How to set-up your own 3Node

#28

Hi from Canada!

Thanks @alex24 for these great instructions. It did work alright (with Balena Etcher at step 4 and a simple “Reset this PC + removing files” via Windows 10 for the step 1 part “erase a disk”)! Up and running now with my i7, 4 core, 32GB RAM, 1TB SSD refurbished HP EliteDesk.

I’m trying this low(er) cost +/- same specs as the Titan 3node (without the super nVME of the v2.1…!). I will be able to report the difference. It will be interesting to gather farmers’ harvests data and compare efficiency of set ups. I read somewhere else in the forum that this is an ongoing project. It’s great. Looking forward to expand that farm.

Funny anecdote, while I was doing the 5 steps, I thought step 5 was not working so I removed rapidly the USB key in the process of the Zero-OS being loaded, and thanks to the stateless OS (from what I understand), the removal of the USB key during the process did not stop the booting to be done properly! That would never have happened if I was installing Windows or Linux as I understand. I guess it was there long enough to connect with the blockchain and then complete the installation online.

Powerful lightweight Zero-OS!

Thanks again for this great post and the overall forum. I read it for days before jumping into the installation and it all worked well. I get +/- the same kind of Zero-OS screen as @wasiek with 1% CPU usage and 1% Memory usage (the CPU sometimes oscillates shortly between 0 and 2%).

Let’s see, as @scott proposed, how many tokens the node has farmed at the beginning of next month!

If not now, then when? Let’s build a new internet together. :slight_smile:
Thanks.

2 Likes
#29

PXL_20210626_204144729

I was able to follow the guide, but I am stuck on the above screen. It stayed like that six hours then I treat the computer and it’s showing the same screen. Any thoughts

#30

Hi Scott,
I 've managed to get my DIY 3node up and running but I think there is something wrong with my setup.
My node has 2 SATA SSDs 240GB each and 1 SATA HD 1TB, but my 3dbot dashboard admin page shows that I have only 223GB total space
Also my node has only 8GB RAM but the dashboard shows that I have 16GB Total
I suppose Volumes in status fo the Zero-OS does not represent my total Disks does it? because it shows 0 volumes as explorer page also shows.
Also for some reason, it says I’m in ITALY but my node is in GREECE.
How can I correct these?
Thanks!
Screenshot 2021-06-29 at 14.29.19

#31

Just realized that this never posted when I originally wrote it… hope it’s still relevant

Yep, indeed you are part of the network already :slightly_smiling_face:

One thing to understand about the Grid is that workloads are deployed by developers or IT admins to specific nodes, based on their own requirements. That may include geographic location, node specs, and the availability of multiple nodes in one farm. Whether or not your node would be chosen is just a matter of waiting and seeing.

The good news is that you’ll farm tokens either way. Personally, I’ve taken it upon myself to see that my node gets utilized, by deploying workloads that are interesting, useful, or even generate some profit.

Your node’s specs are just fine, although adding some RAM would increase the number of tokens you will farm. If you want to see some examples of other nodes, including mine, check out the farming setup thread.

1 Like
#32

Hey @StormLord, nice work getting your node set up!

This is a common confusion :upside_down_face: That dashboard shows the specs of the node or computer your 3Bot is running on, rather than your farm. You can go to the farm management to see what resources your node is making available to the grid, or check it on the Grid Explorer.

#33

Glad to hear of your success @Mik!

We’d love to have a post about your node over in this thread: Let’s share our farming setup

To clarify about the USB stick, it’s only needed for Zero OS to do it’s initial bootstrap and download the core operating system. However, I recommend you leave it connected for any updates or reboots that happen in the future. There’s actually not a blockchain involved in this step: the OS is downloaded from centralized TF servers at this point, as far as I know. Decentralizing these parts of the process is definitely an important step for the network, in my opinion, so I hope we’ll see some kind of system to replicate Zos across the Grid in order to create extra resilience.

Indeed, we are building it, and the time is now :smiley:

1 Like
#34

My best guess is that there’s a firmware issue with your network adapter that makes it incompatible with Zos (separate drivers than the bootloader that gets you to this point). You could try another NIC if you have one, and/or head to the Zos Telegram group to ask for support: https://t.me/zero_os_tech

#35

Quick update: Long story short, I wasn’t sure if the SSD was properly set to having only zeroes and I realized that the Windows OS was still on the SSD. I had trouble with this line of code:

A : for i in /dev/sda; do parted -s $i mklabel msdos; dd if=/dev/zero of=$i bs=1M ; done

At first, as I said earlier, I simply did a reset on the Windows OS. Zero-0s seemed OK with 1% CPU usage and 1% memory usage but it seemed stuck at those numbers. (All the rest was zeroes.) When I rebooted the PC I could see that the Windows OS was still present on the SSD. So I dug online and found some nice lines that I will share in hope that it might help anyone at some point! (Sorry for the long post!)

