• --ecip1043=activation,fixed
  The ECIP-1043 epochs, like in ethash_ecip1043.py
• -q or --quick
  Quick mode: don't load or generate the cache, accept all submissions. This is intended for DAG size testing.
• -v or --verbose
  Be a bit more chatty.

There is one optional argument:

• port
  The decimal number of the TCP port on which the pool server listens. This starts the pool server before accepting commands, i.e., this replaces the start command.

Development status

Very lightly tested.

Example invocation

./pool.py -e 360 -v -c 9999

This initializes the pool server for epoch 360, writes the cache to the file 360.cache (cache generation can take several minutes), then runs the pool server on TCP port 9999 with verbose reporting enabled.