Testnet Only Guide: How I Got My Daemon, Wallet, And Miner Running & Also Started Solo Stake Mining

NOTE: Dont use this guide for mainnet. It is only meant for testnet. Find mainnet guides here
My Guide: https://forum.decred.org/threads/pr...import-mining-guide-use-at-your-own-risk.472/
@anondran's Guide: https://forum.decred.org/threads/br...p-included-with-basic-commands-os-neutral.478

Here is a guide to get you from starting the daemon to mining. I am assuming that you already downloaded the testnet binaries & Latest miner that supports TLS on windows. To understand all the different passwords/passphrase used in this guide, please read this thread by @davecgh

After you have extracted the miner and binaries, open a command window/terminal and change directory to where you have unzipped testnet binaries and enter this command:

1. dcrd --testnet -u user -P pass
2. This will get daemon up and running & downloading the blockchain. It is recommended to change user & pass to something else.
3. Now open a new command window and goto same directory where you unzipped testnet binaries. Run the following command
4. dcrwallet --create
   • Command window will ask you to input a wallet passphrase. Enter a passphrase of your choice & Press enter. Note: While entering the passphrase, command window will show no activity but it is accepting your input.
   • Confirm your passphrase by typing it again & press enter
   • Now it will ask you for a passphrase for public data. Choose no as this is just testnet
   • It will now ask if you have existing wallet seed. As this is your first wallet, choose no.
   • This will create a wallet file save your seed in a safe place and type OK. After that enter this command
   • You can skip step 5-14 if you don't want to do PoW mining using your GPU.
5. dcrwallet -u walletuser -P walletpass --dcrdusername=[must be same as in step 1] --dcrdpassword=[must be same as in step1]
6. This will start the wallet & connect it to daemon so that wallet becomes upto date. Use user & pass from step 1 for dcrdusername & dcrdpassword. for -u & -P use a different username & password.
   
7. Now that wallet is running & connected to daemon, open a new command window & run
8. dcrctl --testnet -u [must be same as -u in step 5] -P [must be same as -P in step 5] --wallet getnewaddress
9. Copy the address shown, you will need it for mining.
10. Now goto command window running daemon that we started in step1 & press ctrl+c. This will stop the daemon. Restart the daemon with following command. (you can use the same command window)
11. dcrd --testnet -u user -P pass --miningaddr=[your address from step 9] (Make sure to use same password & username as in step 1)
    
12. Now that both wallet and daemon are running & synced, its time to mine.
13. Unzip cgminer. You will find start_local.bat file in the unzipped folder. Open it using a text editor & change -u & -p to your username & password used with daemon. Save it.
14. Run start_local.bat and your gpus will start solo mining.

Here are steps to start Solo Stake Mining.

1. If you also followed the mining portion of the guide, just close your wallet by pressing ctrl+c, otherwise After step 4 enter following command to start the wallet. You can use the same command window.
2. dcrwallet --noclienttls --noservertls -u walletuser -P walletpass --dcrdusername=[must be same as in step 1] --dcrdpassword=[must be same as in step1] --balancetomaintain [no of coins you don't want to stake] --ticketmaxprice [maximum price you want to pay for 1 ticket]
   
3. Now you need to unlock your wallet for staking. For this open a new command window and enter following command
4. dcrctl --notls --testnet -u walletuser -P walletpass --wallet walletpassphrase [same as in step 4 during wallet creation] 0
5. This will unlock your wallet until you close it or lock it manually, remember to lock it when you don't want to stake.

Enjoy! Post any correction i might need to make here or anyway to improve this guide. I am trying to remain OS neutral so i haven't included any steps on how to open command window or edit batch files. Please do post how to do it on your specific OS.

Regards

Sam

Spanish version (Thanks to @davecgh): https://forum.decred.org/threads/guía-como-armar-el-software-para-minar-testnet.360
French version (Thanks to @Bill007): https://forum.decred.org/threads/gu...-portefeuille-et-miner-pendant-le-testnet.374
====================================================
Update:
Changed all flags/switches to Unix style as suggested by @davecgh here .
Changed command in step 8 from "getaddressesbyaccount default" to "getnewaddress"
Clarified which username & password need to be same
Changed command formatting as suggested by @davecgh here
Updated guide to include wallet creation steps.
Updated to include Solo Stake Mining steps.
Included link to description of passwords/passphrases by @davecgh
Removed flags that disabled TLS as new version of cgminer supports it on all OSes.

 

Specific miner for nividia is yet not available but this will work, I have nvidia and it worked. for cgminer

For windows: https://github.com/decred/cgminer/releases/download/v0.0/cgminer-decred-w32_27012016.zip
For linux: https://github.com/decred/cgminer/r...gminer-decred-linux-x86_64-20160127-v3.tar.gz (although i am not sure)

changing directory depends on which OS you have.

Yes paste that command but change [user] & [pass] with what you want to use as your username & password.

 

ok then you can just do this. Goto the directory where you unzipped the testnet binaries (get one which says windows) using Windows Explorer. Now hold "Shift" key and right-click to bring up context menu, choose "Open command window here". That will do it.

 

OK here
https://github.com/decred/dcrd/releases/download/v0.0/windows-386-20160127-02.zip

 

Anywhere you like.

 

You can paste it or type it, whatever you like. Don't forget to replace [user] & [pass] with username and password of your choice. I hope you are not trolling

 

Ok done, thanks for the tip. I hope someone gets things running via this. That will make sure i didn't mess something up.

 

It does not show up in the command window when you type, but it is getting accepted, just type and press enter. Also remember your passphrase as it will be needed if you want to test sending your funds to others and staking.