To see if there were no more partitions, filesystems and labels, I used these throughout troubleshooting:

sudo fdisk -l
sudo fdisk -lf
sudo parted -l
sudo parted /dev/sda 'print’
lsblk --f
lsblk --raw

To read and (over)write zeroes (0x00) everywhere on the SSD, I used this:

B : sudo badblocks -svw -b 512 -t 0x00 /dev/sda

where 512 is the block size (without -b BLOCKSIZE, it will simply go slower).
0x00 represents the zero byte. Warning: line B is destructive. It erases the disk.

https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Badblocks for more info on that.

I had read that this previous line (B) was great for pre-deployment. Since the line (A) did not work on my end, that’s what I used.

Then to double check if the SSD was indeed only composed of zeroes, I used:

cmp /dev/sda /dev/zero

where sda is the SSD in question and /dev/zero is a typical file with only 0x00 (zeroes). This line compares the two and confirm if it’s only zeroes.

To confirm there was only zeroes, the result should be:
cmp: EOF on /dev/sda

I also used that command:
sudo pv /dev/sda | od | head

As another test to see if there was only zeroes on the SSD.

Then when all seemed ok (no label, no partition, no filesystem, all zeroes), I rebooted the computer and then put the Zero-0s usb key. Now it shows that the farm is up and running and I get 1-2% in the CPU usage and still 1% in the memory usage. I will share with you guys if anything else comes up and will be able to put updates with the monthly report from Threefold sent by email.

PS: I did use Ubuntu 20.04 linux distro in the Try Ubuntu mode to boot outside of the SSD.

Question: now I wonder about the other parameters in System Load on the Zero-0s screen. Containers and all the others except CPU usage and Memory usage are set to 0. Does it mean something’s wrong?

That’s it. I hope this might help anyone with his/her own troubleshooting. :slightly_smiling_face:

EDIT: there was a " - " missing in the line of code named B. ( B : sudo badblocks -svw -b 512 -t 0x00 /dev/sda)

How to clear disks for DIY 3Nodes?
#36

I tried to see what resources my node is sharing via Grid Explorer but I could not find anything useful more that it is UP and running. How can I find that the resources that my node has are correctly identified and shared on the network?.
Also the Grid Explorer is mention as my location in ITALY but my node is in GREECE, can that be changed somehow?
Screenshot 2021-06-30 at 13.06.43

#37

Can anyone point me on a place to watch where my farm is generating earnings? Is there anywhere to see how much TFT has been raised by the farm? Is the payout monthly? Any information appreciated thank you

#38

as I understand, there is no way to see earnings because they are calculated at the end of the month.
They tell that you will receive a mail with your status and earnings.
I’m also new to this, so at this month I don’t believe will be any kind of earnings as I understand that you must have 98-99% uptime on every month to earn tokens.

#39

I was able to get it to show but had to go to Packages first and then install Farm Management

#40

Go to Packages and install Farm Management

#41

That is exactly what I am seeing…Not Configured…I’m sure I forgot a step somewhere. Are we supposed to configure something in our router? Or do we need to manually add the farm under Farm Management? Please, any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys!PXL_20210701_051739858

#42

My issue was fixed by going back to the boot loader and downloading and image for the testnet vice the mainnet. I’m not sure if its worth going back to try and build another farmer node on the mainnet.

1 Like
#43

Thanks! I finally got it! I knew I messed up somewhere lol. So I needed to re-download the image but put the CORRECT farm id in because I actually put the workload id in (one of the three that is shown when clicking info in deployed 3Bots). I realized afterwards that I was supposed to first go to the grid.tf page where it shows the dashboard and all, then go to Farm Management, then get the Farm ID from there, then return to the bootstrap zeroOS page and enter that id in before downloading the image and burning it to the usb flash drive. After I did all that, when I booted up it still was showing “Not Configured” in the network section, so I took the advice from someone in the telegram group that said he had to enable ipv4 and ipv6 network stack in bios. Then booting back up and letting it do it’s thing, it got to the zeroOS window but it still showed “Not Configured” for a couple minutes…then it went away and finally started showing real info there. i can finally see it in the node explorer as well.

I wonder if I had waited a little longer on the first boot, would the “Not Configured” part go away and maybe I didn’t need to enable the ipv4 and ipv6 network stack in bios??? oh well, it’s working now so I’ll probably just leave it for the time being. maybe i’ll turn it off in a few days just to see if that was actually necessary or not.

1 Like
#44

Both the correct farm id and having network stack/boot enabled are necessary for zos to function properly.

#45

Is Packages->Farm Management only available for people who buy the 3Node. I created my own today and was wondering where i would access that? Thanks.

#46

The package is available to anyone, on the 3Bot interface. Right now there are some issues with hosted 3Bots, and we’re now recommending the gofarmer tool as a simpler option:

Setting up a farm with the gofarmer tool

#47

I have the farm running on a Dell server and it shows up on TFEXPLORER website no problem. Install actually went very smooth with the GoFarmer Tool. Thanks for making that part easy. I just don’t know if there is a different “farm management” panel that I can access or it that panel just for hosted 3Bots? Sorry for my confusing post.