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Monerobox User Manual

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Jason Wong edited this page Mar 3, 2019 · 5 revisions
Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Set up your monerobox
    2.1 Connecting the Cables
    2.2 Connecting to Monerobox web UI
3. Monerobox web UI
    3.1 Monitoring
    3.2 Administration
    3.4 Statistics
4. Advanced administration
    4.1 SSH
5. Connecting from outside
    5.1 Static IP
    5.2 Port Forwarding
    5.3 DDNS
6. Examples
    6.1 Monero GUI
    6.2 Cake wallet
    6.3 Monerujo wallet

1. Introduction

Monerobox is a Monero full node running on Rock64 Single-Board-Computer and equipped with a SSD.
Rock64 comes with a powerful ARM 64-bit processor and a USB 3 port, together with the SSD makes monerobox able to finish syncing blockchain in about 24 hours.

Monerobox is designed to be easy to use and friendly to beginners. Monitoring and Administration can be done with web UI accessed on a mobile phone. Users are recommended to use monerobox as a remote node and connect their mobile wallets to it. Thus coins are stored on the mobile wallets on mobile phones not monerobox so that their fund will be safe even if monerobox is being hacked or destroyed.

The user manual will also guide users through setting up routers for static IP, port forwarding and DDNS which will enable user to connect to their monerobox when they are outside of their home network. So that they can paid at a merchant that accept XMR with their mobile wallet that use monerobox as remote daemon.

Monerobox is developed based many other open-source software including:

2. Set up your monerobox

2.1 Connecting the cables

Monerobox box has the following ports at the front side:

  1. Ethernet port x 1
  2. USB 2.0 port x 2
  3. USB 3.0 port x 1

There are 4 ports at the left side:

  1. Power port
  2. HDMI port
  3. Audio port
  4. A hole with a SSD to USB 3.0 cable

Users have to connect the following 3 cables to start monerobox:

  1. Connect the SSD to USB cable(from the hole at left side) to USB 3.0 port
  2. Connect the Ethernet cable from your router to Ethernet port
  3. Connect the Power port

After connecting the 3 cables as shown above, plug the power supply into the wall socket and monerobox will start. Wait for about 2 minutes for monerobox to start up and then you can access the web UI as described in the next section.

2.2 Connecting to Menerobox web UI

The web UI can be access by:

  1. http://monerobox.local, on devices such as iphone, MacOS, Ubuntu(or any other Linux with avahi-daemon installed) and Windows(with Bonjour installed which is usually installed when installing Apple software like iTunes and Safari).

  2. If you cannot access it with the above mDNS domain name, then you have to find out the IP address of monerobox to access it. The IP can be found on the admin interface of your router or by using a network scanner software.

Here is an example of using APP Network Analyzer on Android device to find out the IP address:

  1. Install the App Network Analyzer
  2. Open the App, click the Menu and then "LAN Scan"
  3. Click the "Scan" button to start scanning
  4. You will find a device named "monerobox" and its IP address(192.168.1.203 in the screenshot):
  5. You can access monerobox web UI with "http://192.168.1.203"

3. Monerobox Web UI

3.1 Monitoring

The web UI can be used to monitor both monero daemon and system status. The following system metrics are shown on the monerobox system status page:

  • Version: OS and Processor infomation
  • Uptime: moenrobox local time and system uptime
  • CPU: cpu load 1 min, 5 min and 15 min
  • CPU Temperature
  • Memory usage
  • Swap usage
  • SSD usage
  • Network: IP, MAC address, sent and received data volume

On "Monero daemon" status page, users can find the following infomation:

  • monerod version, daemon status and uptime
  • Blockchain: network (mainnet or other network)
  • Current Block count:height of blockchin in local daemon)
  • Chain Tip:longest chain the local daemon knows
  • Hard Fork info
  • Mining section: POW version, global hash rate, mining staus
  • P2P Network: number of in-bound and out-bound peers

3.2 Administration

The Admin page provides some simple adminstration function for monero daemon service and the system.
User simply Click a button and wait for response which may take up to 10 seconds.
All buttons will be disabled when waiting for response.
Please wait for another 10 seconds after seeing response from the server and then click the "OK" button to refresh the page and you will see the status change.

From the admin UI, users can

  • Start monero service

  • Stop monero service

  • Delete blockchain and resync (When database is corrupted)

For system level control, UI provides the following functionalities:

  • Shutdown monerobox

3.3 Statistics

The Statistics page of the web UI provides some historical system metrics:

  • system uptime
  • CPU loads
  • CPU temperature
  • SSD usage
  • Network usage

4. Advanced administration

Monerobox comes with a default user "rock64" with password "rock64". This user runs all the services and with sudo privilege.

4.1 SSH

Users can use Putty on windows or command line terminal on Linux or MacOS to connect to monerobox.
Linux and MacOS user can use command "ssh monerobox.local" to SSH to monerobox.
Windows users must use tools such as "Putty".

