MultiMiner is a graphical application for crypto-coin mining on Windows, OS X and Linux. MultiMiner simplifies switching individual devices (GPUs, ASICs, FPGAs) between crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin and Litecoin.
MultiMiner uses the underlying mining engine (bfgminer) to detect available mining devices and then presents a user interface for selecting the coins you'd like to mine.
MultiMiner also offers several views, allowing you to display as much or as little information as you like.
For new users, MultiMiner includes a Getting Started wizard that walks you through selecting an engine, a coin, a pool, and configuring MobileMiner.
MultiMiner will automatically download and install the latest version of bfgminer, making it simple for the new user to get started.
You can then use the Configure Coins dialog to setup each coin that you would like to mine along with their pools, including support for load balancing.
MultiMiner supports automatically mining the most profitable coins based on a set of configurable strategies. Profitability information is updated regularly from CoinChoose.com.
MultiMiner also supports features such as relaunching crashed miners, starting with Windows, minimizing to the notification area, and mining on startup.
You can also use the interface provided by MultiMiner to adjust advanced settings such as API white-listing, disabling GPU mining, and automatically adjusting mining intensity based on the computer's idle time.
Finally, MultiMiner supports MobileMiner, an open API with mobile apps for remotely monitoring and controlling your rigs.
By entering your MobileMiner email address and application key in the Configure Settings dialog, you will be able to remotely monitor and control your rigs without having to open any firewalls or forward any ports.
You can download installers and zip files for Windows, OS X, Linux and Mono on the GitHub Releases page.
Depending on your OS and the mining devices you plan on using you will need one or more of the following drivers / kernel extensions installed:
- Download and run the installer (.exe) file at the above link and follow instructions
The installer runs without needing admin rights and does not install to Program Files so as not to be intrusive. However, if you prefer you can use the zip file:
- Download and extract the .zip file at the GitHub Releases page
- Launch MultiMiner.Win.exe to get started
- Install Xquartz available here
- Install the latest version of Mono
- Download and extract the .app.zip file at the GitHub Releases page
- Launch MultiMiner.app to get started
MultiMiner will automatically download redistributable binaries of bfgminer from the xgminer-osx project.
-
Install the latest version of Mono
sudo apt-get install mono-complete -
Install your chosen mining engine
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:unit3/bfgminer sudo apt-get update sudo apt-get install bfgminer -
Download and extract the .zip file at the GitHub Releases page
-
Run MultiMiner.Win.exe using mono:
mono MultiMiner.Win.exe
-
Download and extract the zip file at the GitHub Releases page
-
Install bfgminer. For OS X, you can find packages and for doing so here and instructions for using them here.
-
Install X11. Under OS X you should install Xquartz available here.
-
Install the latest version of Mono.
-
Run MultiMiner.Win.exe using mono:
mono MultiMiner.Win.exe
- How do I restart the setup wizard? How do I delete all my MultiMiner settings and start over?
- Reset settings by deleting the contents of %appdata%\MultiMiner (type that into the address bar in Windows Explorer). Be sure to quit MultiMiner before you delete the contents. Then, restart MultiMiner.
- Should I modify my GPU settings (overclock, undervolt, etc) with a utility like MSI Afterburner, or via config flags in MultiMiner?
- Utilities like MSI Afterburner are recommended. Relying on bfgminer (via the config flags in MultiMiner) to do the clocking and fan speed does work, but if the bfgminer crashes it leaves things over/under-clocked/volted. GPU utilities seems to be more reliable.
- I found a question and answer in the Support thread below (or through gosh darned trial and error) that I wish had been here in the FAQ - how do I save the next visitor all the trouble I went through?
- Simple! Make a pull request to add to the FAQ, or email your Q and A to cooper dot marcus at gmail dot com (Qs without As will be ignored) and he'll add it to the FAQ for you.
The official forum thread for MultiMiner can be found here.
The source code is structured in such a way that it should be fairly easy to use and re-use for other projects:
- MultiMiner.Xgminer is an assembly for controlling the bfgminer executable - e.g. launching and enumerating devices
- MultiMiner.Xgminer.Api assists in communicating with the underlying miner via the RPC API
- MultiMiner.Coinchoose.Api assists in consuming the cypto-currency information available at CoinChoose.com
- MultiMiner.MobileMiner.Api facilitates communicating with the MobileMiner REST API
- MultiMiner.Engine is an assembly that can be used to interact with all functionality found in MultiMiner, but without a UI - useful for creating front-ends for other OS's
- MultiMiner.Win is the Windows Forms application
This simple example shows how to use MultiMiner.Xgminer.dll and MultiMiner.Xgminer.Api.dll to install bfgminer, iterate through available mining devices, and launch the miner.
