What is the ideal hardware configuration to become a B&C reputed signer?

[masterOfDisaster]

nud 2.1.1 (“version” : “v2.1.1-RC1-4-g6919854-dirty-beta”, on a RaPi3 with 1 GB RAM):

  PID USER      PR  NI    VIRT    RES    SHR S  %CPU %MEM     TIME+ COMMAND
  755 pi        20   0  654960 419784   3408 S  71.9 42.1   3891:16 nud

[zoro]

is it stable? why 71% cpu?

[masterOfDisaster]

Syncing the blockchain.
I’m trying the patches that improve the download speed.

[zoro]

NU’s ram is increasing over time. check it again in a week or so

[willy]

I question just crossed my mind:

Do B&C connected daemons have to run with an unlocked wallet or is the singing happening centralized in B&C?

[masterOfDisaster]

NU’s ram is increasing over time.

The RAM already increased heavily during the download. It started at approx. 300 MB.
The CPU load sometimes is even way higher than in the output above!

Do B&C connected daemons have to run with an unlocked wallet or is the singing happening centralized in B&C?

I’m not an expert, but my understanding is that signing happens on the B&C daemons with the signers’ private keys.
So yes, the wallets need to be unlocked.
But no, there’s no central element; all is distributed.

That’s why my top priority is: get a B&C daemon running on a RaPi and configure it to use remote daemons via RPC.
The RaPi can be hosted in a safe place.
The other blockchain daemons are not that important. They might run on a cheap barebone or a VPS, or…

[willy]

I’m not an expert, but my understanding is that signing happens on the B&C daemons with the signers’ private keys.

So the clients are basically only required for broadcasting purposes?

[masterOfDisaster]

At least that is my understanding…

[willy]

Alright…
I just canceled my banana pi order… I need to think again ^^

That one has a pretty cool CPU:

A turbo-charged, quad-core mini desktop: Gigabyte’s Brix Pro reviewed

http://www.cpubenchmark.net/cpu.php?cpu=Intel+Core+i7-4770R+%40+3.20GHz&id=2137

I’ll think about trying this. But like the article says, with great power comes great power consumption.

[masterOfDisaster]

Why do you think you need an Intel i7 CPU to keep some blockchains synced?
I’ll tell you how my test with Intel Atom (quad core) CPU ends. I think I’m finally going to order one…

[willy]

Why do you think you need an Intel i7 CPU to keep some blockchains synced?

I’ve used one for the test I made. Permanent load around 0.75 - 0.9.

That’s the power I’m looking for to have all in one machine.

If I only need to run bcex at home and the rest can stay on the web, I’ll buy a RPi 3 and have the rest on a VPS…

[jooize]

Am I underestimating the CPU requirements? Many of these alternatives seem excessive to me.

What about the risks with compromised wallet software? Does anyone have plans to separate the processes? (jails, vms, etc.) What damage can be done?

For myself, I’d prefer running as much as possible on VPS. I’m curious about the possibility of keeping the signing key on a server under my physical control. What will the coin wallets be used for? What kind of value will be in those wallets?

[willy]

What will the coin wallets be used for? What kind of value will be in those wallets?

That’s the big question here.

@JordanLee?

[masterOfDisaster]

Will there really be “value in the wallets” of e.g. the BTC daemon?
My understanding is that this daemon is only being used to broadcast mutisig tx.
The keys, that belong to that multisig address, don’t have to be in the wallet, right?

The only system that needs to store private keys is the BCE wallet.
That’s why I’d like to run that in a RaPi (or whatever is required) at home - to avoid security risks created by VPS or servers hosted elsewhere.

My understanding might be flawed…

Does anyone have plans to separate the processes?

Sure. I’m starting with separating BCE from the rest:

I’m still not 100% sure whether it’s clever or not to split the signing environment from the rest, but I have in mind that it makes it easier to apply hardening to the signing machine.

This setup could use “blockchain machines” on VPS or other devices.You can easily create dedicated VPS per blockchain (one for BTC, one for LTC, etc.).There’s so many options, if you split the BCE stuff from the rest…

[Dhume]

Seems like most people are leaning towards a physical server instead of a VPS?

Might be a noob question but why would you need an SSD for storage wouldnt a normal HD be more then fast enough?

[zoro]

Personally, i can’t work on any computer without an SSD anymore

[Dhume]

Me neither, over all the computers I’ve had ranging from commodore 64 to Pentium’s, dual core, quad core’s etcetc biggest and most noticeable upgrade difference was my current desktop which has an SSD in it. After a few years it’s still quick on its feet and boots in like a minute. Such a dream

But do we need that kind of speed for running multiple wallets at the same time? Especially on a dedicated machine that does nothing else besides running those wallets and tor?

[masterOfDisaster]

Might be a noob question but why would you need an SSD for storage wouldnt a normal HD be more then fast enough?

Of course it would! Do you doubt a standard HDD is fast enough to write what a network interface can receive? Oh, btw. there’s the internet access as additional bottleneck

But do we need that kind of speed for running multiple wallets at the same time?

No, absolutely not. Reasoning above.
I’ve not tested it, but I’d bet decent amounts of money on it.
Wait, I’m going to puchase an Intel Atom 3150 system with a HDD to store the blockchains on it. I have a little doubt regarding the CPU power, but I’m sure the HDD is fast enough.

So basically I bet $40 on the sufficient speed of a standard HDD

[Dhume]

Yes that’s what I was thinking.

So we need enough HD space to store all the blockchains (say 300gb min) but a regular HD in terms of speed should suffice right?

We’d need decent speed from the CPU to handle all the wallets, Tor and OS (so maybe a 3ghz quadcore?)

And a good amount of RAM to handle so many running programs at the same time (so say 8gb ram minimum?)

Would such a setup suffice for signing say 10+ coins?

Also I’m very interested in the VPS vs Home server question. I have a very stable internet connection myself of 100Mbit+ which I think should suffice?

[masterOfDisaster]

Your setup sounds good and I’m confident it meets the requirements.
500 GB HDD is at approx. $40. That should do for some time.
8 GB should be enough. I ordered 8 GB, but can upgrade to 16 GB if necessary.
In fact the Atom N3150 CPU is the part I have the biggest doubt regarding my setup. We’ll see.
It if works I have a system running very silently (runs at only 10-15 Watts depending on load) for little money.
At $200 it’s worth a try. And if that fails, I can run a media centre on it