5. Connecting from outside

When you are accessing your monerobox with private IP like 192.168.xxx.xxx or monerobox.local, you are on the same network as your monerobox at home. But when you are outside, say at a merchant who accepts XMR as payment and you want to pay with Cake wallet which uses your monerobox(at home and behind your router) as remote node, you need to configure Cake wallet to connect to the public IP of router.This chapter will introduce methods to allow you to use your monerobox as a remote node even when you are outside on mobile network or wifi of a shopping mall.
The objective is to setup a link like this:
Your mobile phone using mobile carrier netowrk => Your router => monerobox

5.1 static IP

Routers by default dynamically assign IP addresses to devices connected to it.
Your monerobox possibly has different IP addresses every day or every week.
It is better to have a fixed IP especially when using port forwarding.

There are different ways to configure static IP for different routers.
Here is an example of my router.

  1. Login to your router at http://192.168.1.1, IP of router is usually 192.168.1.1 but it can be different, it is up on your network configuration.
  2. Click "LAN" button under "Advanced Settings" and then "DHCP Server" tab.
  3. Go to section "Manual Assignment" and check the "yes" button.
  4. Go to section "Manually Assigned IP around the DHCP list", type monerobox's MAC address (can be found in the monitoring UI) in the field of "Client Name (MAC Address)" and the IP address you want in the field of "IP Address" and click the Add button.
  5. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Apply" button.

5.2 port forward for remote node

Monero uses port 18081 for RPC which is used for remote node of GUI and mobile wallets.
When you are inside your home network, you can access it with private IP of monerbox.
But when you are outside your home network, you need to setup port forwarding on your router which has a public IP.

There are different ways to configure port forwarding for differnt routers. Here is an example of my router.

  1. Login to your router at http://192.168.1.1, IP of router is usually 192.168.1.1 but it can be different, it is up on your network configuration.
  2. Click "WAN" button under "Advanced Settings" and then "Virtual Server / Port Fordwarding" tab.
  3. Go to section "Basic Config" and check the "Yes" button of "Enable Port Forwarding".
  4. Go to section "Port Forwarding List",
    Service Name: monero-rpc ( or other name you like)
    Port Range: 18081 (or any port number you prefer and is available)
    Local IP: 192.168.1.203 (or the static IP you configured in previous step)
    Local Port: 18081
    Protocol: TCP
  5. Click the Add button and then scroll down to the bottom of the page and click "Apply" button.

5.3 DDNS

DDNS provides a domain name to IP mapping so that you wont need to remember your IP address which may change from time to time. There are many companies such as no-ip.com provide DDNS service.
Here is an example of configuring DDNS with an account from no-ip.com:

  1. Login to your router at http://192.168.1.1, IP of router is usually 192.168.1.1 but it can be different, it is up on your network configuration.
  2. Click "WAN" button under "Advanced Settings" and then "DDNS" tab.
  3. Check the "yes" button of "Enable the DDNS Client".
  4. Choose the Server (the company providing DDNS service) and then fill in hostname(DDNS domain name), username and password
  5. Click "Apply" button

6. Examples

After monerobox finished syncing the blockchain, you can use it as a remote node and connect your clients to it. Monerobox uses the following default parameters:
IP / Hostname: IP assigned by router in local network, otherwise public IP or domain name of your router
RPC port: 18080 on monerobox, or the port you set in "Port Forwarding" of your router
RPC username: monero
RPC password: monerobox

6.1 Monero GUI

  1. Click "Settings" in the menu bar on the left
  2. Click "Node" tab and then "Remote node"
  3. Fill in the details:
  • Address: private IP if your PC and monerobox are in the same network, public IP / DDNS of your router otherwise.
  • Port: 18081 in the same network otherwise the port you set in "Port Forwarding" on your router
  • Username: monero
  • Password: monerobox
  1. Click "Connect" button
  2. Wait for synchronization to be finished and then you can use your wallet! 0

6.2 Cake wallet

To use your monerobox in Cake wallet:

  1. Click "Settings" and then "Daemon settings" in Cake wallet.
  2. Click the "+" buttion on the top right corner
  3. Fill in the information of your monerobox and then Click "Save"
  4. You will see monerobox is added and the light beside should be green as shown below
  5. Tap the box shown above and Cake wallet will ask if you want to change current node to your monerobox
  6. After clicking "Change" you will see Cake wallet is using your node as shown below

You can also disable the "Auto switch node" so Cake wallet will always use your monerobox as remote node.

6.3 Monerujo walet

To add your moneroxbox as a remote node in monerujo:

  1. Click the search icon at the top right corner
  2. Click the "Add Node" button at the bottom right corner
  3. Fill in the information according to your monerobox
  4. Click the TEST button to test the connection and then Click "OK" button.
  5. You should see the following when Monerujo is using your node.
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