Afterwards the bfgminer RPC API is used to output the miner hashrate for a minute before the mining process is stopped. You can try this code out yourself in the MultiMiner.Api.Example project.
//examples of using MultiMiner.Xgminer.dll and MultiMiner.Xgminer.Api.dll
//download and install the latest version of bfgminer
const string executablePath = @"D:\bfgminer\";
const string executableName = "bfgminer.exe";
Console.WriteLine("Downloading and installing {0} from {1} to the directory {2}",
executableName, Xgminer.Installer.GetMinerDownloadRoot(), executablePath);
//download and install bfgminer from the official website
Xgminer.Installer.InstallMiner(executablePath);
try
{
//create an instance of Miner with the downloaded executable
MinerConfiguration minerConfiguration = new MinerConfiguration()
{
ExecutablePath = Path.Combine(executablePath, executableName)
};
Miner miner = new Miner(minerConfiguration);
//use it to iterate through devices
List<Device> deviceList = miner.ListDevices();
Console.WriteLine("Using {0} to list available mining devices", executableName);
//output devices
foreach (Device device in deviceList)
Console.WriteLine("Device detected: {0}\t{1}\t{2}", device.Kind, device.Driver, device.Name);
//start mining if there are devices
if (deviceList.Count > 0)
{
Console.WriteLine("{0} device(s) detected, mining Bitcoin on Bitminter using all devices", deviceList.Count);
//setup a pool
MiningPool pool = new MiningPool()
{
Host = "mint.bitminter.com",
Port = 3333,
Username = "nwoolls_deepcore",
Password = "deepcore"
};
minerConfiguration.Pools.Add(pool);
//specify algorithm
minerConfiguration.Algorithm = CoinAlgorithm.SHA256;
//disable GPU mining
minerConfiguration.DisableGpu = true;
//specify device indexes to use
for (int i = 0; i < deviceList.Count; i++)
minerConfiguration.DeviceDescriptors.Add(deviceList[i]);
//enable RPC API
minerConfiguration.ApiListen = true;
minerConfiguration.ApiPort = 4028;
Console.WriteLine("Launching {0}", executableName);
//start mining
miner = new Miner(minerConfiguration);
System.Diagnostics.Process minerProcess = miner.Launch();
try
{
//get an API context
Xgminer.Api.ApiContext apiContext = new Xgminer.Api.ApiContext(minerConfiguration.ApiPort);
try
{
//mine for one minute, monitoring hashrate via the API
for (int i = 0; i < 6; i++)
{
Thread.Sleep(1000 * 10); //sleep 10s
//query the miner process via its RPC API for device information
List<Xgminer.Api.Responses.DeviceInformationResponse> deviceInformation = apiContext.GetDeviceInformation();
//output device information
foreach (Xgminer.Api.Responses.DeviceInformationResponse item in deviceInformation)
Console.WriteLine("Hasrate for device {0}: {1} current, {2} average", item.Index,
item.CurrentHashrate, item.AverageHashrate);
}
}
finally
{
Console.WriteLine("Quitting mining via the RPC API");
//stop mining, try the API first
apiContext.QuitMining();
}
}
finally
{
Console.WriteLine("Killing any remaining process");
//then kill the process
try
{
minerProcess.Kill();
minerProcess.WaitForExit();
minerProcess.Close();
}
catch (InvalidOperationException ex)
{
//already closed
}
}
}
else
{
Console.WriteLine("No devices capable of mining detected");
}
}
finally
{
Console.WriteLine("Cleaning up, deleting directory {0}", executablePath);
Directory.Delete(executablePath, true);
}
Console.WriteLine("Press any key to exit");
Console.ReadKey();To those who may be considering making donations: instead of BTC or LTC I'd very much welcome any sort of mining hardware. I'm not talking nasty rigs and I absolutely do not expect this. However, several bugs submitted by users have been due to hardware setups that I could not reproduce myself, such as FPGAs or having 10 devices in a single rig.
So if you are thinking of donating but also have some old FPGA that isn't doing much for you with the current Bitcoin difficulty, or some Erupters, or really anything at all that would help me test different hardware setups that would rock. It's way easier to fix issues when I can actually reproduce them myself so this is a very good way to give back.
Again this not expected at all. The best thing you can do is let me know the details of any errors you have so I can fix them for everyone.
Copyright (C) 2013 Nathanial Woolls
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
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