Zecnero

Mine the testnet with one command

By Zecnero ·

Release zecnero-testnet-v0.1.1 comes with an installer. One command downloads and checks the signed release, makes your mining key and starts mining, on Linux or on Windows through WSL.

Setting up the first release by hand meant three programs and their settings, pasted in the right order. A tester’s report showed where that went wrong: the node had no flag to pick the testnet, a settings section added a second time broke the node’s configuration, nothing showed what the bridge’s configuration should hold, and the miner needed two extra libraries. Release zecnero-testnet-v0.1.1 fixes each of those, and adds an installer that does the whole setup.

The command

On Linux, or in Ubuntu under WSL on Windows:

curl -fsSL https://downloads.zecnero.org/install-miner.sh | bash

In Windows PowerShell, opened as a normal user:

irm https://downloads.zecnero.org/install.ps1 | iex

It asks you to save your mining key, then starts mining.

What the installer does

  1. Checks the computer: a 64-bit Intel or AMD processor, glibc 2.34 or later (Ubuntu 22.04 or Debian 12 and newer), about 1 GB of free disk, and the memory for RandomX’s fast mode, about 2.5 GB. With less memory it still mines, in the slower light mode.
  2. Downloads the newest release, the one named in https://downloads.zecnero.org/LATEST. It checks the signature on the release’s SHA256SUMS against the Zecnero release key carried inside the installer, then checks every file against that list. If anything does not match, it installs nothing.
  3. Installs everything into ~/zecnero and adds the zecnero-miner command.
  4. Makes your mining key, shows it once, and waits until you type SAVED. A copy stays in ~/zecnero/MINING-KEY.txt, readable only by you.
  5. Writes the settings for the node, the bridge and the miner, starts the node, and starts the bridge and the miner once the node has caught up with the testnet. Mining runs in the background.

On native Linux it also offers huge pages, which make RandomX faster, and on computers with systemd it offers to start mining whenever the computer starts. Both are optional and off unless you say yes.

On Windows, the PowerShell command checks Windows, and if WSL or Ubuntu is missing it asks before installing them; Windows then asks for administrator permission, and the computer restarts. After the restart Ubuntu asks for a new username and password, and the setup opens again by itself and runs the Linux installer inside Ubuntu. The mining guide walks through each screen.

After the install

zecnero-miner status

That shows your mining address and whether the node, the bridge and the miner are running, with the node’s height and the hashrate. The other commands are zecnero-miner start, stop, logs, address, update and help. Closing the terminal does not stop mining; zecnero-miner stop does, and so does shutting the computer down. zecnero-miner update installs a newer release the same checked way and keeps your key and settings.

What changed in the programs

  • zecnerod --network testnet starts a testnet node. zecnerod generate --network testnet writes a testnet configuration with RPC on 127.0.0.1:18732, and zecnerod check-config checks a configuration without starting the node.
  • Started without a network, the node says in one line that Mainnet has not launched and how to join the testnet. Other startup problems, such as a broken configuration, a port in use or a folder it cannot write to, are also one line that says what to fix.
  • zecnero-bridge generate writes a configuration with every setting explained. The bridge learns the network from the node, and while the node syncs it waits and shows the progress instead of stopping.
  • zecnero-keygen --json prints a new key as JSON, for scripts.
  • The miner is built with its libraries inside, so there is nothing extra to install.
  • The node’s default testnet peers list the two seed nodes by IP address as well as by name.

None of these changes touch the consensus rules.

Check it yourself

Piping a script into a shell runs it without showing it to you. To read the installer first and check that it is the one we signed, download it with its signed checksum list:

curl -fsSLO https://downloads.zecnero.org/install-miner.sh
curl -fsSLO https://downloads.zecnero.org/INSTALLERS.SHA256SUMS
curl -fsSLO https://downloads.zecnero.org/INSTALLERS.SHA256SUMS.asc
curl -fsSLO https://zecnero.org/zecnero.asc
gpg --import zecnero.asc
gpg --verify INSTALLERS.SHA256SUMS.asc INSTALLERS.SHA256SUMS
sha256sum -c --ignore-missing INSTALLERS.SHA256SUMS

You need Good signature from the key with fingerprint FFFC 8AC0 2BF7 B4B4 50B4 3B1F 6532 09A3 44E7 5767, and OK for install-miner.sh. Then read it, and run it with bash install-miner.sh.

The release itself is in the testnet-v0.1.1 folder of the file host, with its own signed SHA256SUMS and a BUILD-INFO.txt that lists the commit each program was built from. The downloads and a manual setup, one program at a time, are in the mining guide.

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