Set up your machine as a coin miner and generate virtual currency

A Simple Guide to Running a Coin Miner for Virtual Currencies

There are many virtual currencies that can be mined using a CPU or GPU. If you have a server or PC that you want to utilize to generate passive income, here is a small guide I have prepared to simplify the process. I will show you how to set it up in different OS environments: Linux (CentOS and Ubuntu) and Windows 7, which should be similar for other versions based on the same technology.

My main focus will be mining Litecoin, which in 2013 was a stable currency and worth the effort if you only wanted to use your CPU resources. Litecoin can be considered the silver of the cryptocurrency world, while Bitcoin, similar to gold, has more value but requires far more resources to mine (GPUs in 2013, dedicated ASIC miners today).

Ubuntu setup

# Update the node and install required dependencies:

apt-get update -y
sudo apt-get install build-essential libcurl4-openssl-dev -y

# Download the source code and compile it:

cd /root
wget https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/cpuminer/pooler-cpuminer-2.3.2.tar.gz
tar xzf pooler-cpuminer-*.tar.gz
cd cpuminer-*
./configure CFLAGS="-O3"
make

# Move mine script to root and delete the rest:

mv minerd ..
cd ..
rm -f -r cpuminer-*
rm -f pooler-cpuminer-*.gz

There are two types of mining. The first is solo mining, where you manage your coins in a wallet created on your local machine and set your node to mine directly. The second is pool mining, which I prefer. In this method, a group of miners work together, and once a block is found, the rewards are distributed among participants based on the number of shares they contributed.

Assuming you have signed up with Ozcoin (a pool that has since closed), created a worker called omdes.11, and your password is 3232, then your command to start mining should look like this:

./minerd --url http://newlc.ozco.in:80 --userpass omdes.11:3232 --threads 1

To make the miner silent and run in the background, use the -q and -B parameters:

./minerd -B -q --url http://newlc.ozco.in:80 --userpass omdes.11:3232 --threads 1

A successful mining process should look like this:

CentOS setup

Update the node and install the required dependencies:

cd /root
yum update
yum -y groupinstall "Development Tools"
wget http://dl.fedoraproject.org/pub/epel/5/x86_64/epel-release-5-4.noarch.rpm
wget http://rpms.famillecollet.com/enterprise/remi-release-5.rpm
rpm -Uvh epel-release-5*.rpm
rpm -Uvh remi-release-5*.rpm 
yum -y install python-devel screen
yum --enablerepo=remi install libcurl-devel -y

# Download the source code and compile it:

cd /root
wget https://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/cpuminer/pooler-cpuminer-2.3.2.tar.gz
tar xzf pooler-cpuminer-*.tar.gz
cd cpuminer-*
./configure CFLAGS="-O3"
make
make -j

# Move mine script to root and delete the rest:

mv minerd ..
cd ..
rm -f -r cpuminer-*
rm -f pooler-cpuminer-*.gz
rm -f epel-release-5*.rpm
rm -f remi-release-5*.rpm

Then sign up with a mining pool and start minerd with the same commands as in the Ubuntu setup above.

Windows setup

Download the latest version (for example pooler-cpuminer-2.5.1-win64.zip) from here, then decompress the zip file.

Open cmd
# Enter the folder so for example if it is on your desktop command will be like this:

cd C:\Users\motco\Desktop\pooler-cpuminer-2.3.2-win64

# Start the mining by typing the following command:

minerd.exe --url http://newlc.ozco.in:80 --userpass omdes.11:3232 --threads 1

A successful mining process should look like this:

Note

Never put all or most of your crypto coins in one wallet. Here is what happened to me with the Coinomi wallet; I am sharing it so you don’t fall into the same situation and lose your investments.